Karaoke? Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

[AgentX]

Okay... here's the deal.  I'm am not a huge fan of the whole karaoke thing but the wife has cut me a deal. I can build a new mame cabinet if I can figure out a way to include a karaoke system into this one. (She missed out on a karaoke machine due to my last mame project, so I kinda owe her)

I know next to nothing about karaoke, so I started to do a little research and want to get your guys' opinions before I dive in.

On front ends:
Should I be using a mame front end at all? Or should I just use a dedicated karaoke software? I'd love have eveything all in one place (jukebox/emulation/karaoke etc). I've been using MameWah and have had good luck but I don't know if it'll handle a karaoke type system. I really like Mala but I don't know enough about it yet. GameEx looks like it handles Karaoke files quite well with the full version. I haven't purchased the full verison so I don't know first hand. Any suggestions on frontends or other options?

On File types:
MP3: The mp3 karaoke files seem to be raw music with no words or graphics. Is there a database somewhere that has words that'll sync up with the music? Can I get a frontend to display graphics (even swirly, random graphics would make me feel better - like itunes?).

MIDI: The midi files seem to have the words but the sound quality sucks but they seem to have the words over a black background. Is there a way to super-impose graphics into the dead space?

CD&G: CD&G files seem to be the way to go but the files are pretty large to store.

KAR: I don't know anythign about these.


On Microphones:
I've got a couple of USB microphones from the PS2 game Singstar. Will they work? If I want to go will wireless mics, what am I looking for? How do I handle 2 mics?


On Audio Output:
I don't think the speakers I have in the cabinet are going to work too well, since they are very localized (i'm thinking for parties and such). I also don't want to blast the pacman theme through the house when I want to play a quick game. Should try running a seperate audio card just for the karaoke software?

Well... I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

[bluevolume]

I've only been MAME'ing for a few months, but I was a DJ for 10 years.  So that part I know a LOT about .

My immediate question would be why put both things in the same cabinet?  A karaoke setup has almost nothing in common with a MAME box (other than they both use a PC and have a display).  I think you would find it very awkward and would have to make a lot of compromises on the Karaoke side.

My suggestion is to build the MAME box, and also build a karaoke setup.  The main component is going to be a stand with the TV/monitor and microphone holders (you want people to be able to look down at the screen and still be able to look up at the 'audience').  You'll want two main speakers, plus a monitor (speaker) pointed toward the singer.

Wireless microphones are a great option, especially if your singers will be drinking.  At best they can trip over the wires, at worst they'll pull too far and knock your system onto the floor.  A decent microphone mixer is a must have, preferrably with some built in vocal effects.  I use Sennheiser or Shure, but you will probably want something cheaper.  Audio Technica makes some decent value mics.

There are a lot of different Karaoke software packages out there, with a great range in prices.  You'll need to hit Google and figure out what makes sense for you.  CD+G is the old standby, and might not be a bad idea for a home system.  You don't really need to have everything on an instant-access hard drive when entertaining at home.

[headkaze]

GameEx has a karaoke feature built in if that helps at all. It supports cdg/mp3 and kar.

The only Karaoke I know about is the Sunfly collection. Unfortunately it's pretty low-quality karaoke (no video, only plain background and text cdg/mp3). Forget midi.

You really need to get a little mixer to handle 2 mic's. They are relativly cheap, all you need is one with two mic inputs and a master. I know nothing about USB mic's plug them in and see what happens. You may need to download drivers for them or they may not work on PC's at all.

Finally don't worry about having separate audio for your karaoke you just need to have a volume control. A hardware hack works best, but most FE's (including GameEx) allow you to adjust the volume inside your FE. Just turn down when you play a game and turn up for karaoke

[Turnarcades]

For real karaoke fun and colour, try the PC clone of SingStar called Ultrastar. It takes a fair bit of setting up, but you can easily source the lyric, sound and video files from the net and piece them together to make a brilliant karaoke experience. You can even use the Playstation 2 mics, plugged straight into the USB port. I've got a library of a couple of hundred tracks I've accumulated, including almost every track from the singstar games and plenty more besides.

I'll get you some pics if you want, it's almost identical to the PS2 version. It is easily launched from MAMEWAH and the like and requires no wrapper as it escapes using the escape key.

Give it a try and I may be able to help you with some lyric files etc. if you have difficulty.

[Space Fractal]

I have created a CDG/MP3 commandline player in the past, which also support zip format as well (to compress CDG/MP3 into one file). This mean you could use mamewah and other FE to show these files and start the commandline player:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62573.0

Otherwice My other software, MultiJuke, can play these files as well and is very arcade cab freidly. Here a vertical setup is the best way.

It does not support Txt based Lyrics as well.

I have even done a command line movieplayer as well, but it some time ago since that (should been find in Arcadecontrol's Wiki). These could been used with video based Karaoke's.

[miles2912]

I have Karaoke set up and working on my MAME cab.  It is about as low end a karaoke set up you can do with just stock PC speakers and no amp.  That being said it works fine and everyone has a good time singing on it. 

My simple solution - and believe me I looked at a lot of different software combos- is to use Winamp and the free +g add on.  Rip your disks to MP3's +g and just dump them in sub dirs.  I use windows explorer to launch the songs and one nice thing about it is that my friends can do it without me having to hang around.  My cab has dedicated mouse buttons and a trackball that makes it very easy.

If you want a better set up you are looking at a dedicated karaoke box mounted in the cab w/ external speakers and an AMP.  Put the monitor on KVM that integrates the PC and Karakoe box.

[Space Fractal]

winamp / windows explorer is most of the crap software to been use in a mame cabinet, the main idea about a mame cabinet is hide windows so much as possible and also cannot broke Windows with it..

There was some request from a another person, about to have a command line cdg player with zipped sipport. Since I allready have wrote my own codec for CDG in BlitzMax, it was easiy to port the code from Arcade Music Box (that time) and use a dedicated command line mp3/G support, so they could been started directly from Mamewah. It have zip support to and do not require any addiation software, since I created my own simple CDG codec and have converted it to BlitzMax.

Since it command line, it should work from any FE, that support command line emulators.

My own other software can also play them as well (and use nearly the same codebase for that player) with nice interface and can show in a Explorer way...

[lingpanda]

I use GameEx and find it handles Karaoke very well. I also have two wireless mics hooked up. Bought them off of eBay. Paid $20. New.

[squirrellydw]

Freebox supports it and I think it is the best jukebox software out there.  www.freeboxjukebox.com

[Space Fractal]

I think Freebox is designed for use with a jukebox cabinet with touchscreen/trackball, not on a typical MAME arcade cabinet. So I personally think not fit here, even it a very great software (and I still host the free 2.2 version of it on my domain. and doesn't have plan to change that, so I really donated some traffic)

That is why I created my own software, it's for arcade controllers, not much for touch screen (Even MultiJuke support it fine).

This is also deficient market on that Freebox is operate in.

For use with Mamewah I Still recommered to use the command line CDG music player for full integrate with Mamewah (with songs listed on that)...

Game-EX is trough also a another very good Mame cabinet friendly software out here with a good CDG support....