The new rig is just about finished, but I could sure use a utility program that will slowly scroll lyrics in MS Word or Word Perfect. Something that is easy to use and has an adjustable scroll speed. Hopefully, one of the members can steer me in the right direction. I know that UD says memorize the lyrics, but UD is a lot younger than myself, and he will soon learn that the mind is the second thing to go. I don't recall what the first thing was.

Cheers,

Gary

I'm sure it would be quite easy to program a visual basic program to do this (I'll add to my list)

There is another way which I have seen and used.

Powerpoint, which is the presentation part of the Microsoft office group of products allows custom Animations.

I have been in a few of these weird company focus workshops where they sing a company song.

I help them set it up,

Firstly we typed each line or verse in as a text object. Spread it over a number of pages to make it readable on a laptop at about 24-30 point text.

Then assign each verse or line as a custom animation.
Then use the auto timing feature.
This allows you to generate your own timings for when the text scrolls in, or appears and when it scrolls out.

The best way is to play the song at your tempo, and ask someone else to click the mouse following the lyrics.

It took us about 10 mintues to generate a stand alone presentation for a 3 Verse - Chrorus song.

And it worked !!!!!!!

The file was less than 50K as I remember.

The Alternative would be to use a USB foot switch, to scroll the next verse/line of text as required.

Which is a better soloution if you often change tempo or repeat sections.

I know this sounds complicated, but it really is very very simple, the help files in Powerpoint show you how the custom animation feature works.

We used a projector so all the office morons could sing along, but it will work for a single user on a lap-top in the same way.

Gary, I am not sure about a program for scrolling lyrics in MS Word or Word Perfect but there is a program called Vanbasco's Karaoke Player that is excellent for scrolling Lyrics in a song. It is a stand alone player that has many neat features. For instance, it has a FULL screen mode and the Font's are very readable. All's you do is find a Karaoke Midi File on the Internet of the song you want to sing along with etc., download it and open the file in Vanbasco's Karaoke Player. Start the song and double click the Karaoke window to get the Full screen mode and there you have it. You can simply MUTE your Laptop built-in speakers so no sound comes out of the Laptop and start playing your Keyboard as you normally would with the song. Even neater is the Karaoke type Lyric function where each word of the song is emphasized so you know where your at in the lyrics of the song, eg., (the same scroll type as the PSR 2000's Lyric Function). The Vanbasco Player even has a Tempo adjust feature that scrolls the Lyrics faster or slower accordingly. So you simply set the Tempo of the Song to the Tempo you would be playing the Song with your Keyboard. It even has a Playlist feature so you could download all the Karaoke songs from the Internet that will be in your gigging repertoire, set the songs up in the order you want to play them and simply start the first song and Vanbasco will go to the next song automatically, and the next, and the next, etc., so song down time is minimized dramatically. Plus there are many more features in the Program. You can find it here: http://www.vanbasco.com

Note: You will have to make sure that the Karaoke file's Lyrics you download are "accurate" and correct, ie., (make sure the words in the karaoke song are the "actual" words to the song[s] you wish to sing along with), ie., NO MISTAKES in the lyrics. If there are incorrect lyrics in the Karaoke file try downloading a copy or version without any mistakes in the lyrics. Vanbasco's own web site has a Karaoke song search function that allows you to search for just Karaoke files in particular.

Best regards,
Mike

Go back to 5-27-03 thread "Anyone use laptop for leadsheets?" There is a mention of a freebie program called "scroll."
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/006521.html

The USB footswitch sounds like something that is usable--never thought about that as an option.

Mike: I'm familiar with the program and you're right it's a neat program, but I play live--not karaoke, but I'll download it and keep it in mind as another tool to add to the system for future use.

Thanks for your assistance,

Gary