If you are planning to run your karaoke show from computer, you will have to do what is commonly called a "Format Shift" (commonly called ripping) of the files on your discs. The files on a karaoke "CDG" disc are a little different than the files on your standard music CD. And while you can certainly rip the songs off the CDG with a program like Windows Media Player, you will not be able to see the lyrics on the screen because the program can't find the lyrics files on the disc. That's because they have been put on a portion of the disc that standard programs cannot see. There are also a great many computer CD Rom players and burners that will not see the lyric files even if you have the proper program to format shift (rip) the files. If you have one of these drives, the only thing you can do is buy a new one that will read the files. The good news is that most newer CD ROMs will read the files and they are no longer very expensive. Out of the last six computers I have purchased, all of the drives were able to read the lyric files and thus were able to rip the CDG's to the proper format for the computer to use. If you need to buy a new one, make sure that it will read CDG's before you purchase.
I'm sure you are familiar with the term MP3. If not, that is the common format that the computer uses to save and play music files. It is a compressed format and does not use as much disc space for each file. The compression is done in areas that most people would not be able to notice that there is a difference between the original file on the CD and the compressed file on the computer. The karaoke industry has been able to use this format along with a file that contains the lyrics to transform the karaoke industry into a "state of the art" experience for hosts who run professional shows and the home karaoke enthusiast. By using the computer, the KJ can now find any program with a simple search by title, artist, or file name. He (she) can create a singers list and control the rotation automatically. He can change pitch or speed of the song for the convenience of the singer. He can keep a history on every singer to easily find songs they usually sing at subsequent shows. There are even programs to allow singers to enter their selections on a touch screen that automatically puts those songs in their rotation for the evening. But that's a story for another time.
So now you have all those manufacturer's CDG's that you've acquired over the years. You need to get them into the format the computer can read. You will need a program to rip both the music file and the lyric file to the computer. When complete, each song will have two files. The MP3 file for the music and the CDG file for the lyrics. Hence the format is called "MP3+G", the "G" standing for graphics. There are several programs that will do this for you. The best will also automatically "Zip" the files together. Most of the best host programs can "unzip" the files and play them so you don't have to worry about the two files getting separated.
One program that I use and find most professional KJ's use is Power Karaoke's CD+G burner. The program will not only allow you to rip your CDG's to the computer in MP3+G and Zip format (a couple others too) it will also take your computer files and burn them to a blank CD so you can create your own custom disc to take to a show where you want you sing. You can even copy a CDG disc to make a backup of your library if you choose. However, when you rip all your discs to computer, that becomes your user copy and the original becomes your archive copy.
It is relatively easy to set up the program and start ripping. There are parameters you can set as you learn to speed up the program and deal with issues on drives that may not complete the process on their own. One thing you want to know up front though is that the title - artist information is not on the disc itself. If you have an Internet connection, it will attempt to download the information from "freedb.org" or one of several other databases you can choose. If it finds the information, it will use it. If not, you will have to enter the information manually before you rip the disc. You can specify the speed of the rip. If you get some errors in the music or on the lyrics screen, you can slow it down and hopefully clear it up.
You also specify where on your computer you want to store the files. I save mine to a music download folder and then move them to a folder that is named the same as the disc (SC8523 or CB60032). Those files are sub folders for the manufacturer (Sound Choice, Chartbusters, etc.) All host programs will read sub directories so how you catalog is not so important. However, there are advantages to keeping all karaoke files in the same directory and "unzipping" them.
Once you have all your discs ripped to the computer, they are ready to be used to run a karaoke show with a host program or to create song books for your singers. Remember that copyright law requires that you to have the original disc in your possession. While you don't have to carry it with you, in this age of internet piracy, you may have to produce it to prove you own the disc. So store all your manufacturer discs in a safe place.
Be aware that this program is only for the CDG format discs. There are other formats out there that CD+G Burner will not handle. While it is the best at what it does, if you have SCDG's or DVD's or one of the other formats, this program will not work for them.
If you purchase SCDG's or CAVs discs, you will want to use Roxbox File Converter. It does a great job of separating songs from a disc with up to 1200+ files and will even eliminate vocals on a multiplex disc, but you cannot choose to save the files at 320KPS which is the optimum for MP3. I notice a big volume difference with the l92KPS MP3 files which you will have to adjust for in your show. They also don't seem to have the high and low end that the higher format seems to maintain.
Some of the manufacturers are starting to provide discs in the MP3+G format to save time in shifting files to your computer. If you download from the Internet, the files will most likely be in the Zipped format. But the jury is still out on whether these sites have the legal right to sell these downloaded files and whether or not you can use them in a commercial setting.
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