in-sites by Karl Fortner

4-20-05

So its been awhile and computer hardware technology continues to move forward with karaoke software trailing very close behind taking advantage of the improvements. CAVSUSA a manufacturer of digital karaoke systems also sells mp3+g singles.  Offered are the CAVS versions, Chartbuster and Top Hits Monthly versions of a wide variety of songs and are fairly current as well.  You can pick up a CAVS version for $0.99 and the others for $1.99 each.  They also offer player software, their more recent replacement, the "PlayCDG SP", their own computer player and programs that will allow you to decode the mp3+g files for burning them to cd-r.   And on their site they tell you how to do it.    A "check it out" must if your thinking about going digital.

"Sax & Dottie Hoster", a software produced in the UK is an all together package that works very well.  It utilizes Winamp and the cdg plug-in to display the graphics on screen.  You can import the songs on your hard drive to a database which the program updates and allows you to search for the song you want by title, artist or label if that information is in your songs filename.  A singer list is built into this program as well as a splash screen that tells you who the next singer is.  Key up/down function can be set when the song is selected or manually afterwards if an adjustment is necessary.  The Winamp software also allows you to modify the pitch, tempo and speed of the music if you choose to do so.  There are also ten programmable buttons that allow you to play sound effects .wav or .mp3 files or selected .mp3 music of your choice.  Easily installed and programmed.  If you should decide to download this, make sure you download support programs and the latest version... as of 5-04-05 it would be v2.1.36 .  You have a few days to try it out before you would need to register it, current price is $42.00 ( not bad for the package ).  Be sure its on the computer you are going to use before you register the software...  getting it switched could be difficult.

"Micro Studio" by Micro Technologies Unlimited, a program that's been out there for awhile, has improved  and includes the ability to import your karaoke songs from your cdg disks to your computer in ".bin" format and from there you can convert them to mp3+g format for your computer.

MP3+G Toolz, a utility software that will come in handy for your mp3+g files is offered up by Active ASP Software . The list of features includes Zip to Bin, Audio+G to Bin, Bin to Zip, Audio+G to Zip, Zip to Audio+G, Bin to Audio+G.

  The above requires a Video card that supports Video-Out through an RCA or S-Video connector you can configure the display settings to extend the display to the tv-monitor and move your song graphics window to that display using Windows 2K or XP. ASUS video cards seem to do well with this.

10-19-2004

New items that I found recently, (1) "PlayCDG PE", uses the MP3+G format , allows you to import songs from your CD+Gs,  (2) Using a Video card that supports Video-Out through an RCA or S-Video connector you can configure the display settings to extend the display to the tv-monitor and move your song graphics window to that display using Windows 2K or XP. ASUS video cards seem to do well with this. (3) The VocoPro DVM-100G Digital Karaoke video mixer, lets you put the singer up on the big screen with the lyrics.

09-16-2003

Computer technology, peripherals and software programming have come a long way,  the computers are faster, the operating systems are much more sophisticated and the hardware is much more fine tuned than in days past.

These are the things I have experienced in using computers and software to take care of my karaoke needs.

It starts out with going to different night spots for karaoke, I find that they are not all using the same version of the songs that I like to sing.  This creates a problem for me as I like consistency that goes along with knowing what the song sounded like when I use to hear it on the radio, both in style and in the key that I can sing with.

Solved the style issue, started purchasing my own CD+Gs.  Then there was the key issue and a new problem that began to arise... too many cd+g's to carry around.  So the following is what I found and did about it.

I found several vendors of software that can import a song with graphics from a CD+G to your hard drive, some more flexible than others.  For creating a backup copy of my investment I found that Padus's  DiscJuggler works best for me, this program can copy Audio or CD+G  using one or two CD-RW drives ( I found Plextor to be the most reliable for this ).  It is also very useful in getting that last track off of a CD+G that was written with MediaCloq once utilized by Sound Choice.

For the volume of CD+G's issue, again there were several vendors to choose from, DiscJuggler was not the best for this function, there was too much disc swapping going on.  For this I found Micro Technologies Unlimited where I also found the other solutions to my needs.  MTU's MicroStudio program allows me to import the tracks onto the hard drive change the key of the song using their KeyRite program and create a custom CD+G of my favorites with all the details taken care of , again using the MicroStudio program.  MicroStudio has several features that I like, the import feature, where I select the track(s) enter the name of the song(s) and write them to the hard drive.  There is a tab I can select for the KeyRite software ( separate item ) and change the key to suit me in about 10 seconds to a new file.  The custom assembly tab allows me to build a list of songs I have already imported to the hard drive, arrange them in the order I prefer and write them to a new disc.  I keep the list down to 15 songs for reliability, more than 15 songs and the record head gets out on the edge of the CD where there could be increased wobble affect causing inaccuracies and graphic errors.  Another feature of Microstudio is the Play tab, this does not do key change on the fly nor can I pause it once it is started but it is a good tool for checking my imported files and key changed files.  KeyRite will do .wav or .cdg (Microstudio format) files which brings me to another piece of software that I really like.

There were songs that I could not find for Karaoke but I had the Artist released version of the song, so I recorded the song onto my hard drive.  I would recommend saving it in "mp3" (yes, dreaded MP3) to keep the file size down you can convert it to .wav format when you are ready to work with the file.

In my search for Karaoke ripping and creation software I found Dart Pro's "Karaoke Studio CD+G" and Micro Technologies "Karaoke  Pro" programs.  I found the Dart Pro software to be more suited to my needs, but I do recommend test driving them both.

Then all of a sudden I found myself hosting Karaoke for private parties, lot of CD+G's to be trucking around, along with the books, the players, amplifiers, speakers, stands and all the other peripherals that make a show happen.  Here too, there was more than one software package that I could use, Karaoke Monthly's "WinCDG Pro 2" and MTU's "Hoster" program were the top two that suited me, I went for the Hoster program which offers dual display capability and Database cataloging of your CD+G's as you import the songs using Microsoft Access 97 ( or Access 95 only) database files which allows you to make corrections in the database directly.  Also the key control is run-time and you can pause / resume the song at any point without issues.  The program is more expensive but offers a lot for a professional package.  I'm still looking at WinCDG Pro 2  for my laptop along with an external USB hard drive.

There are several vendors out there including MTU that offer full system packages for Hoster or a product similar to Hoster.

Keep in mind one thing when you are loading your CD+G's on the computer, once they are on there and that is what you are using, the original CD+G's cannot legally be used at the same time for a different event.  There are several web-sites that discuss this, KAPA (the Karaoke anti-pirate agency, a Sound Choice creation that has no legal authority) at  http://www.karaokeantipiracyagency.com/info-law.html and Micro Technologies Unlimited's site at  http://www.mtu.com/support/copyright-notes.htm.  

An added note,  KAPA ... a Sound Choice creation, by their determination, state that only the originals can legally be played and that any copy, be it cd, computer or the like are not allowed.   Again, there are many different views and interpretations on this, do your own reading and decide for yourself.

Questions, comments or suggestions to share?

write to:  info@westcoastkaraoke.com