Karaoke Forums

I posted this as a reply in another thread. I am reposting it because I think a lot of folks will benefit from it. It is creating a song book using the names of your files (assuming you have saved your karaoke files in a "Artist - Title" format. Hope it helps someone! (I was surprised that one guy mentioned that he typed out the SC Foundation & Bricks by hand - OUCH!)

CREATING A SONGBOOK USING KARAOKE FILES

Put all of your mp3 files in one folder - to make it easy, use an external hard drive or create a folder right inside your computer's hard drive. (Don't use "My Documents"). If you did this right, you should be able to click on the internal hard drive (i.e. c:) or the external hard drive (i.e. h:) and see the folder you just created.

Now, follow the directions given here: http://tatooine.lbl.gov/~jsjacobsen/cgi ... Paste.html

Now, go into MS Word and paste the file names in a new document.

Once they have pasted, copy the dash mark that I assume you used to separate the artist from the song title (i.e. Tim McGraw - Just To See You Smile". This is probably NOT a normal dash mark - MS Word usually converts these to a different type of dash mark, so its easiest to copy this "modified" dash mark to your clipboard.

Then, select all of the text in the document. (Don't press copy or select, just highlight it so Word knows what text you want converted into a table.

Now, click on "Insert", then click "Table" and select "Convert Text To Table" on the drop down menu. Another small window will appear. At the very bottom right, it will ask you where you want to separate the columns. Click the empty box so your cursor is inside of it. Now right click, and select paste. (that little dash mark should now appear in the box). Look at the top where it says number of columns. It should say 2. (if not, change it to 2) Now, press ok.

If you did it right, you have two columns - but your file extension is still there. Here's how to get rid of that!

Copy your new table and paste it into an excel spreadsheet. Re-size the columns so you can see what you are doing. Now, click the column letter at the top that has the file extension names in it (should be column B). Now, hold CTRL down and press F. A window will pop up (Find & Replace) Click on the "Replace" tab at the top.

Enter .mp3 in the "Find" field. Leave the "Replace With" field empty. Click "Replace All" and the .mp3 extention will disappear.

If you are converting to a CAVS player, you will eventually need to put song numbers in. Most of us use a program called rename2, which renames your files with a number. Before you use this program, get all of your files in one folder in the Artist - Title format. Follow the instructions above FIRST. Then...

Once you have eliminated the .mp3 from the spreadsheet, Click on the first column letter to the right of the first song (Should be column C). Clicking this will highlight the entire column. Now, right click the Column letter, and select "Format Cells". Select Zip Code, and press ok. Now, go into the first cell under the column letter (Should be Column C, Row 1) and type 00001. Go into the row below it (Should be Column C, Row 2) and type in the following formula: =c1+1 and press enter.

Now, click in the field you just typed the formula (it should say 00002). Select every cell below this cell until you reach the last song. Now, from the "Home" tab in Excel, click "Fill" and then "Down". The Excel will automatically fill in the rest.

If you did it right, you just created your song book.

Now, use the Rename2 program to convert the karaoke files to numbered titles. As long as you didn't make any changes to the folder, your songs will be in perfect order and ready for your CAVS player and will correspond perfectly to the song number in your books.

Two notes: First, this assumes that you are "digital" in someway and don't run disks.

Also, very important thing I left out:

Once you have created your song book, do not sort (i.e. by artist or title) until you do the following steps.

Copy the entire book to the clipboard. Go into either a new sheet within the current sheet or start another blank spreadsheet.

In the new sheet, right click on the first cell (Column A, Row 1) and click "Paste Special" - and then select Values. This is important because the original book had formulas as song numbers, and they will not sort properly for you as formulas.

If the leading zeros disappeared, follow the format cell instructions mentioned above (zip code).

Now, you can sort by title or artist! You should also delete that first sheet so you don't get them mixed up!

Yes. We aren't digital. I have typed everything into Excel by hand. You'd be surprised at how many others do the same. Gives us all sorts of extra columns to play with as far as classifying songs by dupe or Holdiday or Duet or Latin or whatever. I can even pull out an Okay For Kids list if need be. Also, once you type it, you tend to remember if you have it or not when someone asks.

I don't know if you caught what I wrote in that other thread, but you can also browse KJPro's database and copy and paste from there, too. You just have to click paste special - and choose the "text" option.

I also have done everything by hand.
Which is why Compuhost is such hard work.

The first songlist I made was a spreadsheet and I figured out pretty quickly that a database was the better way to go for me. I find it much easier to sort, design and print reports etc. I know it's possible to do those things with a spreadsheet but it would take me a lot longer.

I don't this by hand, but if you do on excel, a pivot table takes about 20 seconds to create and basically do the same thing as a database.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

You can still us a database - MS Access and Excel allows import/export of files to each other.

I'm just saying, there is no way ANYONE should be typing books by hand. I gave two methods for the digital KJ and the CD+G KJ.

Heck, I wasted my money on KJ pro. I never needed it. Had I followed my method that I didn't learn until later, I could have saved $78 and just used PowerKaraoke's CD+G Burner to create the digital files in Artist - Title format and made my books at the very end.

One more thing, I used this method for my DJ music - I didn't have the benefit of KJ Pro for this and had to figure out a way to make a book with my DJ music without typing every single song by hand.

