Merik is a lightweight, rock-solid MIDI player for live use. Build setlists, mix MIDI channels per “family”, send lyrics to a tablet and control everything from your nanoKONTROL or keyboard.
Merik grew out of real-world use: fast song changes, instant overview of channels and no crashes like with a full DAW. Everything is focused on stability and minimizing mouse clicks during a show.
Build multiple setlists and instantly see how much time you fill. Just drop MIDI files in and change the order via drag & drop.
See at a glance which channels are active and which instrument “family” they belong to: drums, bass, guitars, keys, strings, winds, FX and more.
Plug in a Korg nanoKONTROL or other MIDI controller and use it for transport, family levels and more. Lyrics are sent to a built-in web viewer that runs on any tablet or laptop.
Merik is not a DAW but a specialized player. You can build your arrangements anywhere; Merik handles playback, mixing and switching during the show.
Drag your .mid or .kar files onto a setlist. Merik detects the length and shows the total play time of the list.
Play the song, watch the channel table and adjust volumes or families where needed. Families can be assigned per channel so your mix feels consistent across your whole show.
During the show you control almost everything from your controller: start/pause, next song, panic, family volumes… Your mouse can stay in the bag.
In setlist mode, Merik remembers exactly which list a song came from. When a song finishes, the next track in that list is pre-loaded and shown in the UI:
Merik follows the system theme. Dark mode is great on stage, light mode is handy while programming at home or in the studio.
http://<ip>:8765: a clean, scalable
lyrics view that supports both text and embedded lyric events, even
when the MIDI file contains tempo changes.
http://<ip>:8765/?token=secret123.
Adds Play, Pause, Stop, Next and family faders so you can control Merik
remotely from another tablet or laptop.
The important stuff is big and centered: current title, next song, elapsed/total time and your families. The rest is compact, so you can see where you are with a single glance.
The interface has been tested on a modern Mac and an older Windows laptop, so everything stays smooth even on modest hardware.
Version 0.5 focuses on live lyrics and more intelligent behaviour when you step through your setlist.
http://<ip>:8765
for a clean, scalable lyrics screen that supports both plain text and
embedded lyric events, even when the MIDI file changes tempo.
http://<ip>:8765/?token=secret123) to get extra
controls for Play/Pause, Stop, Next and all instrument families. Ideal
for remote control when your laptop is not directly in front of you,
or when several people want to control the show.
Merik is currently available as a standalone application for macOS and Windows. The project is under active development and reaching version 1.0 quickly feedback is very welcome. Version 0.5 is already tested in a live show and seems to be rock solid.
On macOS we recommend using KQ Sampei as the GM sound engine.
On Windows a great free option is VirtualMIDISynth with a GM
soundfont of your choice, for example MatrixSF or
Arachno. Any hardware module will also be great!
Install on MacOS
Unzip and move Merik.app to your Applications folder. If it doesn't start,
go to settings, Privacy & Security and scroll down to allow opening the app there.
Install on Windows
Download, unzip and run Merik.exe
Merik can be controlled from your MIDI controller and your computer keyboard. The most important mappings are:
| Control | Action | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Space | Play / Pause | Global shortcut – works even when another control has focus. |
| CC 41 | Next song | Remote-control command on the control MIDI input. |
| CC 42 | Stop | Stops playback of the current song. |
| CC 44 | Play / Pause | Toggles playback, same behaviour as the spacebar. |
| CC 45 | Panic (All Notes Off) | Sends an emergency all-notes-off to every channel. |
| Family CCs (CC 0-7) | Family volume faders | Each family (Drums, Bass, Guitars, Keys, Strings, Winds, FX, etc.) listens to its own CC number for group volume control. |
You can still control everything with the mouse, but using CCs and the spacebar keeps your hands on the keys or controller during a show.
Just the essentials. If you run into anything else, feel free to reach out and share your setup or suggestions.
Merik is optimized for compact controllers like the Korg nanoKONTROL, but in practice any controller that sends standard MIDI CC messages will work, as long as you route it to the control input.
Yes. All functions are also available from the interface. The spacebar acts as Play/Pause, and the buttons handle Stop, Next and Panic.
Merik starts a tiny web server on your local network.
On a tablet you simply open the URL
(for example http://<ip-address>:8765)
and you’ll see the lyric prompter follow the song.
Not really. Merik has been tested on a modern Mac and on an old Windows 10 i3 laptop. Keeping the app lean leaves plenty of headroom for your sound engine or external modules.
Merik is built out of love for music and engineering. If it helps you at rehearsals, in church, at weddings or in your cover band, you can keep development going with a small donation.
Find Merik useful? Consider buying a virtual coffee of €5.
Donations go directly into further development, bugfixes and testing on different systems.