Dalida and How To Do Karaoke With MP3s in any Language

I love to sing, but I don’t have a great voice. So I prefer to sing-along instead. I try to do this with the doors closed so as not to disturb anyone ! All it takes is the lyrics, and some method to highlight the line currently being sung. You can search for the lyrics on Google, but it takes too long to do it every time.

Luckily MP3s have the perfect solution, you can include the song lyrics in the MP3 file itself, no messy text files. I’ve written a step by step tutorial on how to do this, but first here is a screenshot of the result so you know what you are getting into, and can decide if it will be worth the time investment. As it is high resolution, click the screenshot, and click (Full Size) for clarity.

French Lyrics

Arabic Lyrics

Download Winamp (MP3 player) here (version 5.52). I’m using the pro version, but the free one will do just as well.
Install Winamp. Start with the Full Install Type. I recommend unchecking winamp agent (which puts an icon next to your system clock), and media library (which just slows winamp down). To uncheck the Media Library option you must uncheck the (portable media players option beneath it). Click Next. Uncheck Winamp Remote, Winamp Toolbar, and 50 Free MP3 (more useless stuff), and proceed with the installation. On clicking finish, choose the (Winamp Modern) skin, and click next. Uncheck (Video files), and click next. Uncheck (usage statistics), and click Finish.
Once winamp opens up, close it (File, Exit)
Download Winlyrics plugin here (version 2.47)
Install Winlyrics: uncheck (Example song), and click next, then click install, uncheck (show readme), and click Finish.
Winamp reopens, and the winlyrics registration dialog appears: click Cancel.
The Winlyrics options dialog appears.
Within the dialog, choose the (Lyrics) section on the left, and under (Automatically Highlight), choose (by timestamps). This means that winlyrics will not guess which line is currently being sung based on how far along in the song you are but will only highlight lines if the lyrics for this song specifically includes timestamps for karaoke.
Within the dialog, choose the (source) section on the left, and uncheck (txt) and (net). This means that winlyrics won’t look for text files with lyrics, and won’t (automatically) connect to the internet to look for the lyrics there. Of course you can still use a manual option to look for lyrics on the internet at any point. Instead, winlyrics will only look for lyrics within the mp3 file itself.
Within the dialog, choose the (mp3) section which appears underneath the (source) section, and check the (don’t show choose dialog) option. This means that if winlyrics finds 2 sets of lyrics stored within the mp3, it will simply use the first one. The reason a lyrics can be stored twice is that there are 2 methods of storing lyrics. One called Lyrics3.2 which is good enough for English, and one called ID3V2 which should be used for Arabic and other languages (since it supports unicode).
Click Close on the options dialog, and rearrange the winamp windows according to your preference. By default the 3 windows will stick together like magnets as you move them.
To add your mp3 files to the winamp playlist. Click the (+Add) button at the bottom left corner of the playlist editor window, and choose (Add folder). Then select the folder containing your mp3 files. If you have several subfolders under your mp3 folder, that won’t be a problem since it will “recurse” through them.

You’re done with the installation part, and now winlyrics will automatically display lyrics embedded within your mp3 files as you play them. If they don’t contain lyrics, you can add it. Most Winlyrics options will be accessible by right-clicking the Winlyrics window.

To add lyrics manually: While the song you want to add lyrics to is playing, Right-click the winlyrics window, and under (Edit Lyrics), choose the (Run editing) option to enter (Run editing mode). Then paste the lyrics in (after finding it using Google or typing it on an external text editor). For Arabic I use Yamli Editor.
To instead try to find the lyrics within winlyrics’s database: Right-click the winlyrics window, and under (Load Lyrics), choose (From web database). Then choose the song title and artist. Remember that the more general the title the more results you will get, and that if you leave the artist empty, you may find the lyrics for the same song by other artists popular enought to be listed in the winlyrics database. Finally, click Search. If there are matching results, they will appear, and you can pick one and click ok, or click cancel if none of them are correct. If results are displayed, the first column on the left will specify if the lyrics contains timestamps. Timestamps will allow the line being sung to automatically be highlighted by winlyrics.

Once you have added the lyrics, you need to save it so that it will be embedded within the MP3 file and appear automatically the next time you play the song. You can save the lyrics as follows:

After loading the lyrics (either by pasting it, or loading it from the winlyrics database), right click the winlyrics window, and under the (Edit lyrics) option, select (Save As..), then click (Into mp3 file…).
The Add lyrics dialog appears. under (type) choose ID3V2, and choose the language (eg. English or Arabic), leave the (use Unicode) checkbox checked to support all languages). under the description box you can enter the language description in that language’s font (eg. in Arabic). Finally click on Write.
If you added the lyrics manually, you may still be in (Run editing mode). This can be turned off by right-clicking the winlyrics window, unchecking the (Run editing) option (if you don’t see (run editing) checked on the right click menu, it means you are already out of editing mode).

At this point the lyrics is embedded, and winlyrics will automatically display it on playing the song, but no timestamps are included unless you managed to find the song timestamped lyrics on the winlyrics database.

To add the timestamps yourself, while the song is playing, go into (run editing mode) as described above, and choose the (put timestamps by mouse) option to enable (timestamp by mouse mode). Now start the song over from the beginning, and at the end of each lyrics line, click the line below it, and winlyrics will automatically add a time stamp. When done, don’t forget to save the file, disable the (timestamp by mouse mode) by choosing the option again, and then also disable (run editing mode). Please note that unless you are editing, the timestamps will be hidden by default. Here is a screenshot with the timestamps visible. Note that it is possible to put multiple timestamps on the same line to specify that it will be sung multiple times. The alternative is to re-write lyrics that is repeated which will allow each line to only have one time-stamp.