I don't trust cut and paste because often times the songs come in the wrong order or there have been substitutions made. If I do cut and paste to save some time, I still skim the label to make sure what it says on the cut and paste is actually what it says on the label. And there have been two times when what was on the label wasn't what was on the disc but those were pretty rare exceptions.

Currently I use Karen's Directory Printer.....
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp
And Open Office spread sheet
Both are free.


Directory Printer capture all my karaoke songs into a text file, then I just past into OO's spread sheet, and make columns separated by disc/artist/song, and format the page the way I want. Takes me about 5 minutes to do it for about 7K of songs.

That being said, next time I reprint, i am going use C.Staleys FREE book maker....
http://www.karaoke-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=20535

Interesting because how my software works is fairly simple:

#1. find all the files on the current folder and below

#2. copy and parse all the file names into a temporary database.

#3. Sort and output rtf files ready to modify and print or just print..

and it's free too.

I prefer to do it manually That way I get it the way I want it with mistakes and spellings, and titles, corrected. It doesn't take that long. I have it in Excel, Disc, Title, and Artist (everything we have) and an edited Title and Artist (most dupes taken out) for the books themselves.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

That's easy if you have iTunes. Copy and paste to excel.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

To each his own. I'm an engineer and I never use Access. Don't care for it, too much work. I can do so much more with excel including screen shots, formulas, pivot tables, macros, and it will import/export. That's how I put my music on my website although I haven't updated in an a long time.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Hi

It took me over four weeks of eight hour days to make our first song book, which has around 18,000 sequentially numbered unduplicated songs. Here's how I did it

The numbers should be added to the files as early as possible so that you are always working with the filename as the original source of number data. Even if your book or Excel file gets destroyed you'll always be able to go back to the files and get the song numbers.

1. Re-order the file names

Imagine we start with the following files...

Beatles, The - Blackbird - SUNFLY2345.cdg
Beatles, The - Blackbird - SUNFLY2345.mp3
SC234 - The Beatles - Penny Lane.cdg
SC234 - The Beatles - Penny Lane.cdg

Most filenames are in different formats "Beatles, The - Penny Lane", "Penny Lane - The Beatles" and often have disc numbers in front and have other issues. The best program to use for any kind of file manipulation is 1.4a Renamer. http://www.1-4a.com/rename/ It's free and it's very powerful.

This program will allow you to swap any part of the file name around (including swapping the artist and title without changing the extension), remove leading and trailing number and IDs, change capitalization, add leading data, and to sequentially number your songs if required. Check the examples and try stuff on test files first.

Along the way you will find that you will have multiple versions of the same song by different manufacturers - you will need to choose the best ones and delete the others. This part takes a long time.

2. GET FILENAMES INTO EXCEL

You can do this two ways. You can use the command prompt (CMD), go to the directory (CD directory name) and type

DIR /B /O:N > filename.txt

This will save all the filenames in the current directory to a text file. The text file will be saved in the same directory.

BUT it's much easier to use Directory Lister Pro http://www.krksoft.com/index.php in which case you just select the directory and click some check boxes to get a list of all the files in the directory.

Now you will have a list like:

Beatles, The - Blackbird - ID1110.cdg
Beatles, The - Blackbird - ID1110.mp3
Beatles, The - Penny Lane - ID1111.cdg
Beatles, The - Penny Lane - ID1111.mp3

Now you need to get it into Excel columns.

3. EXCEL MANIPULATIONS

This method is simpler than that shown above. Open the text file in Excel and select the first column, Go to the DATA menu and select TEXT TO COLUMNS, change the delimiter to "-" and the filenames will be split into different columns. You can also use the "." to split the cdg and mp3 into a new column. the only issue with this is that some band names have a "-" in them so you may have to sort and edit these by hand. It will now look like...

Beatles, The | Blackbird | ID1110 | cdg
Beatles, The | Blackbird | ID1110 | mp3
Beatles, The | Penny Lane | ID1111 | cdg
Beatles, The | Penny Lane | ID11101| mp3

Then you simply do the DATA > REMOVE DUPLICATES command on the first three columns which will give you your final Excel list.

Note you may have to run the TEXT TO COLUMNS option once more to get rid of leading spaces in the title.

Beatles, The | Blackbird | ID1110
Beatles, The | Penny Lane | ID1111

Use the SORT command to sort it as you like.

Excel cannot print pages with multiple columns easily so you will need to export your list into Access for better formatting.

4. IMPORT INTO ACCESS

Import your Excel file into Access. Create a multiple column print format you like, proofread it for days (make all changes back in the original Excel file and then reimport to Access to ensure consistency). Proofread it again. Then get someone else to proof it. Finally you can export it to PDF and print that at home or at a print shop.

I have enclosed our final songbook so you can see the end result.

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Kroaky's Karaoke

I found another program that really helps. 1st MP3 Editor - WOW! I used the free trial version - it can tag your music for you based in the file name, or it allows you to search for the disk from various sources. It can change file names for you and the most important part - it can export a song list to Excel with whatever details you wish (choose things to include like file name, artist, title, duration, album, bit rate, and so on)

KJs can get a lot of good use out of this program. And best of all - its FREE for trial, but the trial period is like 30 days. So, if you are like me, use it for free, get your project done before the trial period expires, and it won't cost you a dime.

Here is where you can get it or read more info: http://www.1st-mp3-tag-editor.com/