i was thinking how difficult would it be to put together a karaoke setup using a pc to play karaoke files from the hard drive.
what program would be the best to use.
would it require a special sound card: etc ?
would the files be mp3+g or ( kmf )i think that is what they are called.
could an amplifier still be used with this with a mixing desk.
any suggestions would probably usefull to us all
please leave info here so we can all learn from each other.
:idea: :madhack:

CEEJAY is the guy who knows about this......email him.

Alan

Well i have backed up all my discs , and have now converted them all over to MP3+G.
I have been running my Karaoke Roadshow by using a Stand alone CUSTOM BUILT PC which i have now mastered ,and ironed out all the many problems with Hardware / software, and can say that now 12 / 14 months + down the line ,that i can play at least 50% more songs a night against the standard CDG disc system.

Do not get me wrong !,nothing at all wrong with using CDG discs, but ,i had so many damaged, nicked, etc, and thought , enough was enough!!.
Only one manufacturer that i know of sells a stand alone KARAOKE P C BASED SYSTEM ( CAVS) which comes with pre-loaded songs on the drive.

My system has taken me a long time to perfect, but i honestly believe that i have got it right now , after many nights of experimentation and testing.
So all i can say guys is "get with it", come into the Modern Age, and get building your systems !!!,
If you cannot do it , I WILL !!( This is not a sales pitch, but if the price is right !!!!!)
So when i gig, its not what song would you like sir!, more like what make of disc was that in , cos lets face it we all have our own favourite version /make of discs that certain songs are on.

I would also be interested in anyother KJs out there who have any other thoughts ,equipment ideas on the above subject, as Trading Stan said in his post
"COME ON SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE / IDEAS" this wether you or i like it is going to be the future of KARAOKE in years to come , and i for one want to be in at the start !!!!


With repect to all !!

CEEJAY!

CEEJAY is right, the future is going to be PC driven. I'm in the middle of building another 2 PC's now, both going to be Karaoke dedicated. I am
an old-fashioned sod though, I still like my Studiomaster Powerhouse 12-2 Mixing Desk and Wharfdale Pro cabs, so will still use them to give me the power ( 500w per channel ) I need to gig.

Alan

the best pc to buy for doing karaoke is the shuttle ones they are about a third the size of a normal pc and a lot easier to carry around with you

take a look here :

http://security.cclcomputers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Barebone_Systems_3.html

Just as an added few lines to my post above!.
I have been a DJ / KJ for over 30 years and seen many changes, some good some bad !.
But when it comes down to the equipment i use to power from the PC thats is the same trusty Mixer desk i have had for years!, so ,not all changes are harse, we all have our favourite gear we like !, Mine is my trusty 1,200 watt DYNAMIX 12 -4 MIXER DESK RUN INTO THE MATCHING SPEAKERS and i would put that up against any of the best gear around today !

CEEJAY

CJ just about to setup a karaoke show mainly to pub size audiences possibly to do a bit of disco work as well.

Have been reading with interest the use of a PC, I had been thinking of using a PC with my collection of mp3/g disc's thus saving the arduous task of converting them back to CDG format (many hours).

I have a decent PC and a laptop that I could dedicate to karaoke, I am reading that some of you guys are building PC's or are using PC's would this be a special PC build or could any decent PC be used - I am a little confused.

Obviously a mixer/amp would need to be linked to the PC, how would you do this please, and using a PC would it be possible to cue up the next karaoke song?

I apologise it I am asking so many leading question but using my spare PC would say me a few quid and I am interested in how it all works.

Any guidance would be most appreciated.

dodger

well the pc would have to be have a tv out feature geforce and many of the new cards have them now
and a good sound card so you get the best quality output thats it really oh and not a slow system either as it is having to uncompress the songs as they play

the lowest speed i have seen them play on is a duron 700 my bro has and it works great

oh and if you need the software then use winamp3 with all its pluggins to play them on... <<<< this is all freeware so it keeps your cost down


and thats it basically...

I use a simple twin stereo PHONO to 3.5 mm Stereo jack PLUG FROM THE PC ( Sound Card speaker output or AUX OUT) to the Mixer AUX / LINE input interface and it works fine !.
Daplaya is right ,the best Graphic card id the GEFORCE 4 MX 440 with TV out option.
This gives you NVIEW which is needed to duplicate the screen over onto a TV screen.


CEEJAY

I have been doing karaoke in clubs for some time.

I switched to a Pioneer 300 disc CD changer a couple of years ago. These CD changers have optical outputs (fiber optics), that when run through a CDG decoder (like a VocoPro) will play CDG's. Makes a great system for not having to handle your disks...

Well, lo and behold I use up the 300 disk capacity...I could figure out how to connect another changer, or move to a PC.

I am just completing putting together the neatest PC based system. I have a Toshiba Equium 8000S small footpint pc PIII 1.0 Gig 512MB Ram, 120 Gig HD (upgraded) This PC is smaller than a home DVD player. Less than 3" high.

