I NOW HAVE HOME KARAOKE!
By all the views of this post, I’m guessing many are trying to do the same thing. I’ve got mine hooked up so I’m using my stereo speakers with my laptop and using my tv as the monitor. I’m still “playing” with it but here’s what I’ve got so far.
Computer—Dell D610
External Sound Card—Soundblaster 24 (approx. $50)
Mixer—Yamaha MG 10/2 ($90 to $140—Shop around)
Stereo—Onkyo 1000 w Home theater system
External Hard Drive—Western Digital 250GB ($130, but got a $50 rebate)
USB hub—Mine is a generic 1.0 hub ($10)
Software—I went with the computer karaoke guide at karaokeinfo, but I’m sure there are others.
Karaoke Discs--numerous disks (Walmart, E-bay, etc)
How I did it. . .
I bought and downloaded the computer karaoke guide to my desktop. This included a karaoke player, how to burn the tracks from cds, a site to find tracks, etc. I’m just using my laptop for the karaoke stuff so I copied the player as well as karaoke tracks to the external hard drive to hook to the laptop later. Since this is just for home use I saw no need for any program to arrange the tracks. The folder will keep them in alphabetical by clicking ‘name’.
Now the set up
I had to purchase numerous extra cables, adapters,; I’ve denoted when I got them from E-bay, Radio Shack, etc. A lot of this is simply trial and error (or at least for me—LOL). For the laptop I needed an S-video to RCA adapter cable (E-bay). This cable goes out from the S-video on the computer. I attached an RCA plug cable from this to the video in on my TV. (Note: Right now, I’m using the standard red/black RCA cable and just plugging in one line—Red to TV, other end into adapter cable.
I plugged the USB hub into the USB port on the laptop. The external sound card and external hard drive are plugged into the hub. Be sure and pick up a 2.0 hub so you get faster transfers, but a 1.0 will still work.
Ok, now here is my current sound card to mixer hook up. . .
From the sound card phones out to the mixer ch. 5/6 lines in. To do this I purchased a cable from Walmart that goes from audio (the little pin) to RCA (red / white). The mixer takes 1/4” plugs. Radio shack has adapters to go from RCA plugs to the 1/4”. Then I go from mixer ch. 7/8 out to the sound card line in. Here you also need the audio to RCA cable, but since ch. 7/8 also has RCA plugs the one cable will do the trick.
Now for some sound. . .
I’m still working on a better set up, but this is working. From the mixer stereo out to my home theater’s video 3 input (it’s on the front and easy to get to—LOL). I’m using an adapter that hooks two RCA plug into one- 1/4 “ pin plug. This plug goes into the left stereo out plug on the mixer. The other end of the RCA cable goes into the video 3 input on the stereo.
I’m plugging the mic into ch. 1 microphone input on the mixer.
I know getting the picture from the monitor onto the TV may be basic for some, but it wasn’t for me so I’m including those instructions as well.
Once you have your computer hooked to the video in on the TV, switch the TV to video. On my TV this was simply an ‘input’ button on the remote. Now go into the display settings on the laptop (Start>Control panel>Display>Settings). Under ‘display’ click on 2 (multiple monitors), then check the box ‘extend my windows desktop onto this monitor,’ then ‘apply.’
Now I just go into “My Computer” click on the external hard drive and I’m up and running. I also put my music files on the hard drive so I can use the Windows Media player as basically a jukebox.
Oh, one more thing. Just for that ‘special’ touch I made a song book in Word using a table. It’s just a simple 3 column table so I can arrange by artist / song. The third column is just so I can number them.
Hope this helps
