Play your MIDI and audio backing tracks from one laptop, and show the lyrics, chords and sections to everybody in the band, on any tablet or phone.
Free and open source (AGPL-3.0). No cloud, no account.
Plenty of players can play a MIDI file. Merik2 is built for the person who runs the whole band from one laptop.
Connect to an audio interface or straight to a digital mixer over USB. The backing band comes from Merik2, with the click on its own output for the drummer.
Lyrics and chords in a browser on any iPad, Android tablet or phone at merik.local. Nothing to install on the tablets.
Standard lyrics, karaoke (KAR) and Midisoft files, Yamaha XF chord data, markers and text events, with slash chords. Everything transposes with the music.
Intro, Verse 2, Chorus, Solo... read from the MIDI file and shown with a beat counter and a countdown before the next line.
Search the whole library from the tablet, play a song now or next, or jump in the setlist, without losing your place. See how much time is left in the set.
Play MIDI through a SoundFont or a hardware module, play recorded stems, or mix them per instrument family.
Open http://merik.local on any phone, tablet or laptop on the same network. The page is view-only by default, so nobody changes anything by accident.
After a long instrumental part, a yellow pill counts down the seconds to the next line, so the singer knows exactly when to come in.
Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo... read from the MIDI file and shown at the top right, with the current chord and the next ones along the bottom.
Add your key to the address and the same page becomes a remote: play, stop, next, search and setlist, plus the family mixer.
Type three letters and search the current setlist or all setlists. Play now starts the song at once; Play next plays it after the current song. The setlist then continues where it was.
See the whole setlist with the length of every song and the time left until the end. Jump now goes there at once, Jump next goes there after the current song.
Choose a SoundFont, drop in your files, press play.
Choose a General MIDI SoundFont, or send the MIDI to your own hardware module.
Drag in your MIDI files. Set transpose and volume per song. Merik2 remembers everything.
Go to merik.local on the band's tablets. Lyrics, chords and sections follow the music.
Turn MIDI files into audio stems with the internal SoundFont, a plug-in in your host, or a hardware module.
Merik2 groups the MIDI channels by instrument into eight families: drums, bass, guitars, keys, strings, winds, others and the click. Balance the band with eight controls, switch a family off for a live player, and send the click to its own output.
Everything you need when the backing tracks are more than a MIDI file.
Render many MIDI files to audio in one go, with Merik's own SoundFont, a plug-in in a host, or a hardware module. Also from the command line.
A sample-accurate click from the tempo and time signature of every song, on its own output for the drummer, or your own click file.
Reads lyrics and chords from the places MIDI files hide them: karaoke and Midisoft files, Yamaha XF, markers and text events. Slash chords included.
Intro, Verse and Chorus names from the MIDI markers, a beat counter, and a wait pill before the next line.
Replace only the families you want with recorded audio, such as real drums or a live vocal track, and keep the rest in MIDI.
A .merik is a single zip with stems, lyrics, chords and tempo. Easy to copy, and streamed from disk so songs start at once.
Point Merik at a folder of backing track stems. It checks them, converts WAV to lossless FLAC, and builds the file.
Transpose (MIDI songs) and volume in dB, remembered per song. Chords follow the transpose, drums stay put.
Level MIDI files that were mixed differently against the drum channel, so every song starts from a similar balance.
Send the band, every stem family, and the click to different outputs of your interface or digital mixer.
Measures the delay of a recorded sound source and stores it, so audio and MIDI stay together.
MIDI out to modules, and MIDI in from controllers such as the nanoKONTROL2, with LED feedback and a panic button.
Search all setlists, play now or next, and jump anywhere from the browser, without losing your place. Time left in the set at a glance.
All setlists and songs, with titles, transpose and volume, in a single file you can restore anywhere.
Free for macOS and Windows.
M1 and newer. macOS 14 or later.
Download .dmg macOS, IntelIntel Mac, macOS 15 or later.
Download .dmg WindowsWindows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Installer.
Download installermacOS opens Merik2 without extra steps. The Windows installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows may warn.
Merik2 plays MIDI through a General MIDI SoundFont (.sf2) and does not include one. Good free choices to start with are MatrixSF_v2.1.5.sf2 and MS_Basic.sf2, and any other General MIDI SoundFont works. Choose it under Settings, Soundfont. Check the licence of the one you download.
Open the DMG, drag Merik to Applications and start it. The app is signed and notarized by Apple. macOS may ask once to confirm that it was downloaded from the internet.
Run the installer. If SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway.
No "Run anyway"? Open Windows Security, App & browser control, Reputation-based protection settings and set Check apps and files to Warn.
Windows 11 with Smart App Control on blocks it completely: open Windows Security, App & browser control, Smart App Control settings and choose Off. On some versions it cannot be turned on again afterwards.
The Windows build is not code-signed yet (code signing is planned), so these warnings can appear.
Merik2 is free and made in spare time. If it helps your band or your gigs, a coffee keeps the development going.
Step-by-step help pages for everyday use, and technical details for advanced users.