I have the system mounted in a cabinet with a 1U (1 unit) Rack Mount LCD monitor with keyboard and track ball. This is a very compact industrial server style rack mount that folds up to 3" high in a drawer that you close for transport and security.

I use an external digital to analog video converter to get the image to the TV screens. This unit connects between the computer and the monitor and has a remote control to make adjustments. It lets you precisely adjust the TV image which I find is better than most of the TV out PC cards. You can adjust all aspects of the TV image including position, sharpness, brightness, contrast, from the remote.

I use the audio out from the sound card to go to my system amp and equalizer.

I could write more on this, but the last time the board booted me.

If you guys are interested...

hi there
thanks for the input on this topic as we all learn something every day
all your experiences i find intresting .
if anyone else has anything else to add please feel free to do so as i said we can all learn from each other.
many thanks for all your help if i find any other info on this i will post it here so we all benefit from this
thank you all

I thought I would add a little more about my pc based system.

I also added a video capture card with TV tuner internally into the computer. Since I have my system hooked up to 4 TV's, including a 72" big screen, this makes the system more versatile. I use the card to import music videos and play them during breaks and on off nights. I also have a HI FI VCR and DVD player hooked to this card. The TV tuner is hooked to satellite.

The sound system and TV's operate as a really great complete entertainment system. Run the TV tuner for sporting events. You can play movies on the VCR or DVD. You have music you can run rather than a jukebox...with video. Pretty much covers it all.

Originally I looked at a laptop to run the karaoke, but opted for a PC, because hard drive needs to be large, and the PC lets you add all of the other stuff I have without hanging it all on the outside.

I am adding one more thing...an external HD to back up the system and have available in case of a HD crash.

Hope this helps some of you thinking about going this route.

On the subject of external HARD DRIVES for everyones information i have come across a near perfect solution !!
I recently come across a EXTERNAL CADDY SYSTEM which i believe has many answers and also answers the problem of using a LAPTOP for "THE JOB" SO TO SPEAK !!.
A company called VIPOWER produce a series of caddies and leads which give and infinite variation of connectability ! To name a few USB, USB 2.0, FIREWIRE , PCMCIA, BUSCARD, ETC these all connect via a single 36 pin plug which is universlly fitted to ALL the caddies.
I am using a 120gb drive in a caddy and it is connected via USB 2.0 into a laptop, which inturn has another caddy fitted with a Plextor CD ROM and it will record discs ,play cdgs, just about anything !!, IT IS A BRILLIIANT UNIVERSAL SYSTEM, WHICH WORKS !!

I hope this has been useful to all that want to use laptops for the job.

CEEJAY

right this is a good topic innit !.....i'm currently trying to blag my mates ibm thinkpad laptop computer off him coz i borrowed it the other night and tried to play cdg on it and believe it or not the internal cd rom recognises cdg graphics discs.....its got a phono out socket on it for tv monitor purposes and a small headphone jack out from the soundcard......i whacked winamp 2 on it with the cdg plug in and dragged over a sunfly disc in mp3+g format and .... wahey it worked brilliantly, i couldnt believe it coz its only a p 266 proccessor (so he says) ...the only downer was it only had a small hard drive 4.2 gig i thinks...but i then dropped a clanger and told him what it did and now the wa**er wont sell it me.....grrrrrrr


before i opened my big gob his missus told me that he was thinkin of selling it for 200 quid,now he tells me he's keeping it.....aaaaaargh !

ibm thinkpad p 266 (old model possibly 1997 ish) 64mb ram ,video out, sound out, .......has any one got one ! prefferably the model with usb port on........it does work believe me ive seen it.....

laptop karaoke on the cheeeeeeap........ave it

I tested out the idea of a PC based karaoke system on a ThinkPad P133 that I bought in surplus a number of years back. It has a 3 gig HD which was big for the time. I normally use it for doing my song lists...while watching TV.

Anyway, I loaded a couple of MP3+G's and VCD's on the hard drive and hooked it up to my club system with a digital to analog decoder. It worked fine. Struggled a bit with the VCD's...you have to start the song and then get your hands off the computer, as it barely has enough guts to run them. It ran the MP3+G's just fine.

Basically you don't need a super powerful computer to do this. Video isn't real critical either, as the karaoke screens are below VGA (640-480) res. The laptop I ran from had 48 meg of ram. It probably doesn't hurt to have more ram than this. The sound in this computer is basic stereo, nothing fancy. Run through my amp, mixer and equalizer it sounded great.

The most important is a big hard drive, as you will fill it up, and like I said before a back-up hard drive in case the first one crashes. I am a little concerned about long term use of hard drive for this purpose, as it is getting a workout when in use.

