karaoke-nn.ru ("Karaoke-NN") is a Nizhny Novgorod website of karaoke songs for computers in KAR format: its creators have been making the files themselves since 2001, and the database of finished karaoke tracks has passed 13,500 [1]. The site is listed in the NN Top100, a ranking of Nizhny Novgorod websites by traffic [5].

History

The site told its own history. Its authors, discovering that only one site on the internet, karaoke.ru, was regularly updating its karaoke, decided to make karaoke themselves; this is how the karaoke section on kerma.narod.ru came about. At first the files were made from ready-made material from a single Korean firm, and when that ran out, they switched to MIDI files taken mostly from midi.ru; by 2006 more than 3,000 karaoke files by various MIDI makers had been produced. In 2002 the site was steadily drawing about 250 hosts a day, and the management of the company where the authors worked, OAO Kerma, gave it paid hosting on its own kerma-nn.ru [2].

The earliest surviving copy of the site at its current address dates from April 21, 2006; the page was then titled "::KARAOKE AT KERMA::". It had sections for history, news, new additions, mirrors, friends' karaoke, search by performer, title, MIDI makers, and karaoke makers ("karmakers"), download rankings, a shop of paid files, a guestbook, and a forum. The database summary as of December 28, 2005 counted 4,126 karaoke tracks, of them 878 paid, 2,214 friends' karaoke tracks, 1,226 performers, 954 composers, 1,147 poets, 1,220 MIDI makers, and 82 karaoke makers; for enthusiasts there was a Q&A section and a selection of playback programs [2]. The karaoke-nn.ru domain was registered in December 2005 [3].

By January 2016 the site was called "KARAOKE-NN Karaoke songs for computers," and the database had passed 11,500 karaoke tracks. The menu now included the site's projects — "the Khvoynitsky Foundation" and a contest — as well as a section on MIDI and karaoke authors, a VIP login, file storage, and a blog [4].

Site contents

Today, besides the database itself, the site offers new additions by date, a catalog of performers, information about MIDI and karaoke authors with photographs, download rankings for yesterday, for the month, and for all time, a shop, and a blog on LiveJournal. The site's author lists what has been done: performers were checked and duplicates removed, the list of authors was verified, the database search was connected to Yandex's XML service, and some songs were given annotations, discographies, and links to the album with its year of release [1].

The home page also explains the format itself. Karaoke for computers in KAR format is an ordinary MIDI file in which the tracks for the solo melody and the lyrics are arranged in a particular way; in the site's format the melody is on the first channel of the first track, and the words are on the second track as Text meta-events, which differs from what foreign players expect. The lyrics are displayed by a special program, for example van'basco or GalaKar, and do not interfere with ordinary MIDI players. The site states outright that the repertoire depends on what MIDI material is available and that the copyright problem has not gone away [1].

Place in the city's internet

According to the NN Top100 rating as of October 6, 2026, karaoke-nn.ru ranks 90th: about 2,000 visitors over 31 days, according to the Top.Mail.Ru counter [5].

Home page by year

Sources

  1. karaoke-nn.ru — KARAOKE-NN: Karaoke Songs for Your Computer (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Web Archive: karaoke-nn.ru, snapshot of April 21, 2006 (archive)
  3. nic.ru — whois
  4. web.archive.org — Web Archive: karaoke-nn.ru, snapshot of January 9, 2016 (archive)
  5. Historical Encyclopedia of Nizhny Novgorod — NN Top100 Traffic Rating (archive)