Karoake has been popular in Asia (especially in Japan) for decades now, and it’s popularity spread through Europe and the US a few years ago. Now karaoke bars can be quite fun, that is, if people can tolerate off-key singing. If you’re into tone-deaf but loves singing your heart out, you might just want a karaoke in your own home. But a rig might just cost you some money. That’s where this freeware comes in real handy.

vanBasco’s Karaoke Player lets you turn your PC into a karaoke machine. It lets you play .KAR (Karaoke) files and your good old MIDI files to sing along to. It boasts a wide range of features:

• Fully customizable Karaoke window: change font, colors, number of lines (up to four), background image
• lyrics can be displayed in a resizable window or full-screen control window: ability to change tempo, volume, key of song
• real-time MIDI output window: shows notes, volumes, and instruments, can mute or play solo individual instruments
• piano view: displays notes on a big piano keyboard
• integration with Microsoft Internet Explorer (optional)
• easy-to-use graphical user-interface with support for skins and multiple languages
• complete install & uninstall support makes setup of software straightforward

Perhaps the best feature for me is the option to change a song’s key. Best for those off-key singers to change a song into a more “singable” range. Haha.

Anyway, as for any freeware, the best deal is that it’s free. It works with Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP.

Download vanBasco’s Karaoke Player here.

There’s a limited source of free karaoke files but FreeKaraoke.com can get you started singing those tunes!