Karaoke Files

This is important: it tells Karaoke Mugen where are the files to use and some other informations to generate its database.

Examples of metadata about your karaoke: the singer’s name, the songwriter’s one, the studio that made the video, the creation date or the language used to sing.

Here, we will see how to create or modify the file via a graphical user interface.

About what follows

Some of these rules only apply to the Karaokre Mugen database (the one used by kara.moe). You do not have to follow these to the letter for your own custom karaokes.

User interface access

  • The karaoke management user interface is in Karaoke Mugen. Run the software and on the home screen, click on the button SYSTEM PANEL (you can also access it via the go to > system panel menu)

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  • Once in the system tab, go to the Karaokes emnu then “New” to access the .kara.json creation form.

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Fill the karaoke information

You now see the form to create songs.

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The series, as all other elements, are tags. Tags have their own data files, that contain region variations and aliases.

You will have either checkboxes, all you have to do then is check the correct ones, or a field with autocomplete that will let you create tags if it doesn’t exist.

If you need to create tags, you can, after the karaoke creation, edit tags to add additional information.

Media file

This is your video source (or audio if it’s audio only). Click on this button and grab your file to add it. You can also drag & drop it directly.

Subtitle file

This is your time, your .ass. Click on the button and go grab it or drag & drop it.

Parent Karaokes

By selecting a parent song, KM will copy its information to the new one, allowing you to edit what changes between the parent and child. It also defines the song as a “child” of the parent. This means users will see that the parent has several chidren versions. For example it can be all versions of the Sakura Taisen opening, or a music video version of an opening.

By selecting a parent, users will see all their versions at once.

A song can have more than one parent.

Song titles

This is the song title for your karaoke. It can exist in several languages and have aliases. Aliases allow you to specify words not found in any other title to find your karaoke more easily in the search engine.

About aliases

It’s utterly useless to add words in aliases which are already in the different titles in other languages, this will only slow down the search engine.

A song should only have one title, but sometimes it can have several depending on the language, like in english and japanese for example.

About songs in japanese

Check out our typography section below on how to write a japanese title correctly

You must add the title in “Japanese” (in kana) and in “Japanese - Romaji” in romaji.

Default title language should be “Japanese - Romaji”

Versions

The Versions tags let you specify a song alteration, useful for covers, full versions, etc. When you are creating your karaoke, versions will be available with checkboxes (you can check many of them).

If you have to specify a version that isn’t in the list (for example a specific episode ending, or the ending sung by another one), you can specify it by adding it to the title, following this model <title> ~ <version> Vers..

For example “irony ~ Ep. 12 Vers.”, notice that the alternative version tag is present.

Do not forget to also add the correct version tags (when applicable) even if you use that manual version notation. Most of them will need the Alternative version tag, for example.

Do not use Full tag on live events. Besides that special cse, if you add a full version of a song, check the Full version tag only if this song already exists in the database as another version (like a short one, typical if you add a MV of an OP song).

Example :

  • ENG - Kiznaiver - OP - LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME et
  • ENG - Kiznaiver - MV - LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME [Version Complète]

Never add the Short version tag on a song unless there’s already a Full version existing in the database.

Series

If your song does not have a series, TV or Movie (it’s just a song), you can skip this part.

You can add here the series the song is from (or several series if you add an AMV).

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Song type

A non official / amateur video is an AMV. An official video is an MV.

If you add an MP3, pick the type that fits the closest the song. If for example it’s a song that you hear in the series (even as of an extract), put IN (Insert song), OP(Opening), ED (Ending) depending on the situation. If it’s a full version, pick one of those without forgetting to add ~ Full Vers..If the song’s not present in the series, you can either name it character song or image song, or even other. If it is from a single or an album, tag it as AUDIO.

If the song isn’t present in the series, you can use character song or image song, or even other. If it’s a song from a single or album, use simply Audio only.

Use other only as a last resort.

  • An Image Song is a song used in a promotionnal way and that is unused in the anime (for example the album “Negai ga Kanau Basho ~Vocal&Harmony version~” from CLANNAD is an image album and so contains image songs).

  • A Character Song is a song used in a promotionnal manner, unused in the anime, and that’s meant to give indepth information about the character it involves. It is not always sung by the voice actor. You can find Character Songs either in music albums dedicated only to them, or inside OSTs.

  • Do not confuse these with a Character Version, which is a cover of a song sung by another character than the original one, (example, the Hare Hare Yukai sung by Kyon). In this case you must not forget to add ~ *character's name* Vers. in the song title.

Song number

Song numbers are usually only for japanese anime songs.

We number only openings and endings, we do not number other song types.

  • If the series has only one opening / ending, this must be left empty (and not filled with “0”).
  • On anidb, if the first episode has an ending which is the same as the opening of the next episodes, DO ignore it, that is NOT an ending, it is first and foremost the opening of the series.

Language(s)

The langage in which your karaoke is sung. Like with everything else there is a list.

  • If the langage is unknown / made up, add “Unknown language”.
  • If your karaoke has no singing (and that your .ass is empty), add “No linguistic content”.
  • You can add up to two langages to a karaoke. If the song has more than two languages, please use “Multi-language”.
  • If your karaoke has as much or almost as many lines in “language 1” as in “language 2”, add both languages. However, if a langage takes over the other one, add only the first one.
  • If you have made an instrumental/off-vocals version (without any actual singing), choose the langage the lyrics use.

Broadcast year

The year when your video was broadcasted first (and not the year the series has started, do not put “1999” on the season 18 of One Piece).

Singer(s)

The performer(s) of your karaoke. Like for series, there is already a list, verify that your singer(s) are not present already so not to create a dupe.

