Getting started as a karaoke DJ

Published on January 7, 2009 in GETTING STARTED!, Karaoke Software and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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(almost none of this stuff is necessary) photo by…

Running a karaoke night is cheap and easy. Here’s all you need:

  1. Laptop
  2. Songs
  3. Karaoke Software
  4. Songbooks
  5. Microphones and a PA
  6. Old computer monitor

5 & 6 barely count. You can get clunky 17″ monitors for free on craigslist or freecycle. Most venues have a PA w/ mics. Got friends who play in a band? They can help scrounge something together.

So that leaves us with a laptop, songs, karaoke software, and songbooks. I made simple guides to cover each step. Spend a little time now, and next week you’ll have a working karaoke setup.

If anything seems confusing, just find a computery friend to help. They’ll know how to do all of this stuff.

  1. What you need for a karaoke laptop
  2. How to download Karaoke songs
  3. The best free karaoke software for Mac, Windows, and Linux
  4. How to make karaoke songbooks

Next up… tips on running a karaoke night!

What you need for a karaoke laptop

Published on January 7, 2009 in Uncategorized. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .

Why do I need a laptop?

To do a karaoke night you need a two-screen setup (one for your playlist, one for the lyrics). This is really easy to do on laptops, just plug in an old 17″ monitor or a projector. Many laptops will even let you plug into a TV. On desktops it’s more complicated.

Can it be a really old laptop?

Yes. A really old (say, 6 year-old) Windows laptop will work fine. An old Mac laptop will be more annoying, but probably workable.

Do I need anything else?

You’ll want between 20 and 50 gigs free for karaoke (10 minimum) so if you don’t have that space, you have two options:

1) Get an external USB hard drive. A portable one that works off USB power is best (like $70). If you have an old laptop without USB 2.0, get a USB 2.0 PC card. ($20).

2) Upgrade your laptop’s hard drive. If you have $100 and a computer-savvy friend, this is a much better option (more reasons here). On Macbooks (and new Macbook Pro’s) it’s really easy… other computers, a toss up.

Once you have your laptop, it’s time to download some karaoke music and install a karaoke player.

How to make karaoke songbooks

Published on January 7, 2009 in Karaoke Setup and Karaoke Software. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

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Sometimes you’ll get a big karaoke collection with a pre-made songbook. This is definitely the easiest way to get started.

But once you start downloading more songs, you’ll need a way to make your own books. Here are two quick guides to making songbooks.

On Windows, your book will be somewhat ugly and wasteful of paper without further fiddling. But this is definitely the best way to start.

The quick and dirty way to make a karaoke song book on Windows or Linux

The easiest way to make a karaoke song book on a Mac

The quick and dirty way to make a karaoke song book on Windows or Linux

Published on January 7, 2009 in Uncategorized. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Song books are important, but making them can be a pain in the neck. Here’s the simplest way to make a karaoke songbook on Windows, using either PyKaraoke or Winamp.

If you’re starting from scratch, PyKaraoke will be the simplest: just add your music, and go to File -> Print Song List.

If you’re using Winamp, just import your music (unzip all .zip files first), sort by Artist or Title, drag into a playlist, select all, and hit Ctrl-Alt-G. This will open up a browser window with your playlist rendered as HTML. Print it.

If that was hard to follow, keep reading for step by step instructions…

If you’re using a Mac, see this post: The easiest way to make a karaoke song book on a Mac

Continue reading ‘The quick and dirty way to make a karaoke song book on Windows or Linux’

Making prettier karaoke books

Published on January 7, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I’m all about saving paper, and it’s easier to read karaoke books that just list the artist’s name once in bold, followed by the song.

Just posted to this excel users forum…

Hopefully we’ll learn something!

The easiest way to make a karaoke song book on a Mac

Published on January 7, 2009 in Uncategorized. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Song books are important, but making them can be a pain in the neck. Here’s the simplest way to make a karaoke songbook on a Mac using kJams:

Cnce you’re music’s in kJams, hide all columns except the ones you want, select all your songs, copy/paste them into TextEdit, and use find and replace to turn the tabs into hyphens.   

