Open a MIDI song in a MIDI sequencer. Several vendors offer affordable products that have all the basic functions needed to make and edit karaoke MIDI songs, including Cakewalk, PG Music, and Ableton for Mac users.
Enter non-musical information in MIDI track 1. MIDI sequencers have a selection of views or windows used for editing and arranging musical material. Use the track view for this. You may include the title, songwriter, copyright and artist's name.
Edit the melody in MIDI track 3. If your MIDI song does not already have a distinct melody track, you must create one. A separate melody track is needed before lyrics can be added.
Add lyrics to the melody notes using the notation or staff view. See your sequencer's user guide for instructions.
Select the entire melody track and cut the lyrics (to be pasted later into another track) using a data filter to select only lyrics, but not other MIDI events.
Paste the lyrics into MIDI track 2. Paste the data at the very beginning so MIDI tracks 2 and 3 are aligned.
Place a single drum track in MIDI track 4. If no drums are used, you may skip track 4. Also, you can customize further by changing drum sounds, for example substituting brushes for sticks, or changing the tone of the snares, tom-toms or bass drum.
Place bass part in track 5, or skip this track if no bass part is present. Further customization is possible by assigning a different bass if desired. You can make changes, including switching from fretted to non-fretted bass, or from acoustic to electric bass.
Place all other music, including keyboard, guitar or other instrumental accompaniment, in MIDI track 6 and higher. To customize, you can make changes, including switching the keyboard from grand piano to electric, the guitar sound from acoustic to jazz guitar, and so on.
Save your customized MIDI song with file extension .kar. This makes the file recognizable as a karaoke MIDI for karaoke players or editors in which you may wish to do further editing and enhancement.