Songwriter(s)

The author(s), composer(s), arranger(s) and lyricist(s) of your karaoke. As with series, a list is already here, verify that the composer(s)/arranger(s)/lyricists(s) are not already in there to avoid creating a dupe.

Creators(s)

The entity which created the video (often animation/game studios)

Music labels aren’t an useful information and should not be added.

This field is not mandatory so Music Videos can have an empty Creator field.

  • If you wrote a karaoke for an AMV, put the studio and the AMV maker.
  • For video games, put the entity which developped the game, not the one which sells/publishes it.

Karaoke authors

It’s you! Write down your name or username to add yourself to the “Karaoke Makers” list.

Tag(s)

  • Families : The kind of karaoke
    • For information and to avoid confusion, the tag “Anime” encompasses EVERYTHING animated no matter it’s a japanese anime, an american cartoon, a french production, etc. If your video isn’t made with any animation methods you have to tick “real-life”
  • Plateform(s) : For video games: on which platform(s) was the game released?
  • Genre(s) : What kind of creation is it?
  • Origin(s) : What’s the karaoke from?
  • Other(s) : Other tags. The “Long” tag is for karaokes lasting 5 minutes at least, usually.
  • Group(s) : This allows you to group karaokes so they are downloaded together at once with the download manager. Even if you don’t add anything, KM will automatically add a tag with the decade your karaoke’s from.
  • Warnings : This allows you to specify if the song can be problematic for viewers. For example because of Photo-Sensitivity Epilepsy (PSE), Spoilers, or if it’s a song for adults only.
  • Collection(s) : Which collection the karaoke belongs to? Depending on where it comes from, its language, its type, it’ll go into one collection but not another. Users might not see the song if it’s in a collection they haven’t enabled.

Karaoke file validation and creation

Once all the fields are filled in, you just have to click on the big blue button Save to generate your kara file.

If everything went well, you should see a small notification at the top of the app.

The kara file that you’ve just created was put into your primary karaokes folder, and video, lyrics from the .ass files have been renamed according to what you put in the form and placed respectively in the medias and lyrics folders (or the first of them if you have specified several ones in your config.yml file).

To find them among other files, sort them by modification date in your file explorer.

If you want to modify a karaoke file, go back to this page

Pro-tips

This section is specific to Karaoke Mugen’s karaoke base.

References

  • For animation :

  • For video games and visual novels :

    • vndb
    • Series-centric wikis
    • Wikipédia (check all languages)

  • For tokusatsu and live series:

    • Series-centric wikis
    • Wikipédia (check all languages)

  • And as a rule of thumb :

    • Google (!)

Typography

Some small details on how to fill some tags :

Song title

All symbols / special characters are supported. So do not hesitate to use the exact original song titles, with double dots, exclamation marks, hearts, stars, etc. ( ex : “Van!shment Th!s World” ; “Sparkle☆彡Star☆Twinkle Pretty Cure” ; “shØut”)

Singer(s) and Songwriter(s)

Use anidb! and indicate the name of the artist as it’s officially retranscribed. It would be tempting to write Être with a uppercase letter, but the official spelling is Black Raison d'être, followed by Chinatsu Akasaki, Azumi Asakura, Mâya Uchida, Sumire Uesaka (click on the artist’s name to check on the “official name” line).

There sometimes are music bands with several personalities (ex: the FictionJunction band by Yuki Kajiura) with singing characters (ex: most idol anime). In that case, You must as much information as you can find : Add the band’s name and singers but let’s keep things reasonable and do not add all 48 singers in AKB48.

If the singers are actually the series’ characters, add the voice actors’ names.

Creator(s)

If you can’t find the creator you wish to add, check out the “Studios / Creators” section from the references pages.

Rules

Covers

Several cases can happen here:

  • Cover by another artist of a known song: the Cover tag must be added.
  • Same song but in a different language: This is considered like a different song, so only the parental link is added (the original song is parent of this new song)
  • The Cover appears in another anime (for example, Chala Head Chala as a Lucky Star ending): the cover tag must be added.

AI-created songs

Allowed :

  • Songs using vocal synthetizers (like Vocaloid)

NOT allowed :

  • Songs using voice models from real people (like covers using a person’s voice.)

Unofficial off-vocal versions

Off-vocal versions where voices have been stripped off the song via AI or other methods are not allowed.

Series

When a song is linked to a series, you should add the series to the song (in the series field) even if it’s a remix or cover that isn’t in the series in question.

Japanese typography

When you add:

  • A song title
  • A person (as singer or songwriter)
  • A series

Take into account the following typography rules:

You may have noticed that some names have diacritics, for example the artist name Mâya Uchida.

There are standard writing rules for names here.

  • A name with a long “o” (ou) is written “ô”.
    • Sometimes some names are written “oh”, as “Yuusha-Oh Tanjou”. This is the hepburn english transliteration, which is “ou” in modified hepburn. “Oh” stands for “ô” here too.
  • A name with a double “o” (oo) stays as “oo”.
  • A name with a long “u” (uu) is written “û”.
  • Un nom avec a long “a” (aa) is written “â”.
  • A name with a long “e” (ee) is written “ê”.
  • A name with a long “i” (ii) stays “ii”.
  • A name with an apostrophe (Shin’ichi for example), keeps it.
  • Particles have to be transcribed as wa, wo, he and not ha, o, e (“te wo tsunaide DANCIN’ DANCIN’”, “kimi no na ha wa”).

Specific rules

If you add an entry that does not exist yet in the database, always write “First Name” then “Last Name”. to avoid mistakes, check anidb (https://anidb.net/) as it always gives the name as “Last Name” followed by “First Name”, so all you have to do is reverse the order. MyAnimeList does the same with its names. If in doubt, run the name in Kanji through Google Translate and look at the transcription, then reverse the order.

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