Final Notes:

Unless you have less than a dozen mp3s, make sure they are tagged correctly for easy access to your collection (especially on portable players like Ipods). This means that besides the file name, there is internal information that identifies the artist, title, album, year, etc. On winamp, right click the song in the playlist editor, and click (View File Info) to change the tags. If you have a lot of mp3s, consider a dedicated software like Tag&rename. Any quality software that creates MP3 files from CDs will automatically look them up on an online database, and auto recognize and tag the mp3 files on creation. This is possible because original CDs all have an internal unique identifcation ID.
All MP3s aren’t created equal. The main factor for quality is the bitrate. It is not exactly compression, but the higher the bitrate the better the quality, and the larger the MP3. Bitrate usually ranges from 32K to 320K. 32K is good enough for lectures, speeches, and sometimes audio books, but never for music. Don’t bother getting an MP3 song if the bitrate is under 128K. The bitrate can be constant (CBR) or variable (VBR and ABR). Variable means that the encoding software used to create the MP3 from the original CD used different bitrates for different parts of the song as needed. The highest quality MP3 possible (and the largest) will have been encoded at 320K bitrate using CBR. Most MP3 players now have so much space, that the added file size makes no difference.
Winamp has 1000s of free “skins” to change its appearance to better suite your tastes. They are available for download here.
Winamp also has thousands of free visualisation presets. They are available for download here. Visualisation is like a light show synchronised to the beat of the song. These are my favorites, and can be installed by extracting the avs folder into (\Winamp\Plugins) replacing the old one (while winamp is shutdown). Then selecting (Advanced Visualisation Studio) from winamp preferences.
If you added the Album cover art when you tagged your mp3s, winamp has an (album art) window, that can display it, or even download it automatically from an online database. I prefer a plugin called Cover Tag (version 3.42) which replaces the built-in cover art window, and also displays the album, genre, and track number.
There are winamp plugins for voice cancellation to allow playing a song with the original singer’s voice diminished. This can be done much more effectively by using the built-in equalizer.

Be nice to your neighbours and keep the noise down!

To close, here is Ahsan Nas (Ahsan Nas) (أحسن ناس). I think the best song ever written about Egypt, ironically sung by Dalida (داليدا) who was born in Egypt to Italian parents, and speaks Arabic with a heavy (but delightful) accent, and has a lovely throaty voice. Tragically, after selling over 150 million albums, Dalida comitted suicide at age 54 saying “Life has become unbearable”. I guess money doesn’t buy happiness, or does it? I hope you are in a better place Dalida.

ادينا مندردش ورانا إيه ورانا إيه
بنحب وإنفرفش ورانا إيه ورانا إيه
نحب نتعرف ورانا إيه
نحب نتشرف ورانا إيه
و مين يا بلدينا و بلدكو هين؟
أحسن ناس (أحسن ناس)

سوهاج بلد إلمواليل سوهاج برج الزغاليل
سوهاج يا حبيبي يا حبيبي سوهاج دي عروسة النيل
سوهاج يا أبوي عالم شغال يرخصلو المال
رجالاه جد و حمل جبال يا بلدينا بلدينا
سوهاج بلد إلمواليل سوهاج برج الزغاليل

على كوبري بنها يا نور عيني منديلها حبيبي طرف عيني
بعد الفراق و الأشواق جمع الهوا بينه و بيني

على كوبري بنها يا نور عيني منديلها حبيبي طرف عيني
بعد الفراق و الأشواق جمع الهوا بينه و بيني
(على كوبري بنها) على كوبري بنها هااااااا
هااااااا هااااااا هااااااا

يا اسماعيلية يا اسماعيلية أحب أزورك في المغربيه
اركب فيروكه أنا و حبايبي و نغني غنوة علسمسميه
اه يا لالا لي حبيبي يا لالا لي يا روحي يا يا لالا لي

(ادينا مندردش) ورانا إيه ورانا إيه
(بنحب وإنفرفش) ورانا إيه ورانا إيه
نحب نتعرف ورانا إيه
نحب نتشرف ورانا إيه
و مين يا بلدينا و بلدكو هين؟
أحسن ناس (أحسن ناس)

علمهلة منين يسهنودي؟ علمهلة منين أرض جدودي
علمهلة منين اه يا شم و رن علمهلة منين يسهنودي؟

اسكندرية أحسن ناس علبحر ماشيه تتمختر
من سيدي بشر لأبو العباس
أيوه يا عالم علمنظر
أيوه يا عالم عالمينا و شوق بيتمرجح بينا
و تلتميت ألف سفينة علبحر ماشيه بتزمر

يا رأوزان حي الجدعان حي العرايس و العرسان
محروسه من الأنس و الجان يا حلوه يا أم التوب الأخضر

اسكندرية أحسن ناس علبحر ماشيه تتمختر
من سيدي بشر لأبو العباس
أيوه يا عالم علمنظر

ا لالا لالا من شبرا في مصر و ولادها الطعمين
زي القمر بي عيون سمرة لابسين عقود فل و ياسمين
و النيل بيضحك و يغني فاكرني و بيسأل عني
أروحلو ألقاه مستني و جنب منو أحسن ناس
أحسن ناس أحسن ناس أحسن ناس