Karaoke players (like Winamp or VLC) can’t read inside .zip files, so you need to unzip all your karaoke to use them. Turns out, if you have a big library there are just too many files to use the unix wildcard *.
And you get an error like: -bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long
Here’s how to move your huge library of karaoke songs to one folder, and unzip them. It’s well worth the trouble to be able to use Winamp (which is super-simple and solid for karaoke nights).
Continue reading ‘How to unzip a ton of karaoke tracks (Mac / Linux)’
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
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’
Published on
January 1, 2009 in
Karaoke Setup and Karaoke Software.
Tags: advice, cdg players, free software, Karaoke Software, karaokenight, kj, kjams, linux, mac, pykaraoke, setup, winamp, windows.
I’ve got three posts on the subject. But the winners are kJams (Mac), Winamp + CDG plugin (Windows), and PyKaraoke (Linux).
If you use both Mac and Windows, t’s a tough call between kJams and Winamp. If you’re going to be actively updating your library and your song books, kJams is it.
If you want to set things up once, never think about it again, and spend your karaoke night hitting on people, use Winamp.
Now, without further ado, the verdicts:
The best karaoke software for Mac OS X: kJams
The best karaoke software for Windows: Winamp
The best karaoke software for Linux: PyKaraoke
