Karaoke Forums

My first goal is to set up equipment as a one man singer for small parties. I will probably use my powered JBL 15's with a small 4 channel mixer w/ on board effects. I already own this equipment. Regarding a player... should I try to use my I-Phone? Should I purchase an I-Pod Touch (maybe Used)? Should I invest in a laptop. I'm not really wantng to spend any more money than I have to! I do have about 300 cdg's. I don't know how to get the cdg songs into I-tunes and then into the I-Pod. Also, I do need some cdg's resaved with a key change. All suggestions apreciated. Thanks! Joey

I saw a guy a few months ago that ran IPod karaoke, and he spent a few minutes showing me how it worked.

It was certainly reliable, and IPod had plenty of titles available for download for 1.29 to 2.99 per song. The only thing that I saw that was really a possible stumbling block was the interface.

Basically, you are going to search and load karaoke songs the same way you would any other song on a MP3 player, which is a bit more cumbersome than a normal CDG player or computer would be.

That said, I think in the application you are talking about above, this might work very well for you. It doesn't seem like you are going to need to be able to find a song particularly quickly, and it also doesn't look like you'll need a large library. So, as long as you can do without these conveniences, I think this way will work for you.

Good luck!

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL

OH!! One more thing.....you ARE NOT going to be able to import your CDGs into ITunes. They use a proprietary format, so you CAN'T really import other karaoke files, and you CAN'T really export their tracks to use them elsewhere.

I'm sure some quasi-legal workaround format shifting programs do exist, but they will not be convenient to use and are HIGHLY discouraged by Apple, so I personally would not consider these as options.

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL

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

The easiest player is just a plain Windows laptop. There are plenty of free programs to rip your CDGs, and plenty of free and low-cost players.

I use a regular laptop, with a netbook as my hot backup.

I have not heard many reports of iPods being used for karaoke in the real world.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Hey MikeyJ!! I would have no problem with getting a laptop/notebook. It's just that everytime I look at spec's for this use it appears I'd have to spend $1,000 to get what's needed. Now it could be my perception is off because I know so little about computers and digital cdg files. I understand special dvd drives are needed for cdg's. Any advice on laptops in the $300 to $500 dollar range that's known to work in this application. Thanks!!! Joey

Every laptop I've bought with the installed CD/DVD in it has been just fine. I've had zero problems with them reading my CDG's.
To read CD+G discs your drive has to be able to extract CD+G subcodes. Most of the modern drives are capable of this.


http://www.tricerasoft.com/drivelist.html

JBald, I have been running a bi-weekly karaoke show for the past year off a 2005-06 model IBM ThinkPad R60 that I bought off E-Bay from a business lease trade-in for $180.00.

Might take a little patience, but you can find PLENTY of good deals on laptops that can run karaoke. For under $200, focus on something with a Centrino M processor over 1.6 gHz (Centrino Ms generally outclock their stated speed) or Pentium Core Duo that can take 2+ gigs of DDR2 RAM (even if you need to buy some, it is cheap these days!!).

Thos specs will allow you to run 99% of karaoke programs out there without any problems, and is probably even overkill for most. I run CompuHost, which is one of the more resource-intensive programs out there, without issue.

Do a little research to find a good company that sells refurbished business leases, and you are insured of a fully tested and, in most cases, warrantied product.

Oh, and my R60 reads and can burn CDGs right out of the box. No problem there, and agin, for $180.00.

Good luck!

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL

I run CompuHost, WinAmp, and MTU Hoster on generic laptops you can get for $400.00 new. I run CompuHost on a $279.00 netbook.

Nothing special is required. If the internal CD doesn't work, or the netbook doesn't have a CD, you can easily get a USB DVD writer to do the trick.

Most people have a Windows PC, which is why I consider it to be the cheapest thing. I think there *may* be a Mac karaoke program, but no one here (that I know of) uses and champions it.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

But, if he is planning on being a "one man band" for parties, perhaps is is planning on memorizing the lyrics and just using the audio as backing tracks. In that case he could rip them to MP3+G and then import the MP3's into iTunes and play them sans graphics.