MicNookMicNook

FAQ

  • What can this app do?

    It turns your computer into a karaoke machine: import any song and AI separates the vocals from the music and adds word-by-word lyrics, so you can sing along to the backing track — and get a score at the end.

    • Guide vocal: turn the original singer up or down to learn a song you don’t know well
    • Key change: shift the key until it sits comfortably in your range
    • Scoring and analysis: every note is judged as you sing; afterwards, check the analysis report and leaderboards
    • Lyrics help: Japanese readings, romanization, sound-alike lyrics, translation
    • Sing together: pick songs by scanning a QR code with your phone, duet with two microphones, or sing with friends remotely in an online room

    Separation and scoring run on your computer — your songs aren’t uploaded anywhere.

  • Does it work on Android or iOS?

    MicNook is a desktop app that installs on a Windows computer; there’s no Android or iOS app right now. But phones and tablets can join in:

    • Scan the “Phone requests” QR code on the computer: a phone becomes a song remote, a tablet becomes a lyrics screen
    • It opens in the browser, so Android phones, iPhones and iPads all work — no app to install, no sign-in
    • Vocal separation and scoring still run on the computer, so your phone doesn’t slow down or drain its battery

    For details, see “How do I use the “Phone requests” QR code?”.

  • Does it work on Mac or Linux?

    Right now there’s only a Windows 10/11 (64-bit) version. A Mac version is on the way; there’s no Linux version yet.

    Get notified when the Mac version launches — we’ll email you, and you can sign up to be a tester too.

    • The Mac version supports Apple silicon (M1 or later) only; it won’t run on Intel-based Macs
    • Vocal separation, lyric syncing and scoring all run as AI on your computer, and they haven’t been tuned or tested on Linux
    • Phones and tablets on any system can scan the QR code to pick songs and see lyrics (see the previous question)
  • What can I do with friends?

    Sign in to add friends, see who’s online and who’s singing, and get people together to sing.

    Adding friends

    • Enter their friend code (like KARA-XXXX), or invite them by email
    • In an online room, you can also add people in the same room directly

    Once you’re friends

    • See their status: what they’re singing, browsing, in a room, or when they were last online
    • Send private messages
    • Invite friends to your room; when a friend is in a room, you can ask to join
    • Each song’s leaderboard has a “Friends” tab to see your friends’ scores
    • The home screen shows “Friends are singing”, and you can share playlists with friends

    Don’t want others to see what you’re singing? Turn it off in privacy settings.

  • How do I sing online with friends?

    Open an online room (beta), bring your friends in, and sing together, each from home.

    Getting started

    1. Sign in and open a room
    2. Send friends the invite code (like 7QK2-M9DX), or invite them straight from your friends list
    3. Friends enter the code to join — up to 8 people

    While singing

    • The host decides how many mics there are (1–8); whoever has a mic sings, and everyone hears them
    • The music plays on each person’s computer; voices are relayed live and never stored
    • Lyrics follow the singer, so everyone sees the same thing
    • Headphones are recommended so the mic doesn’t pick up the music
    • If someone picks a song you don’t have, the app offers to import it automatically

    Rooms can only play songs found through import sources; files on your computer aren’t available to others, so they can’t be sung together.

  • What if the online room plays a song I don’t have?

    When someone picks a song that isn’t on your computer, the app imports it for you automatically — and until it’s ready, you can still hear the singer.

    When you join a room

    • If the room has songs you don’t have, the app asks whether to “Import automatically”
    • Say yes and songs added to the queue later are imported too (you’re asked once each time you join)
    • Imported songs stay in your library, so you can sing them yourself later

    Before it’s ready

    • You’ll see how far along this computer is
    • Until then you hear the voice but no music; the music joins in automatically once it’s ready
    • You can take a mic once the song is ready

    When it can’t be imported

    • No matching source installed: the app reminds you to install it in “Settings → Import sources” and confirm the rights statement
    • Preparation failed on this computer: you’ll only hear the voice for that song; you can re-import it from your library later
    • Music files on your computer can’t be picked in a room, because nobody else has that file
  • Is there a limit on how many people can join an online room?

    Yes — a room holds up to 8 people, host included. Once it’s full, nobody else can get in, even with the invite code, until someone leaves.

