1. When I try to play a MIDI file, I don't get any sound or I get an "MMSYSTEM00x ..." error message.
2. I experience hanging notes and/or the player occasionally crashes or freezes and I have to reboot my computer.
3. My microphone does not work in conjunction with the Karaoke player.
4. When I use Roland/Edirol Virtual Sound Canvas on Windows 2000 or XP as MIDI output device, I get no sound at all or the sound is distorted.
5. With some files, in the Karaoke Window, wrong characters are displayed.
6. The lyrics are not displayed in sync with the sound: the sound is delayed, i.e. the lyrics are highlighted prematurely.
7. With some Karaoke songs, some lyrics are missing or some syllables are repeated.
8. When I double-click a MIDI file, instead of vanBasco's Karaoke Player, Windows Media Player or QuickTime is launched and plays the file.
9. When I play a MIDI file, the player crashes in DIBENG.DLL

Problem: When I try to play a MIDI file, I don't get any sound or I get an "MMSYSTEM00x ..." error message.

Solution: There are a number of possible reasons for this. Try the following:

1. First, make sure the appropriate channel is enabled in the Windows mixer: double-click the speaker icon at the far right end of the task bar at the bottom of the screen to open the mixer. The appropriate channel is usually labeled "MIDI" or "synthesizer", or something similar - make sure that channel is not muted and set the volume to a reasonable level.
2. If that does not help, try changing the output device in the setup dialog of our player. To do that, click the note button in the top-left corner in the main program window and select "Setup... ". From the drop-down box labeled "Output Device", choose a different entry; try each one until you hear sound.
3. If none of this works, verify that your sound card can support MIDI by testing with a different player program. Media Player comes with Windows, so is handy. If Media Player fails to produce sound, then the MIDI subsystem of your sound card is not working. It might be able to support digital audio files such as .wav or .mp3, but not MIDI, since this is not used for digital audio.
4. If it turns out that no other program can play MIDI files either, there is an alternative solution that works so long as the digital audio subsystem of your sound card is set up properly - if you can play files such as .wav or .mp3, then you know that the digital audio subsystem works. You can install what is called a "MIDI software synthesizer". This is a software component that emulates a MIDI device (i.e. a piece of hardware) in software and uses the digital audio subsystem of your sound card to produce the actual sound. In fact, there are MIDI software synthesizers available that surpass their hardware counterparts in sound quality! The only drawback is that your machine should not be on the slow side - most MIDI software synthesizers require a PC running at 200 MHz or higher. For a list of software synthesizers available on the web, click here.

Problem: I experience hanging notes and/or the player occasionally crashes or freezes and I have to reboot my computer.

Solution: You should first check if the problems occur with all MIDI files, or just particular ones. For instance, does the problem occur with the sample files that are included with the player?
If so, try changing some of the settings in the setup dialog of vanBasco's Karaoke Player. (You get to the setup dialog by clicking the note button in the top-left corner in the main program window of vanBasco's Karaoke Player and choosing "Setup...".)
Please try modifying the settings in the following order (after each change you should test if the problem still exists):

1. Output Device
2. Reset Mode
3. Enable Running Status (try disabling this option)
4. Start from first note (try disabling this option)
5. Skip redundant data (try disabling this option)
6. SYSEX delay: set to 0

Problem: My microphone does not work in conjunction with the Karaoke player.

Solution: Please make sure that your microphone is plugged into the correct port of your computer/sound card and verify that the microphone is not muted in the Windows mixer. To open the Windows mixer, double-click the speaker icon at the far right end of the task bar at the bottom of the screen. You also need to verify that the microphone is enabled for recording. To do that, inside the Windows Mixer, go to the "Options" menu and select "Properties". Choose the "Recording" option button. Close the dialog window. The Windows mixer will now show the Recording controls. Tick the box "Select" below the slider labeled "Microphone". This should do it. If you still cannot get the microphone to work in conjunction with our player, please test the microphone in some other application to make sure it really does work.

See also our FAQ for instructions how to record your voice.

Problem: When I use Roland/Edirol Virtual Sound Canvas on Windows 2000 or XP as MIDI output device, I get no sound at all or the sound is distorted.

Solution: Please try the following: in Windows 2000/XP, go to

     "Control Panel"  >  "Sounds and Audio Devices"  >  "Audio" (Tab)

and set the "Sound Playback" and "MIDI Music Playback" both to "Roland VSC". Then, in vanBasco's Karaoke Player, go to the Setup dialog (hit Alt+S), and in drop-down menu labelled "Output Device", choose "MIDI Mapper".

Problem: With some files, in the Karaoke Window, wrong characters are displayed.

Solution: Though most Karaoke files use the Windows ANSI character set, there are some files that use ASCII. For English Karaoke lyrics, this usually makes no difference, but if the file contains foreign characters (e.g. á, ê, ö, ù, ç etc.), then the choice can be important. vanBasco's Karaoke Player has a built-in mechanism that tries to detect whether ANSI or ASCII was used during file creation. However, sometimes this detection fails, in which case you may encounter wrong characters in the Karaoke Window. If you experience this behavior, you can pre-select either ANSI or ASCII using the option "Character Set" in the Misc tab of the setup dialog (click the note button in the top-left corner in the main program window and choose "Setup..." to get to the setup dialog).

Problem: The lyrics are not displayed in sync with the sound: the sound is delayed, i.e. the lyrics are highlighted prematurely.

Solution: This is a common behavior when using a MIDI software synthesizer as MIDI output device. (The delay you experience is a consequence of the way a MIDI software synthesizer works and has nothing to do with vanBasco's Karaoke Player.)
You can compensate for this delay by entering a positive value in the field "Lyric Delay" (measured in milliseconds) in the group "Advanced Karaoke Options" in the setup dialog of vanBasco's Karaoke Player. Try a value of 300 or so first, and move up to higher values (500, 1000, 1500, ...) as required. (To get to the setup dialog of vanBasco's Karaoke Player, click the note button in the top-left corner in the main program window and choose "Setup..." from the menu that appears.)

Problem: With some Karaoke songs, some lyrics are missing or some syllables are repeated.

Solution: Try changing the option "Allow Lyrics From Multiple Tracks" in the Misc tab of the setup dialog (click the note button in the top-left corner in the main program window and choose "Setup..."). If you're missing lyrics, you should turn the option on; if you get repeat-syllable lyrics, you should turn this option off.

Problem: When I double-click a MIDI file, instead of vanBasco's Karaoke Player, Windows Media Player or QuickTime is launched and plays the file.

Solution: To ensure that vanBasco's Karaoke Player automatically plays all MIDI and Karaoke files, there are two things you need to do:

1. Inside Windows Media Player, under
   
           Tools -> Options -> File Types
   
   make sure that the "MIDI file (midi)" entry is disabled.
   In the case of QuickTime, open the "QuickTime" dialog in the Windows Control Panel. Under
   
           Browser Plug-in -> MIME Settings... -> Audio
   
   make sure that the entry "MIDI File" is disabled.
2. Open vanBasco's Karaoke Player's setup dialog by clicking the note symbol in the upper left corner of the main program window. Under
   
           Misc -> Associated filetypes
   
   click "Select All" and make sure that "Register filetypes on program startup" is enabled.

Problem: When I play a MIDI file, the player crashes in DIBENG.DLL

Solution: The problem has usually nothing to do with vanBasco's Karaoke player - the error you get is probably the sympton of a misconfigured display system. For details (including instructions how to fix the problem), check out the following links:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q235/6/18.asp
http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/troub-343.shtml