Hello, friend!
This is a tutorial showing you how to make your own karaoke videos in Vegas Pro
In the same style as the ones I've been making over the past year
A few people have been asking how I do it, so I thought I'd make a quick tutorial outlining my technique
I'm using Vegas Pro 13 to demonstrate this, but I'm only using basic features
So you can probably do this in any older version or apply the same technique to another video editor as well
So to start with you need to start a new project in Vegas Pro.
You'll need a copy of the original song you want to make a karaoke video for
Along with an instrumental version of it, which matches it well.
For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll be using the end credits music from OK K.O.: It's Only Magic.
In my case the original vocal track is the audio at the end of an episode of the show
So I'm dropping the entire episode into my project
I'll just crop out the relevant section and drag it back to the start of the project
So, when you have your vocal track placed and ready on your project, you should add in your instrumental track.
Place it on a separate audio track and try to line them up as well as you can, using an obvious shared audio section.
Like the one I'm using here.
Play them together to make sure it doesn't sound too echoey.
That's how you'll be able to tell if they're out of time.
Mute the instrumental track, leaving the vocal track unmuted.
Now that your audio tracks are all lined up and ready, you should add some video tracks at the top of your timeline
Which will contain the actual karaoke lyrics and everything else we need.
I suggest you do the following (although It's not entirely necessary that you name them the same as mine)
'Up Next', 'Karaoke 1', 'Karaoke 2', 'Karaoke 3' and 'Countdown'.
I'll be referencing them with these names later, so it will help.
Next, select the 'project properties' button on the toolbar up here and change your project settings to the following
1920w*1080h, Progressive Scan, Square Pixels and 59.94 or 60 frames per second.
Everything else is probably fine in its default setting.
Finally, if your vocal track is paired with a background video (like mine is),
I suggest you right-click on it and go to 'Switches - Disable Resample'.
Now that the project is fully set up, we're going to start adding the karaoke lyrics
Begin by finding the starting point of the first line of the song
Now go to the 'Media Generators' section over here and select '(Legacy) Text'
Drag the default text onto your timeline at the point you just selected
Change its text to the first line of the song
Next we need to set up the properties of the text. In this example, I'm making an OK K.O. karaoke video
So I choose 'Chivo' as the font since it's used for OK K.O.'s credits.
I like to use a relevant front like that
But if there isn't one that comes to mind for whatever you're working on, just use something that looks clear and nice.
I should say that 'Arial' is a default font for exactly this reason.
Now go to the 'Placement tab and set the text placement to 'Centre', with a safe zone of 5%.
You should try and make sure your text falls within the borders shown here
If the text goes outside these borders, reduce the font size.
A lot of TVs have overscan on by default
So the area outside this zone will often be hidden if people watch your video
On a TV which hasn't been set up properly
Next, you should go to the 'Effects' tab and turn on 'Draw Outline'
I always use a small black outline with minimal feathering, as I show here.
If you like you can add a drop shadow, or change any of these effects to what you like, if you feel it looks better.
Now close the text properties and open the 'Event Pan/Crop' for the text like this:
Change the 'Stretch to Fill Frame' property to 'No'.
This will be helpful later on for the text highlighting.
Your first text element should now be ready.
Find the starting point for the next line of the song...
And squeeze the first line down so it ends there.
Now, for every remaining line of the song, copy and paste the first text element and replace the text.
Remember to resize the text to fit within the safe area, going on to two lines if necessary.
If the text is too small, people with small screens such as phone displays might not be able to see it.
If you do go on to two lines, as shown here, go to the properties and alter the leading option
So there's only a small gap between the two lines of text.
Okay, after you've placed every line of the lyrics down in plain, white text,
You'll need to copy all of your text events on the 'Karaoke 1' track,
And paste them to the same position in your 'Karaoke 2' track above it.
Now, click the 'Edit Generated Media' button on each text event and change their text colours in the properties.
You should use something bright, distinct from the white of the original text, and make sure the text is still legible.
I generally use green, unless I'm using different colours for different singers.
Then I'll try to choose a colour related to each singer, or at least a distinct colour for each.
After you've set all the colours, open the 'Event Pan/Crop' for the first line and click & drag the dotted box.
You want to move it so its right edge is touching the left edge of the first word you're editing.
So on my screen here the box has moved so it's to the left of the word "it's"
Now you want to find out where the first word, or the first major syllable of the first word ends,
And place your timeline cursor there
Drag the fade in from the top left of the karaoke highlight event to where your cursor is.
If you read the timer on the 'Fade In Offset' as you drag now,
That's the time you need for a keyframe on the Event Pan/Crop window, which you should still have open.
Mine says 0:29 here, so I go to 0:29 in the Pan/Crop's Position timeline like this...
And drag the dotted box to the end of the first word.
Make sure you don't accidentally select the 'Mask' timeline, which is just below the 'Position' one,
As that serves another purpose, which we're not using at the moment.
So, my first word was one syllable.
But the next one, 'only', is two, and the first syllable is held for longer.
We start by placing the cursor where 'only' starts...
Drag the fade-in to that cursor position and set a new pan/crop keyframe at the same position, 0:38 (in my case).
With the dotted box touching the start of the word 'only'.
Then for the next keyframe, we're going to find where the "-ly" syllable starts.
Again, we drag the fade-in to the same position, take a note of the fade-in time,
and make a keyframe on the pan/crop position timeline with the same time.
Carry on in the same manner, placing keyframes at the start of each word/syllable,
And the end of each word, until you finish the line.
Simple!
You just have to do the same for every line of the song, which can be quite time-consuming.