If that sounds like a mouthful, read more for step by step instructions…

For Windows, see this post: The easiest way to make a karaoke song book on Windows (or Linux).

Continue reading ‘The easiest way to make a karaoke song book on a Mac’

Thoughts on the site

Published on January 5, 2009 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: .

What do people think about the site so far. Here are my questions, some of which are hard to answer without a wider range of content and participation;

  1. How can I better emphasize the concepts involved (like: karaoke mashups, ultimatekaraokenapster, ableton karaoke megamixes, karaoke art?)
  2. Related, what can I do on the design level to make people feel like they’re stepping into a world?
  3. Should I rock a background, or a better header image? Ideas?
  4. What community tools should I be tapping and how should I present them?

Most importantly, what can I do to make this feel like me? Or at least, my karaoke persona?

How to covert karaoke files to video (Mac, Windows, Linux)

Published on January 5, 2009 in Dance Party, Karaoke Setup, Karaoke Software and Mashups. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Mp3g is a funny combination of music file and anigif. If you want to play karaoke on your iPod / iPhone, or if you want to use DJ/VJ software to run your karaoke set (more on that later) the first step is to convert your collection to normal video files.

Here’s how–for Mac, Windows, and Linux;

Continue reading ‘How to covert karaoke files to video (Mac, Windows, Linux)’

Downloading karaoke music

Published on January 4, 2009 in Karaoke Setup. 3 Comments

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Here’s how to start your karaoke library, how to download specific songs you want, and how to stay up-to-date with new music as it comes out.

1. Start with Bittorrent. With Bittorrent you can download a ton of karaoke tracks at once.

2. Use mIRC and Autoget to download individual tracks from #karaoke+mp3s

Using mIRC and Autoget, you can download almost any English karaoke song in existence. Lots of French ones, some Spanish (Sound Choice Latin / tzlp) and some Portuguese (Kantatu). This way you can hone in on particular songs or genres you want.   

It also works pretty well for getting new releases, although there’s no good way to search for new additions to the network.

3. Go back to Bittorrent. New releases will show up on the torrent sites from time to time. Keep your eyes peeled.

Update: I just found a karaoke mp3 blog here: Free Karaoke Music and added its feed to the sidebar.

Stumbling into the karaoke filesharing community

Published on January 4, 2009 in Getting Karaoke. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

How do Karaoke DJ’s share songs? When I started this, I was baffled.

The karaoke scene is small enough that it almost seems like internet hasn’t hit it yet. You can’t find karaoke tracks on Gnutella (using Acquisition) or Soulseek. There aren’t any mp3 blogs for karaoke (yet–more on that later). You can find karaoke torrents on the Pirate Bay but it’s not at all comprehensive.

But the case for filesharing is so compelling it must be happening somewhere.

I was working off this even more baffling comment from a determined but non-tech-savvy friend of mine along the lines of “oh yeah, I paid $40 for this program that said I could download any karaoke song, and it was really hard to set up, but when I got it working it worked great.”

It sounded like one of those scams where they sell Limewire for $40, but I had no notion what it was they were bottling and selling.

Anyway, some Googling later and I found kmp3s.com, a site made by the karaoke community on the #karaoke+mp3s IRC channel. Turns out people are using a bunch of scripts for the old-standby Windows IRC client into a napstery arrangement where everybody can search everybody else’s library. Bootleg as all hell, but it works and it’s totally free (though if that company can get my friend Nancy up and running with this rickety setup they deserve every penny).

Folks in the IRC channel (#karaoke+mp3s on Undernet) even went to the trouble of putting together good tutorials. So one day I fired up my Windows laptop, left my low tolerance for figuring out bullshit at the threshold, and pushed through to the other side. Here goes:

Download any karaoke song for free using IRC / MIRC