Ultimate CD+G to Video Karaoke Converter

We are very happy to announce Ultimate CD+G to Video Karaoke Converter. It replaces and extends the functionality of our two video converters. Now you can use a single tool to convert songs from CD+G format (either from hard drive or CD+G discs) to videos (MP4 with modern encoders and AVI formats are supported).

In addition to our CD+G enhancement technology (resolution increase, gradient, shadow, and background animations) Ultimate CD+G to Video Converter features brand new technology called Smooth sweeps, that analyzes CD+G song and replaces blocky CD+G word highlighting with pixel-by-pixel smooth action (see below).

The new program is a direct successor of both Power CD+G to Video and Power CD+G to MP4 Converters and active license owners (purchases within last year) may update for free. For new customers it costs $49, and if you have purchased our converter software in the past you can renew your license for $19.

More information and a trial version download is available at https://www.powerkaraoke.com/src/prod-ultimate-cdg-karaoke-video-converter.php.

Happy singing!

Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro features and do you need them

If you want to create CD+G songs, there is no better tool that Karaoke CD+G Creator. It is simple, fast, feature-rich, runs on most Windows machines and will create a great looking CD+G song in no time. But wait, there also is a Karaoke CD+G Creator Professional version — what does it do? Do you need it?

Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro

Duets

If you would like to create a song that displays lyrics for two singers at the same time, Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro has you covered. It has advanced lyrics mode, where you can separately synchronize lyrics for each of the singers and then create the song with split screen for two singers to sing their parts

Scrolling
CD+G does not allow a lot of bells and whistles in the visual department. Its 288×192 resolution limits the quality of the text and low throughput may cause lyrics to stay behind if the song is fast. Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro allows to use scrolling mode where lyrics move from the bottom to the top of the screen while being highlighted.

Images
Sometimes it is convenient to display image and lyrics at the same time. In other times it just looks better. Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro can do it with it advanced overlay technique. You may either define the area of the screen that will be used for lyrics, leaving the rest for images, or you may display images over the lyrics at the precisely defined times (this comes useful if you want to present guitar chords in addition to the lyrics)

settextarea-demo

Batch processing
If you create a lot of karaoke songs there comes a time you want to create a lot of them at once in batch mode. This also applies to importing MIDI karaoke songs — Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro will take a set of files and process them in one go without operator.

Customization
When you spend a lot of time with the particular software tool you want it to act and look the way you like it. Karaoke CD+G Creator Pro has customization options that allow to create color schemes to better suit your work.


Use software MIDI synthesizer to create karaoke song

Karaoke CD+G Creator is a tool of choice for many professionals to create CD+G karaoke songs. And with its easy to use graphical interface it can be serve even beginners to author their CD+Gs. And with MIDI software synthesizer creating great sounding backing tracks for your karaoke creations is also a very simple task.

MIDI files contain music in condensed format, instructing computer on what notes should be played, what instruments to use, etc. All soundcards can play MIDI, but the quality of the playback differs. Software MIDI synthesizer converts MIDI format to WAV or MP3, making it usable in any scenario you want.

First you have to start MIDI import wizard by selecting Import MIDI karaoke wizard from File menu. Karaoke CD+G Creator will prompt you to download and install software MIDI converter. It will take a while and you will be presented with a Import MIDI window.

Import MIDI karaoke wizard

Now you have to choose the MIDI file you would like to convert. Make sure that Software synthesizer is selected. Processing may take a while, but after it is finished you will be presented with familiar soundtrack view in Karaoke CD+G Creator.

Another great thing about MIDI karaoke is that a lot of it contain already synchronized lyrics, which of course are recognized by Karaoke CD+G Creator and imported with their timing instructions, making the most tiresome process of creating karaoke songs non-existent. You may play the song and make sure that everything got imported correctly and that the words are in sync. You may also remove some of the text, as MIDI karaoke sometimes contain additional textual information.

Once everything is to your liking you may go ahead and create CD+G song by using Create CD+G File from Create menu. Once the song is ready you may play it back in Power CD+G Player.

Custom singer announcements in Siglos Karaoke Professional

When you run your karaoke show using Siglos Karaoke Professional software, the program automatically creates singer announcement with information about song that will be sung next. If you go to Settings / KJ you will find Edit Singer Announcement Screen button, that opens a window to define what information about the next song will be displayed and how to present it.

Edit singer annoucement screen

You may adjust font and style of every text used in the window, change the location of these items, and pick the background that will be used. Changing the resolution can increase the quality of image (but may slow down the display process).