It's a bit different if one of your text elements takes up multiple lines of text
Like for the line I show here.
This is what the 'Karaoke 3' video track is for.
When you're setting up the highlight text for a line like this, find the point where the second line starts...
And copy & paste the highlight in Karaoke 2 up to Karaoke 3.
Now, go to the Pan/Crop for the line in Karaoke 2, and drag the box up,
So it's bottom edge is between the two lines of text. Then drag it left,
So it's right edge touches the left of the first word.
It's very helpful to use this button here and set it so you can only move the box
Horizontally or vertically, while you're doing one of those things.
Now you need to do something similar for the highlight in Karaoke 3.
First, move the box down, so its top edge is between the two lines of text.
Then move it left, so its right edge is touching the first word on the second line.
After all that is set up, you just need to add the keyframes in the same manner as I demonstrated before.
Find the starts and ends of words, get a time by dragging the fade-in, add the keyframe under pan/crop.
Once you've done this for every line, then you're work is almost complete.
There's just a few more important prompts to show the karaoke performer.
First of those prompts is a countdown.
Simply put, this tells the singer when exactly to start singing the line on-screen at the start of the song,
or after an instrumental interlude of more than a few seconds.
One way of adding a countdown is to have a rectangle that disappears like this:
This can be placed above or to the left of the line that's going to be sung next.
You can do this by going to 'Media Generators' and selecting 'Solid Colour'.
Choose a colour for this, matching the colour you're using for the current singer (which is green, in my case).
Position it on your timeline, so it has plenty of time to count down before the first line starts,
And so it ends exactly when the first line starts.
You should also stretch out the base text element (NOT the highlight), so it starts at the same time as the countdown event.
Give them both a second or so to fade in.
Now choose the track motion for the countdown track and scale & position the layer
So it's in an appropriate position relative to the karaoke text.
I put mine above like this:
Finally, drag the countdown's fade-out so that it means the end of the fade in, like this:
Go to the 'Transitions' selector, find 'Linear Wipe'.
Click & drag the default preset and drop it over the countdown's fade-out.
The countdown should now fade in with the text, and the bar should run out when the singing starts.
Another kind of countdown (and the one I use personally) is having a circle wipe itself out like a clock.
It works in a very similar way to the previous one, so I'm copying and pasting that event for this example.
Go into the pan/crop settings of the countdown event, click the 'Mask' down here,
And use the ellipse tool to draw a circle.
Try to centre it. You can move it after drawing it with the arrow keys, if necessary.
Then change the 'Feather Type' to 'In' and set it to 1%.
This should give you a big circle taking up most of the screen.
Again, go into the track motion for the countdown track and resize & position the track,
So the circle is in an acceptable place.
Like I'm doing here.
Finally make sure there's a one-second fade-in and the rest is set to fade out, like before.
Go into the transitions again and find 'Clock Wipe'.
I use 'Clockwise, Hard Edge', but you're free to experiment with what you think looks best.
Drag and drop this preset to the countdown's fade out as before, and you're done.
In either of these examples, you could replace the solid colour with an image,
And use the fade types I mentioned on that if you think it would look more appealing
The last thing to do is to add a line below the current karaoke text prompting what the next line is going to be.
This is helpful so the singer doesn't forget what's coming up.
Copy all the lines in Karaoke 1 except the first one, and paste them into the 'Up Next' track below.
Move each of them so they play at the same time as the line before them.
You should basically be dragging each one, one line to the left.
Once you've done this for all the lines, go into the track motion for your 'Up Next' track.
Change the width and height of this track so they're smaller than normal
My project is 1920*1080 so go for half of that, 960*540.
Then drag the track down a bit so it's text appears in the middle of the gap beneath the main karaoke text
If you're using bright, colourful footage in the background, like I am here,
You may want to alter it slightly, to make sure your text is fully visible,
And viewers don't get too distracted looking at it instead of the lyrics
For my videos, I go to the 'Event FX' for the background video and add two effects:
'Brightness and Contrast' and 'Gaussian Blur'.
For the blur, I used 0.03 for both settings,
And for the brightness, I use something between -0.5 and -0.3.
Depending on how bright the source video is.
If your karaoke track doesn't have an associated video, you could put something else in the background:
A related image, a stock video, or some automatically generated video from your video editor.
Here, I'm using the 'Billowed Background' media generator from Red Giant Universe.
When you're finished with the background video make sure your vocal track is now the one that's muted,
And the instrumental version is unmuted.
There's just one more thing that I should mention
That's duets, or songs with more than one singer.
For this, the process is identical besides a few things.
Here's one I made earlier:
First, each singer needs their own 'Karaoke', 'Countdown' and 'Up Next' tracks.
On this project, I've marked them as 'Top' and 'Bottom' respectively.
It might be possible to work on them as normal in the middle of the screen,
But at some point you'll need to move them.
For this, I use track motion.
All the karaoke tracks need the same size and position values, so the highlights still match the base text.
It's pretty simple, really.
You may have to use text that's a bit smaller to be able to fit two karaoke tracks on screen at once,
But that's about it.
If I've forgotten to mention anything,
You should be able to figure it out just fine if you've followed the rest of the tutorial
So that's it!
Follow these instructions, rinse and repeat.
It can be quite time-consuming for a longer song, but it's just simple, repetitive work, really.
Thanks for watching the video! I hope it's helpful for you.
Remember to press all the positive YouTube buttons. Share with your friends on...
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Leave me a nice comment.
Love you. Bye bye!
[Note: Phizzy died on the way back to his home planet]
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