    • Everyone needs to sign in; anyone with the invite code can join, friend or not
    • There are at most 8 mics too, and never more usable mics than people online
    • With a full room, headphones for everyone keep the mics from picking up the music
  • How are mics shared in an online room?

    A room starts with 2 mics. Whoever holds a mic sings and everyone hears them; people holding mics at the same time can sing together.

    Two ways to share

    • Free for all (default): click “🎤 Take a mic” to grab one, and “Drop the mic” when you’re done
    • Host hands out the mics: only the host can “Give mic” and “Take mic”
    • The host sets the “Number of mics” (1–8) and “Host hands out the mics” in room management (right-click the online room button)

    While singing

    • Each mic has its own color, and its pitch line uses the same color, so everyone sees the same thing
    • Mic holders hear the other mics by default; turn off “Hear other mics” if you’d rather not
    • You can take a mic once the song is ready on your computer
    • People without a mic just listen — their sound isn’t sent
  • What can the host of an online room do?

    Whoever opens the room is the host, marked “Host” next to their name. The host manages songs, people and rules — right-click the online room button to open room management.

    Songs

    • Pause, resume and skip any song, whoever is singing (members can only do this for their own song)
    • Remove any song from the queue (members can only remove songs they picked)

    People

    • When someone clicks “Ask to join”, choose “Let in” or “Decline”
    • Invite friends from your friend list
    • Use “Remove” on a member to ask them to leave

    Rules

    • “Members can see the invite code” and “Members can invite from their friend list” are on by default; turn them off so only the host can bring people in
    • “New code” replaces the invite code, and the old one stops working right away
    • Mics: set how many (1–8), or turn on “Host hands out the mics” and use “Give mic” / “Take mic” yourself

    Good to know

    • If the host clicks “Close room” or leaves, everyone leaves the room
    • If the host drops offline for a moment, nobody can pick songs until the host reconnects
  • How do I add a second microphone?

    One computer can take two microphones: two people sing at once, each gets their own score, and you see who wins at the end.

    What you need

    • Two microphones the computer recognizes separately — for example two USB mics, or a USB mic plus a Bluetooth mic with its own receiver
    • A Bluetooth headset’s call microphone isn’t recommended: while it’s on, music in the headset may drop to call quality

    Setting up

    1. Go to “Settings → Microphone” and choose the second one under “Microphone 2”
    2. Two identical models? Click “Find my microphone”, then talk into or tap a mic and see which meter moves
    3. Each mic has its own speaker volume; Microphone 2 latency compensation is here too

    While singing

    • On the singing screen, turn on “Mic 2” and choose who holds it next to the button: one of your singers, or “Guest”
    • Mic 2 is scored whenever it’s on, and it stays on for the next song
    • The song ends with a head-to-head screen showing who won and where
    • Guest scores aren’t saved; if they sang well, click “Save as new singer” to keep it
    • Once a duet’s parts are set, you can pick who sings which part during the intro, and each person is scored only on their own lines plus the lines sung together

    Good to know

    • Microphone 1 and Microphone 2 can’t be the same input
    • If the device chosen for Microphone 2 isn’t connected, the system default isn’t used instead — plug it in to turn it on
    • To hear yourself through the speakers, turn on “Mic monitor” on the singing screen
    • Duet scores sung by parts don’t count toward personal bests and aren’t uploaded to leaderboards
  • How does scoring work?

    Every song starts at 100 points, and points come off depending on how well each note is in tune; longer notes count for more.

    • Pitch only: singing an octave higher or lower still counts, so men can sing women’s songs (and vice versa) without losing points
    • Tolerance: anything within about half a semitone gets full marks; the further off, the more you lose
    • Instant judgements: Perfect, Nice, Good, Oops — shown as soon as you finish a note
    • Technique bonus: techniques like vibrato and slides can add a few extra points
    • Latency calibration: microphone delay is corrected automatically, so slow equipment doesn’t cost you points

    When a score counts

    • Practice mode isn’t scored
    • A record is kept only if you sing from the start, cover at least half the song, and have a singer selected
    • Scores uploaded to leaderboards are recalculated by the server to confirm them
    • Six areas such as pitch accuracy and stability are in the analysis report
  • Can I fix the lyrics?

