Karaoke Forums

I use a DAW called reaper as my mixer. Last night I got it working with a wireless Xbox controller (wireless crossfading anywhere in the room)
Video
http://www.facebook.com/v/201316040215

At work I use a Maudio Torq Mixlab midi controller. I have 4 karaoke devices on the left side, and 2 fill music programs on the right (virtual vinyl for hard drive media, Foobar2000 for internet radio stations). The sub knob is the amount of (music only)signal sent to the subwoofers. Below is a picture of how I have this all mapped out.



It's worked well the last 4 years without a hiccup.

I can't give reaper all the credit. The other half of this is the EMU1820m sound card. It has 2 mic inputs, 3 stereo inputs, and 4 stereo outputs. All this IO is what allows me to effectively route things. The other nice thing about the 1820 is it's selection of realtime effects. I use the EMU's compressor/Reverb/Delay on the mics alot.

I stayed a little late last night after the show ended and futzed around with Reaper some more. I played with something called Parameter Modulation, and got automatic crossfading working. If this post is well received, I'll teach some of you how I do all this stuff.

Just for giggles, another use for reaper, vocoding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJc8czJKTjo

If you want to cheaply get into digital mixing, this is the way to go.

I get lost partway through, but it definitely looks interesting. I'm pretty amazed at it!
What I would love is a wireless controller to start the next singer.....
Would make it so I could go out and visit with the crowd.

That looks kinda cool... Could this mixer be run in conjunction with say a lighting control program.

What PC power are you using for your DAW?


Edit: To expand on the first question, I am using ShowMagic software to run timed lighting sequences synchronised with my music backing tracks. At the moment, the sound output from PC is fed to my mixer, mic input goes to effects processor then to mixer.

I was wondering if I would still be able to run the ShowMagic s/w and, instead of the hardware mixer, run the PC based mixer as well.

Diafel: Couple of ways you could do that. Enable Global Hotkeys in Winamp and use Xpadder http://xpadder.com/ or you could get a PC remote and use one of the many Winamp remote plugins http://www.winamp.com/addons/search/remote

Murrlyn: Right now my pc is a core 2 duo e5200 with 2 gigs of ram, and it's running a ton of stuff. Reaper/Winamp/Virtual Vinyl/Foobar2000/Puredata just to name a few. Sometimes I'll be playing Diablo II just to show off. I'm sure a similar Intel based PC could handle it. (these days that's a $500 PC right?) The nice thing about midi control is if your lighting software supports midi controller input, you can have everything (sound and lights) running from one console.

For a spell we had LED lights at my club (which have since, burnt out) I programmed scenes into an Eliminator DMX-DJ console. Reaper has a plugin called Reatune. Reatune would detect the note being played (in the music) and reproduce it as a midi note. It would then output to the midi out on my Emu, down the midi cable to the DMX-DJ's midi in.

There were a few other notable plugins I used to this effect too.


Reafir in Gate mode. Reafir will let you isolate the frequency of the instrument you're trying to get a trigger from. Here I'm isolating the bass.
Below that on the effects chain I have;

Midi Drumtrigger

You can route several tracks out from your main BGM track, each with its own Reafir and drumtrigger.

You should definitely get a Emu1616 if you're gonna try going this route. Here's a pic of the now out of production 1820 http://www.fatihkonyar.com/Source/emu%201820m.jpg

I think I'll do a autocrossfade video right now.

Thanks! This is great news!!!!
Finally! I don't HAVE to be tied to the puter, even when my requests are full!
You're a real miracle worker and some of the things you come up with are amazing.
I think I found a winamp plugin that will use my existing MCE remote that sits in the closet gathering dust, though I love the idea of using an Xbox 360 controller just for shock value! Time to go digging!

Parameter modulation based on input audio (automagic crossfading)

http://www.facebook.com/v/202713545215

I'm using it now at my show, crossfading between karaoke and an internet radio station (ravetrax.com). Only caveat I've found so far is songs with silence in the middle (love shack) it will crossfade. I think I can fix that by using a muted bgm trigger track with 1000ms delay on a 3000ms decay.

Diafel: Thanks. I've been 1/2 untethered for a while, but this is REALLY nice. My boss (70 year old japanese lady) gave me dirty looks for working even less. Oh well

Welcome back Toqer; nice to see you posting again.

_________________
I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Thanks Jian,

Here's a screencap of my desktop right now. It's insane how much I have running.

http://shup.com/Shup/252684/109111214313-My-Desktop.png

toqer, One of the things I like about the ShowMagic software is the ability to preset volume levels for each track independently... also can change levels at any time during a timed sequence. I'm not using it for karaoke in the normal sense, but to run an automated show. I am still in the process of evaluating the software using their free download and haven't yet got around to buying a dedicated PC.

Here's a link to the ShowMagic home page.

http://www.showmagic.com/

Cheers,
Murray

PS. I already have an M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB audio/MIDI interface. Just wondering about your thoughts on that compared to the EMU1616

There's no comparison. My in law got a Fast Track. It's OK, but it's limited. 2 inputs 4 out and no effects.

I went to the fasttracks website. Looks neat.

Did I say fasttracks website? I meant showmagic :/

Here's input modulation crossfading from my show last night.

http://www.facebook.com/v/203775860215

I already found a workaround to the middle of a song pause bug I found last night. Other fun stuff, one of my customers that works for google gave me his old android phone for christmas. I set it up as a midi controller when I got home last night.

After much searching and downloading and trying, I realized that my remote control works all by itself with no extra programs needed. Just gotta enable global hotkeys. Shows how much I pay attention....Doh!
Thanks Toqer. As usual, you are my hero!
I'm gonna blow these backwoods mountain peeps outta the water tomorrow night with it!
Heck, I might even dig out the kiosk again and try and teach them / get them used to using it.
Had it out a few times before, but most people felt they were not puter savvy enough. I'll whip 'em into shape yet!

Diafel: Sweet! Glad to hear the remote is working. It is SO much better hanging out with a crowd instead of being a caged bird in a booth. Don't forget, if you can setup a wifi network anyone with Iphone/Android/Blackberry basically has his/her own kiosk. http://yourautokdjmachinesIPaddress/karaoke

It took my customers 6 months before they realized I was done entering in slips for them.

Murrlyn: I installed showmagic and played around with it. I got ASIO output via Rearoute to reaper working AND as an added bonus, I'm controlling the volume using a Google Android phone. One of my customers (a google employee) gave me as a christmas present last night. Video below.

http://www.facebook.com/v/204099810215

Toger, since you've been using this for a while, have you run into anyone using a regular digital console as a control surface for Reaper (via midi)? I know my O1V can be setup as a control surface for ProTools, would be awesome if I could do the same with Reaper. I've done some searching but haven't found much on the web. Seem you've got a pretty good handle on Reaper so I'm wondering if you've ever heard someone doing something like that.

_________________
DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

If it's just straight up midi then it should be able to. Just give it a try. Tieing in the wet/dry of an effect is easy.



Setting up tracks to faders is a little more complicated. You got to go into preferences.



Click on that. Then in the following screen find the track you want to control, and hit "Add"

Cool I'll have to take a look and see if I can get it programmed. Looks like it should have everything I need to make it work though.

_________________
DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke