Midi Cd Karaoke disk.

Anwin · Post by **Anwin** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 7:36 pm

Hi !

I am very new to karaoke (, yes a "noob") so I have a few questions.

My wife (a filipina) has just got back home from a trip to the Philippines. She brought with her a new karaoke player including mic's, a songbook and a cd with filipino and english songs. Everything works just perfect.

So I got to be interested in the CD. I thought that this also could be played on my pc with the right software. But my windows explorer does not seem to handle the CD as there is no file being listet. However, Windows media player is able to recognize the videos on the disk (,it is videos that serve as background when you sing), but that's it.

After browsing the net for a while , my best guess is that this is a midi CD. If so, is there a way that my PC could read it. At least I would like to take a backup copy.

During my search I also see that there is another matter to this also. The thing that is called COPY RIGHTS. Ii has actually never struck me that also karaoke songs is under protection from copy rights. ( yep thats right , I'm the stupid one here probably). So I guess this is likely to be an illegal copy because it looks very much like the RW CD's you can buy for home usage everywhere. This is bougth in a store selling electronics (and not in an dark alley after midnight) as a package solution, but this is Asia and I guess they don't have the best reputation when it comes to piracy. On the other hand this is about the same system (which includes several thousand songs) that is used in all karaoke bars in the Philippines. Are all these pirated stuff too ?

I would appreciate if there is anyone that could help me clearify this things.
Thank you.

Anwin

Post by **wiseguy** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:27 am

What is the make and model of the karaoke player?

Anwin · Post by **Anwin** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:40 am

It's a Hyundai Premier-98 Pro.

In the user manual it is listet four cd formats that can be played on the unit:

-DVD
-Video CD
-CD
-Midi CD

Post by **wiseguy** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:18 am

I does sound like you have a midi karaoke disc. You might try the freeware player "KaraFun" available from www.karafun.com/karaokeplayer to play it on your PC.

Making a backup of the CD should be as simple as duplicating the disc as a data (not audio) CD. Most any burning software will do this. If the disc is copy protected you might need software like CloneCD to duplicate it.

I've never heard of a copyright on midi karaoke songs but I wouldn't worry about it anyway for home use.

Anwin · Post by **Anwin** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:32 am

Hi !

Dowloaded and tried KaraFun. It didn't work. It think it have to be a player where you could select the song you like using a 4-digit number, which you find in your song book. How would you otherwise browse to song number 6843 ?

I was able to make a copy after making an image file using MagicIso.

Should you come across (or happens to know) any software that support the MIDI CD format, please let me know.

Thanks

Anwin

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:54 pm

Thinking that since that was a player that CAVS used to sell on it's website. Maybe one of their software programs might play the songs.

Post by **wiseguy** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:31 am

DanG2006 wrote:Thinking that since that was a player that CAVS used to sell on it's website. Maybe one of their software programs might play the songs.

I didn't know that CAVS ever messed with midi karaoke or that they ever sold Hyundai machines. As far as I know, the CAVS software only supports the MCG (their version on the MP3+G) format. Anyway, the basic deal on the Hyundai machine now is that it comes with a CD (not DVD) that contains over 8,000 songs. These could only be in the midi format although the file extension may not reflect this. If Windows Explorer is set to "view all files" then you should be able to view the contents of the CD. I would extract some files from the disc and, if necessary, rename the extension to .mid or .kar and then try to play them.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 3:06 am

His machine says nothing about cd+g.......format

Anwin · Post by **Anwin** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:16 am

No I don't think my player plays CD+G, since it's not listet. Anyway as long as I was able to make a backup I rather play it on my karaoke player.

Looks like the midi-format is not very popular in the karaoke comunity. I guess this is due to poor quality.

But how do you guys do this ? I see that you can buy Karaoke disc's that contains about 10-15 songs, and the price is usually around 1 US$ a song. Seems to me that during a karoke party-session you have spent a good deal of time for the CD-swithcing thing. Another thing is that you would spend a fortune just to reach a decent number of about 2000 songs.

How much more easier it is when you have a songbook listet with all your songs and just press the number of the song you would like to sing on your remote control, without any CD-swithcing. And when you have about 8000 songs to choose from, there should be a good chance for finding a song you like.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:01 am

You are correct when you say you have to spend a lot of money to establish a decent music selection. Most of us do karaoke as a business. So we are use to spending lots of cash. I have spent close to $50,000.00 dollars on my selection.

Midi is not popular because it sounds cheap. It is not done with real instruments. Most top quality karaoke CD+G discs are done using real instruments. That's why it costs so much. They have to pay a bunch of good musicians to play the real instruments. We want the music to sound as close to the original recording as possible. Quality costs money. There is no way around it. Midi would be good enough for your livingroom. But not in a business setting. Midi to me sounds like carnival music.

So if you want to go into karaoke as a business, buy real sounding music discs. Also you will need to spend a lot of money on a quality sounding PA system.

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:59 am

Years ago when I was first messing with getting equipment, I bought one of CAVS' amplifiers (the only piece of CAVS equipment I would reckomend) They sold midi discs. I'm talking 2001. They no longer carry them (kinda shows what the quality of that format was). Back then they also sold the player mentioned here.

Anwin · Post by **Anwin** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:46 am

Ok. I also guess that in the western world, sound quality is much more an issue, compared to many asian countries.

I do understand things a little more clearer now. Thanks.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:45 pm

It depends on if you like hearing real musical instruments or fake sounding ones. LOL...

Post by **wiseguy** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:46 pm

Try the links below to hear the difference between midi karaoke and real karaoke.

Midi Karaoke Sample (recorded to mp3)

Real Karaoke Sample

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:27 pm

wiseguy wrote:Try the links below to hear the difference between midi karaoke and real karaoke.

Midi Karaoke Sample (recorded to mp3)

Real Karaoke Sample

Major differance from my point of view. But NUtech must have thought they could get away with it as that is what they used in their original disc set. Learned their lesson when they came up with the KJTool set though.