Remember that having these files on your drive could land you in trouble with the law. I have tested & use Jeticos Bestcrypt program to hide everything if need be. This can activate a hotkey that dismounts the virtual drive container. As this uses Blowfish encryption & has the ability to hide containers within containers it would cost close on 2 million pounds to successfully rip limited incriminating data from your drive. This I felt to be my first concern when your competing in a business were someone could stick you in. Most other programs I looked at were easily worked around to disclose your drives contents. The encryption does not slow down the process at all.

http://www.jetico.com

Hope this helps.

Maplins sell a USB sound output for £20, it gives you analog and digital out.
Use your sound card for h/phones, USB to mixer/amp. Nice clear sound.

Someone I know used a laptop changed to a desk top. Reconed the laptop was getting too hot caused it to give him a bit of bother after long periods of use.

Finished Building my karaoke PC two months ago, been trying to get a karaoke based machine to work for two years now and this one has finally cracked it.

If your gonna use a pc reasearch the program your gonna use cos some use masses of processing power ie WinCDG Pro.I Use Win amp and the cdg software for it ( Joy ) it didn't need lots of power and you can drag n' drop the files into it takes two seconds to find a track out of bout 500 discs.
Only problem is im now left with a dual processor computer with twin xp2000 and gig of ram. Makes life a lot less hassel if you have a lot of power cos you can do stuff whilst the karaoke is playing and not have to worry bout it frezing on you.

Back up your mp3+g's have lost the lot before and had to convert them all again Have two 80 gig drives dedicated to the karaoke and another with win on and have just invested in an USB2 caddie with will be getting an 200 gig drive in it cos drives to last forever n converting 500 discs a second time was twice as tedious as the first time

Any questions e-mail me djcyclone666@aol.com

My best advice is to go to www.mtu.com

They have a wonderful program designed specifically for karaoke presenters (and disc jockeys) to present their shows using a PC. The program is called Hoster. You cannot do better!

regards

Hi guys

This is just a thought I've had - there are many of us less than able people out here who are interested in setting up a PC Karaoke system.

The hard work in setting up this system is based on the loading and organising of mp3's and the necessay loading of software onto a large hardrive, this I am sure we all agreed is the most time consuming part of this setup procedure, and a right pain in the ***.

This is just a thought for those guys who have gone down the road of setting up there systems with 1000's of songs and getting it running smoothly - would any of you who have done this and gone through this pain barrier consider selling a hardrive containing a direct copy of your fully operating system with all the songs and software, it is just a thought I had which would save loads and loads of time for us not so able people and earn yourselves some serious cash.

I am sure those of us who would be interested would be prepared to pay a good price for this - maybe the PURCHASER could supply a NEW hardrive thus avoiding the risk of the supplier losing any money.

I do appreciate it would be difficult to put a price on this but for anyone that has set this up successfully it is a way of recouping some cash - I for one would be more than interested, infact a new hardrive would be on it's way.

Lets get some other views on this from other members and perhaps some views from the guys that have already set this up on there PC's.

dodger

i got 80 gig ready to play named files. what money am i lookin at identitys

Well as a point of interest on this subject of drives PRE-LOADED with MP3+G Files!.
I many months ago attempted to sell drives with exactly this idea in mind !.
What did i get!, 2 people who ,( so they said ) would be very interested !!!.
With that i contacted them with a price ,which included the drive cost (for 120gb maxtor 7,200 )and all i got was a load of verbality for my trouble !.
When i mentioned the cost of £420 ,they soon backed down !.
For this i hasten to add were all the files lready to play ,in there own Disc / Make directory.
Now as our friend above mentioned, we have all sat there and converted our own discs, so i ask this question to all ! ,
HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE ANY OF YOU TO CONVERT, NAME, & CATAGORISE ENOUGH FILES TO FILL A 120 DRIVE !.
with this thought i leave you to make your own mind up on this quite old idea, when you base it on the fact that the Sunflys sit in a ddirectory which is about 15 gbs in size for the 200 odd discs.

I should add that i unlike some .1 do most of my own conversion of my discs ,simple because i have been had so many time before with so called "error free" sets of discs that it had become a joke !

Food for thought for all !

CEEJAY

I build mini pc / laptop karaoke systems and the best answer I have found with regard to hard drives is to have a sacrificial external usb/2 hard drive loaded with all your mp3+g's. In addition load your internal hdd with a basic set of popular mp3+g's to get you out of trouble should the external hdd let you down. This has the benefit of the external doing most of the work during play back taking all the wear and tear from your precious internal drive which holds your operating system. As hard drives are very cheap nowadays you could also keep a spare external usb cased hdd loaded up with your mp3+g's as well, as usb devices are hot swapable then you would be really laughing.


:tup:

I am hoping to go digital very soon, at present I have my tracks all stored on my PC. One piece of kit I find very important for storage are external hard drives, either USB2 or Firewire. I also have come accross external enclosure kits which store your ordinary hard drives and link them via USB2. With these in mind I intend to take a laptop with me which has video out and use winamp as my player.I am on the outlook for a decent laptop with a good soundcard which will serve my purpose if anyone has any experience or info on one LMK.
joe@soap3.freeserve.co.uk