IT’S PARTY TIME WITH DESKTOP KARAOKE

With Israel in such a deep funk now in the wake of its dispiriting elections, a lot of folks are missing all the fun they had two weeks ago during Purim.

You see, Purim is the time for parties and entertainment.   Every institution and office has something going on – whether it’s a staff dinner where an employee lampoons the boss (most likely a soon to be ex-employee, I should say) or community centers that put on productions, musical or theatrical, for their members.

In all those organizations, someone is tasked to come up with something fun/funny for the entertainment.   It’s got to fill an hour, not offend anyone, and be so entertaining no one falls asleep.  That’s not easy – maybe even contradictory!

A friend of mine so tasked figured out how to do it, easily and inexpensively – with karaoke.  I kid you not; this one is a winner,

Karaoke bars are big business, and people love to ham it up in front of the screen. You don’t have to come up with lame or insulting wisecracks to get people into a fun mood, and there are lots of party games you can come up with using the music and lyrics.

That’s what my friend wanted for his party:  people singing and dancing, having a grand old time – with him as the star for having come up with it.

The only problem – the budget! Until now, my friend would’ve had to go out and hire someone with an elaborate and expensive karaoke set-up to come out and run it – putting the idea of a karaoke party out of reach for him, as it is for so many others.

Until now, that is.  Thanks to KaraFun, you can run a first-rate karaoke party for next to nothing – which is just what my friend did.

Everyone knows, of course, how karaoke works. You take a standard, well-known hit, suppress the voice portion of the song and scroll the lyrics on a screen, allowing the performer to sing the song in their own voice to the music.

Usually, a dedicated karaoke machine, which costs many thousands of dollars, is employed to do this.

Well, KaraFun is like big league karaoke – this program has got it all. When you play files in karaoke (*.kar) format with the program, the music plays and the lyrics scroll down the screen, along with a suitable background.

You can use kar, wav, midi or MP3 files, and KaraFun can suppress the vocals that come with these files (assuming the words and music were recorded on different stereo tracks).

You can change the tempo of a song, as well as its pitch, echo and volume. There’s also microphone input, so that a participant’s voice comes out through the speakers along with the music – and you can even record a voice/music combination.

In addition, KaraFun lets you connect your PC’s video out connection to a TV, which will display the scrolling lyrics. So far, so good.

KaraFun comes with a companion program, KaraFun Editor, which lets you take music files and attach to them your own lyrics, creating brand new, personalized karaoke songs based on famous tunes – and making you the hit of any party.

Picture this: You get a gig running, say, a retirement party at an accounting firm. When you canvass for the job, you take down some personal details of the retiree, along with tidbits and running jokes at the firm, with some of the "victim’s" co-workers who want to wish their friend well supplying details.

At home, you make up a few ditties using well-known tunes (there are lots of sites to download free midi files suitable for use with KaraFun Editor, including –http://freekaraoke.com – and, for Jewish songs, http://www.jewz.net.

If you want rhymes, go to rhymezone.  Just type in a term and get back a long list of rhymes.

On the day of the party, you shlep your laptop computer and a TV monitor, down to the office to set up a karaoke sing-along for the honoree.

The free version has almost all the features of the pay versions ($59 for a personal license or $119 for a full license, required for using it professionally). For all Windows 98 and better systems.

How did my friend learn about KaraFun?  His neighbor’s teen-age son.  For his birthday party, he set up KaraFun and all the kids had the time of their lives.  Happy partying.

Dennis Turner