Reads the files as they are
KaraFun KFN with their words and timing, CD+G with their pictures, MP4 with the video, and audio on its own. No conversion before an evening.
RocketKaraoke — the player
Plays the karaoke files you already own
KFN, CD+G, MP4 and audio. The words on the room’s screen, the queue on the laptop, requests from the phones in the room. Nothing goes through the internet during a show.
One Mac build for Intel and Apple silicon. Windows 10 and 11. What changed in each version
Free to sing. The licence runs the room.
What it does
The program on a host’s laptop, and what the room sees of it.
Indexes the whole library once
Point it at a folder. The index has held 57,689 songs from one host’s disk and answers a search in about twenty milliseconds.
Puts the words on the room’s screen
A second display, or several of them, with the wipe following the singer. Video behind the words from your own folder, or from the file itself.
Key, tempo and the file’s own tracks
Key and tempo change while the song plays. A file that carries several audio tracks — the instrumental, a guide vocal — shows each of them with its own level.
A microphone in the mix
The microphone is folded into the output, with a gate, echo, reverb and a level meter, and a switch to silence it between songs.
The queue and the archive
Singers and their songs, two ways of taking turns, duets, and one step back for a press that was a mistake. The archive remembers who came, what they sang and in which key.
Requests from the phones in the room
A page on the venue’s wifi, reached by a QR code on the wall: a guest types a name, finds a song, asks. The request lands on the host’s list; the host takes it or not, and the phone is told.
Music between songs
A folder of your own fills the gaps between singers and goes quiet under a song.
Updates when you say so
The program looks for a new version when asked, downloads it in the background, and restarts only when you press the button.
What is free, and what the licence opens
The line is other people. Whatever is about one singer and one screen is free for good; whatever is about the rest of the room is the licence’s.
Free, for good
- KFN, CD+G, MP4 and audio
- The index and the search
- The words on one screen of the room
- Key, tempo, the file’s own tracks
- The microphone and its chain
- The video behind the words
- Updates
With the licence
- The queue: singers, turns, duets, undo
- The archive: regulars, repertoires, keys
- Several screens of the room
- Requests from phones, the QR code on the wall
- Music between songs
Three evenings before you decide
Everything the licence opens is open for the first three evenings. An evening begins when a singer is added, requests are opened or music between songs is chosen, and lasts eight hours. Opening the program or singing from the search is not an evening. What was sung stays in the archive.
The licence
Bought once, made out to a name. It covers every version released within a year of the purchase; after that the program keeps working as it is, and a renewal opens the versions that came later.
The licence is a small file. The program takes it in under Settings → Licence, checks it on the laptop, and asks nothing over the network.
Write for a licenceSend the name the licence is to be made out to; the file comes back by email. info@rocketkaraoke.com
Questions
Does it need the internet during a show?
No. The library, the words, the queue and the requests page run on the laptop; the requests page lives on the venue’s wifi. The internet is used only when you ask for a new version.
Which files does it play?
KaraFun KFN, CD+G with its audio, MP4, and plain audio — MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG. A file is read as it is on your disk; nothing is converted or uploaded.
Is the licence tied to a computer?
No. It is made out to a name and is a file; you keep it and put it into the program on the machine you run the evening from.
Start with what you have
Install it, point it at your folder, and the room is open for three evenings.
One Mac build for Intel and Apple silicon. Windows 10 and 11. What changed in each version