    Yes. Click “⋯” on a song card for these options:

    • Find lyrics again: if the lyrics are for the wrong song or version, get another set
    • Edit or paste lyrics: fix typos or paste your own lyrics, and the app syncs them to the beat automatically; LRC works too. For Japanese, you can mark readings as 漢字(かな)
    • Restore previous lyrics: undo edits that went wrong
    • Edit kanji readings: correct how Japanese kanji are read
    • Set duet parts: choose who sings each line in a duet

    While singing, press A− / A+ to change the lyrics size.

  • How does background play work, and how do I control it?

    When nobody has picked a song on the home screen, the app plays random songs from your library in the background — the original recording, with the music video if there is one — like a karaoke room before anyone picks a song.

    When it plays

    • On the home screen, while the song queue is empty
    • On the singing screen of an online room while it waits for someone to pick a song
    • It stops as soon as a song is picked and the countdown begins; it picks up again when you’re back on the home screen
    • If your library has no songs yet, a karaoke-light animation plays instead

    What it plays

    • Random songs from your library — never the same song twice in a row, and not the song you just sang
    • The original recording (vocals plus music), with the video if there is one, or the cover image if not
    • When one song ends, the next starts automatically

    How to control it

    • The “Now showing” line at the top of the home screen shows the title and artist
    • “Next”: jump to another song right away
    • “Mute”: silences only background play; the app remembers it next time too. Click “Unmute” to turn it back on
    • Want to sing the song that’s playing? Just pick it in your library

    When it gets quieter on its own

    • It’s muted while microphone latency is being calibrated, then comes back
    • It dips briefly when a friend notification sound plays
    • When you mute this computer in an online room, background play is muted too
  • How do I use the “Phone requests” QR code?

    Scan the QR code on the computer with a phone or tablet to pick songs together — no app to install, no sign-in. A phone becomes a song remote; a tablet becomes a lyrics screen.

    How to open it

    • On the home screen, click “Phone requests” in the bottom-left corner and the QR code appears
    • While singing, there’s always a QR code on the right side of the singing screen too

    Scanned with a phone: song remote

    • Add songs, play one next, and rearrange the queue
    • Play, pause, skip, change the key, and turn the guide vocal on or off
    • Send cheer cards and sound effects to the singer

    Scanned with a tablet: lyrics screen

    • Big lyrics light up word by word with the computer’s playback and scroll smoothly between lines
    • Landscape: lyrics fill the screen; tap to bring up the song controls, which hide again after 5 seconds
    • Portrait: lyrics on top, song controls below
    • It also shows the score, the next song, and the key and guide status (you can turn these off)
    • If readings, romanization, sound-alikes or translations are on for the computer, the tablet shows them too

    Good to know

    • The QR code link works for 10 minutes (the computer renews it automatically); phones and tablets that already joined stay connected
    • Lyrics only show when you join by scanning the QR code; joining by typing the 6-digit code only lets you pick songs
    • Only your name, the songs you pick and playback status are sent — never audio. Lyrics are encrypted, so the server can’t read them

    Managing it

    Right-click the “Phone requests” button to open the management panel: remove people from the room, turn off cheer cards and sound effects, allow only songs that are already downloaded, or end the room.

  • How do I turn on readings and romanization for foreign songs?

    For Japanese, Korean and Cantonese songs, extra lines above and below the lyrics help you pronounce them, and they light up syllable by syllable as the song plays.

    What the extra lines are

    • Readings: hiragana above Japanese kanji (or katakana if you prefer)
    • Romanization: for Japanese and Korean songs; Korean follows how it’s actually sung, so 옷이 shows as o si
    • Jyutping: for Cantonese songs, with small tone numbers
    • Chinese sound-alikes: Chinese characters that sound like each syllable; only shown when the app is in Chinese
    • Translation: needs the translation model; see “How do lyric translations work?”

    Turning them on and off

    • Settings → Lyrics has a set of switches for Japanese, Korean and Cantonese songs
    • Readings and romanization are on by default
    • Text too big or small? Use the Lyrics A− / A+ buttons on the singing screen, or Settings → Lyrics → Lyrics size

    Which songs get them

    • It depends on the song’s language: only Japanese, Korean and Cantonese
    • The language is detected automatically; if it’s wrong, fix it under the song’s “⋯ → Edit song info”
    • Cantonese songs are hard to detect, so set the language to Cantonese yourself and Jyutping appears the next time you open the song

    Good to know

    • They use the Japanese and Cantonese reading dictionaries (about 48 MB), which the app downloads automatically; they appear once the download finishes
    • The tablet lyrics screen shows them too, following the computer’s settings
  • A kanji reading is wrong. How do I fix it?

