To play a song, first open it, and then press on the Play button of the toolbar, choose the Play entry of the Song menu, or just press the Space key.

Note that when you open a file using Drag & Drop, KMid will start playing it automatically (if you drop more than one file, they will be added to a collection and they will be played sequencially).

Once KMid is playing a song, you can move the time slider, by pressing with the middle mouse button mouse button, to go to a specified position.

If a song is playing too fast or too slow for you, you can press on the arrows at both sides of the tempo LCD and make it play faster or slower. To get back to the default tempo, just do a double click on the tempo LCD.

The Space key is used for two things, when music is playing, and you press the Space key, it will act as when you press on the pause button or the Pause entry of the Song menu, that is, it will pause music. If you press the Space key when no music is being played, KMid will play it.

There are two methods to store lyrics in a song, by using Text events or Lyrics events, some songs use the first, some the second, some use both of them, and some don't include lyrics :-)

KMid lets you choose which events to display, and even better, it has an option to automatically select the type of events that a song uses, so that you don't have to change the type manually . That way, if you activate the Automatic Text Chooser entry of the Settings menu, the karaoke text will be automatically selected, but you can still change them if you prefer to see the other type.

To select which type to see, you can use the appropiate entries in the Settings menu, or just press the 1 and 2 keys of your keyboard to see the Text events or Lyrics events respectively.

The Temporary Collection is a collection that is used to hold songs you want to play but that you don't want to add to any collection.

This collection is not saved on exit of the application, so keep it in mind when you add lots of songs to it.

Keep on reading this section for a better understanding of the Temporary Collection.

There are some different ways to add a song to a collection.

First of all in each method, you must have selected the collection you want to add songs to in the Collections Manager. Then you can press on the Add button to add a song, there will appear an open file dialog so that you can choose which song to add.

The other methods to add a song depend on the state of the AutoAdd to Collection option.

If AutoAdd to Collection is enabled, when you open a song (using File->Open... or Drag & Drop) it (they) will be added to the active collection without user intervention.

If AutoAdd to Collection is not enabled, when you open a song the Temporary Collection will be activated and cleared, and the opened songs will be added to it.

To delete a song from a collection, just open the Collection Manager, select the appropiate collection, and the song you wish to delete, and then click on the Remove button.

You can select the order in which songs will be played . When you select In order mode from the Play Order submenu of the Collections menu, songs will be played in the same order in which they were added to the collection.

When you select Shuffle mode, KMid will generate a random variable with a discrete uniform distribution to really play randomly the songs in the collection . It will give values to that random variable while generating the list in which order the songs will be played (you surely want to play random songs, but don't want to play twice the same song, and you want to play the last played song when you press on the Previous Song button, don't you ? :-) ).

The random list in which the collection will be played will be regenerated each time you add or remove a file in the active collection, and when you press on the Shuffle mode entry of the menu.

You can select a song to play in the Collection Manager, or by using the combo box over the karaoke text.

You can also change to the next song by using the Next Song entry of the Song menu, the Next Song button of the toolbar, or pressing the right arrow key.

To change to the previous song, use the Previous Song entry of the Song menu, the Previous Song button of the toolbar, or press the left arrow key of your keyboard.

To delete a collection, simply open the Collection Manager, select the collection you want to delete, and click on Delete. Easy, it isn't?

Please keep in mind that you cannot delete the Temporary Collection, but it doesn't matter as it is not saved when you quit KMid.

In short, if you don't have an external synth, no!

If you only have a sound card, midi maps are not needed because all the sound cards are GM compliant (this include AWE cards, GUS cards, FM devices and so on).

If you are playing music through an external synthesizer, and it is not GM compliant, you will need to make a midi map for your midi keyboard . Although you will perhaps be a whole afternoon doing your map file and trying different values for all the options, you will be fully rewarded when you finish it, because then you will find all the hidden possibilities of your keyboard. For example, I have a low-cost Yamaha PSS-790, which is not GM compatible, and doesn't has as many instruments as a GM synthesizer, but with KMid's midi mapper, it sounds even better than many soundcards (including AWE :-)), due to the sound quality found in external synths (even on non GM compliant ones).

There isn't any program to generate midi maps, so you will have to edit a file by hand (using your favourite text editor).

A Midi map is a text file that keeps all the needed translations there will be made when playing music.

It consist of four sections: PATCHMAP, KEYMAP, CHANNELMAP and OPTIONS.

Each section must appear only once, except the KEYMAP section that can appear as many times as needed, provided that each appearance use a different TextID (continue reading for details).

The general structure of a map file is:

DEFINE PATCHMAP
...
END

DEFINE KEYMAP "Name of Keymap"
...
END

DEFINE KEYMAP "Another Keymap"
...
END

DEFINE CHANNELMAP
...
END

OPTIONS
...
END

You can see that the DEFINE word is used to specify which section is going to be started (except for OPTIONS), and END is put at the end of each section.

You can put comments by starting the line with a # character.

Please, don't forget to send me your map file by email, so that future releases of KMid will include support for more non General Midi compliant keyboards.

(Name of GM Patch name)=(N) [AllKeysTo M]

Gunshot       =100 AllKeysTo 60

DEFINE KEYMAP "Name of Keymap"
C 0 =0
C#0 =1
D 0 =2
...
END

(N) = (M) [Keymap "Name"] [ForcePatch x]

OPTIONS
PitchBenderRatio = r
MapExpressionToVolumeEvents
END

To use a midi map, simply open the Midi Setup dialog by selecting the Midi Setup ... entry of the Settings menu.

Then click on Browse ..., select the map file within the open file dialog and enjoy the music ! :-)

This shows the tempo in which a song is played, that is, the velocity of the song. The higher this number is, the faster the song will play.

You can also change the tempo of the song, so if a song plays too fast for you to follow the lyrics, you can make it play slower. To change the tempo, you can use the arrows that appear at each sides of the LCD.

Once you have changed the tempo, you can get back the default one by doing a double click on the LCD.

These are some folks who have sent me midi files or a postcard, thanks to everyone! Hearing those songs and watching those postcards will keep me programming more and more on KMid.

KMid has been made by Antonio Larrosa Jiménez, in Málaga (Spain). I am a student of Mathematics at the University of Málaga, currently I'm doing the third course, so I don't have much free time for my hobbies, but I always try to get some :-) . My hobbies include : Programming, collecting midi files, playing music and proving theorems ;-).

If you want to know where to download midi/karaoke files, you have any question, a bug to report, an idea or a feature you'd like to see in KMid or just want to make me happy, feel free to send me an email to: <larrosa@kde.org> or <antlarr@arrakis.es>

or write to me by snail-mail at:

You will really make me happy if you send me a postcard from where you live, or a midi/karaoke file from a local music group of your country . Everyone who sends me a postcard or a midi file will have his/her name in the Hall of KMid's friends of this file (provided they don't oppose to this). Please contact me before sending me any midi files because I may have it already.

I'd like stress that KMid has been done completely on free time, without any monetary support from any company nor particular. So plese keep in mind when you use it, that the only think that keep me working on this is getting some feedback from its users (a postcard, or just an email).

I would like to thanks the following persons their help in developing KMid:

KMid is copyright Antonio Larrosa Jiménez, 1999-2001

Documentation is copyright Antonio Larrosa Jiménez 1999, 2001

This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.