Just like SingStar and it’s free!
Ultrastar is like Singstar but better! Why?—Because it’s a free karaoke program (for PC) and unlike Singstar (at least on the PS2 console anyway) you aren’t limited to the songs in the game. It is totally customisable; you can grab the music off your CD collection and find the .txt file containing the lyrics and the timing of the piece. Before you know it, you have “Singstar” on your computer, ready for that karaoke night you’ve been meaning to plan for so long.
A large collection of .txt files for the game can be downloaded online already, but if it’s not available, you can create the file for your favourite song. You simply find the midi (which is easily available online) and then use Ultrastar’s midi-to-txt converter (a help file is included when you download the game).
If the midi you’re looking for isn’t available you can compose the score yourself—which may sound like you need quite a substantial bit of musical knowledge to do it, but really it is not as hard as it may appear. When you open the .txt file there are three columns of values: the first value is start-time of the note, the second column is the duration of the note, and the third column is the tone/pitch (Just a tip: it’ll be handy to have a piano or a keyboard here and if we’re correct, middle C is assigned the number 0 and the higher the number, the higher the pitch, and vice versa). So, with this last method, all you need is a good ear and some patience, but it’s worth it when you have your favourite song as a karaoke piece, ready for some fun.
The only problem with the program is that it claims to support multi-player gameplay, but we’ve been having problems with it. It worked at the beginning, but it suddenly stopped working.
Still, we’ll provide some links for the program below. Hope you all have a blast with the game!
USEFUL LINKS:
Ultrastar
Has most of the features of Singstar it seems with the bonus of being able to input any song you like!
FaKK Projects
Has a large collection of Ultrastar txt files for some of the most popular songs, including some of the more recent ones.
Ultrastar Stuff
Another good place for Ultrastar txt files.
Yass
This is a better editing program to do the syncing and timing of your music. It also has a converter which converts the midis to .txt. It’s preferable to use this program to do the syncing instead of using Ultrastar’s editing program. The levels written in some .txt files are sometimes out of range (usually much too high) and causes Ultrastar to crash. So with Yass, you are able to bring it back to a normal level.
MixMeister BPM Analyzer
The BPM Analyzer works out the song’s beats per minute which is one of the pieces of information required in the .txt file’s header. This program is free, but you do have to provide a name and email to access the download.
Audacity
This is a free sound editor and recorder program. It is not necessary to have, but if you’re quite picky in finding where the vocals start (which is a necessary piece of information of the .txt file’s header), having an audio editor helps find the gap between when the song starts and when the vocal starts.