    Readings come from a dictionary, so unusual readings (like 運命 sung as さだめ), names and rare words are sometimes wrong or missing. You can fix them, and the romanization updates with them.

    How

    • In the song’s “⋯”, choose “Edit kanji readings”
    • Click a kanji to select the group it belongs to; Shift-click another character on the same line to change the range
    • Type hiragana or katakana and press Enter
    • Clear the box and press Enter to go back to the automatic reading

    Will my fixes be overwritten?

    • Your readings always win. After you find lyrics again, paste lyrics or restore lyrics, they come back wherever the same line still exists
    • “Refresh readings” only recalculates the automatic ones
    • When pasting lyrics you can write 漢字(かな), for example 運命(さだめ), and that reading is used

    What you can edit

    Only Japanese kanji readings. Korean romanization, Jyutping, sound-alikes and translations are generated automatically and can’t be edited.

  • How do lyric translations work?

    Foreign-language songs can show each line translated into the app language. Translation runs on your computer — offline and free — but needs the translation model first.

    Installing

    • The first time you open a foreign-language song, the app asks whether to download it (about 5.4 GB)
    • You can also install or remove it under Settings → Lyrics → Translation model
    • Without it you still get readings and romanization, just no translation line
    • You can keep importing and singing while it downloads

    When songs get translated

    • After an import finishes, or the first time you open a song, one song at a time in the background, without interrupting your singing
    • The translation appears as soon as it’s ready; translated songs show it right away next time
    • Lyrics are translated into the app language, and songs already in that language are skipped (a Japanese song with the app in Japanese, for example)
    • Japanese and Korean songs are translated by default; Cantonese songs aren’t. Change this in Settings → Lyrics

    How long it takes

    • With a dedicated graphics card (7 GB of video memory or more): about ten seconds per song
    • Otherwise it runs on the CPU, and a song may take a few minutes

    Good to know

    • Translations are made by AI and may not be perfectly accurate
    • Switching the app language translates songs again into the new language
  • Auto-matched lyrics are out of sync?

    When you import a song, the app finds the lyrics automatically and listens to the vocals to match each word to when it’s sung. If it found the wrong version of the lyrics, or a part of the vocals is hard to hear, the timing can be off. Here’s what to do:

    The lyrics themselves are wrong (typos, a different version)

    • In the song’s “⋯”, choose “Find lyrics again” to sync with a different copy of the lyrics
    • Still wrong? Choose “Edit or paste lyrics and auto-sync” to fix typos directly, or replace everything with lyrics you found (one line per phrase)

    The lyrics are right but the timing is off

    • Paste LRC lyrics with timestamps (each line starts like [00:12.34]). Those times are used as-is, which is the most accurate
    • Without LRC, pasted lyrics are synced automatically. When it finishes it shows how many words it matched; the higher, the better

    It got worse

    Choose “Restore previous lyrics” to go back to the version before your change.

    Good to know

    Titles, artists and Japanese readings you edited yourself are kept when you find lyrics again.

  • Animations in the app aren’t moving (like the lights on the home screen)?

    Nothing is broken. When Windows “Animation effects” is off, MicNook keeps moving things still or simpler, so it stays comfortable for people who are sensitive to motion.

    What stays still

    • The KTV light show on the home screen and while waiting in an online room
    • The friends button alert (glows instead of shaking)
    • Cheer cards, room updates and rankings in online rooms
    • The scrolling now-playing title
    • Library page turns and side panels

    To see all the animations

    Windows 11
    SettingsAccessibilityVisual effectsAnimation effects: On
    Windows 10
    SettingsEase of AccessDisplayShow animations in Windows: On

    Go back to the app and it starts moving right away — no restart needed. If the app finds this setting off when it starts, it lets you know once; click the alert to open the setting.

  • Did Any KAREOKIE change its name?

    Yes. MicNook is the app formerly called Any KAREOKIE — only the name and website changed. The new site is micnook.com.

    • If it’s already installed, it updates itself as usual and switches to the new name. No need to download it again
    • Your songs, scores and account are all kept