When you host a show for a long time, you have your regular customers. They often have their favorite songs, but also appreciate personal treatment from their karaoke host (may it be some extra information displayed, a star image, or even a photo of a singer). Siglos Karaoke Professional allows you to shine in this department by creating custom singer announcements for regular singers.

Creating personal announcement screen is very simple. First you need to display Singer Properties window for your regular singer (you may do this from Add Singer window, straight from the rotation window using Edit Singer Properties button or from Quick Singer window). In Singer Properties select Enable custom announcement screen and then click Edit. You will be taken to the same window that you use to edit general singer announcements, so you should be familiar with everything there. Once you are done and exit with OK, the settings will be stored in the database and used for the singer for all future songs.

If you later change your mind and decide to remove the custom announcement screen for the singer, you follow the same path and uncheck Enable custom announcement screen option. The personalized screen will still be kept, so you may switch it on again later.

How To Manage Rotation of Singers in Karaoke Software

Running a karaoke event is not easy. You need to make sure that everyone gets their turn to sing. In the past this was done with paper slips and smart ways of organizing them by karaoke hosts. Now we have powerful karaoke software like Siglos Karaoke Professional to make things go smooth and fair for everyone.

By default Siglos Karaoke Professional manages the singer rotation for you in a simplest manner possible. New singers are added to the end of the rotation, new requests for the singers already in the rotation are added after new singers. But sometimes you want to change this to make some manual adjustments. For instance your regular has to sing two songs, but wants to leave early. There are two ways to make this happen. You may either use default settings when adding singer to the queue and then use ⭐ button in the Rotation window to make him/her sing next.

Make singer next button in Rotation window

It will make the singer jump up in the queue after the current performer (or straight to the beginning of the queue if nobody is singing).

You may also control this when adding a new singer in Add Singer window. At the bottom of that window you will find a list of options that control the position of the new singer.

Rotation position options in Add Singer

So to make the singer go next you need to select After the current singer. You may also find Not sooner than […] helpful. It allows you to define how many singers already in the rotation need to sing before new singer gets on stage. This feature will be very useful in new singers join the party in the middle of the evening and you do not want to disturb the flow of the show.

Siglos gives you also the option to hand-pick the position of the new singer (ie. After John), which you may want to use if John’s wife is desperate to sing straight after her husband.

Organize songs in collections in Siglos Karaoke Professional software

Siglos Karaoke Professional has a database that can manage hundreds of thousands of songs in fast and easy manner. However sometimes you may want to organize them not only using provided search features, but by your own key. You may want to separate songs based on an artist, but what to do if you would like a group of songs by both Beatles and John Lennon? This comes especially handy if you are using a remote interface to provide automatic songbooks and request for your singers.

Collections in Siglos Karaoke Professional are a way to do this. This functionality allows to create unlimited categories by which you may sort your songs. All this comes in a simple to use package accessible from Songs database window.

Songs database window

The most forward way to create a new collection is to filter the songs you want it to contain and then use Add new button.

Add new song collection

Siglos Karaoke Professional will ask for a name of the collection you want to add and then will assign all filtered songs to the collection. The collections are available from the list, you may modify and edit them them as you wish.

Add visible songs to collection

In the example above I have filtered songs by John Lennon and then added them to Beatles collection using Add All Visible button.

Collections are saved in Siglos database, so if you need to change the computer all you have to do is copy the siglos.db file from Documents / My Karaoke folder.

Collections play special role when using the remote queue interface. More on this subject in the article to come.

Using custom values for Skip silence in Siglos Karaoke Professional

Our professional karaoke hosting software has an option to automatically detect and skip silence at the beginning and at the end of the song. This will reduce the dead air, skip over song titles, and credits page. All this is done automatically, the software detects when the music starts and jumps there.

There are songs that start with a lengthy instrumental introduction and while it is cool to listen to, you may want to skip them during performances. You could use automatic instrumental skip option, but you may also choose to use custom per song values for skip silence at the beginning.

One of the songs that are known for long instrumental beginning part is Money For Nothing by Dire Straits. The first step to deal with it will be to find the song in Songs Database.

Siglos Karaoke Professional song database

Once you have located the song you need to click Edit to open song properties editor.

Siglos Karaoke Professional Song Properties

As you can see the song uses global settings for silence detection. If you click Scan now button you will find what values will Siglos use when playing the song.

Siglos Karaoke Professional silence detection custom value

To modify the automatic start of the song you need to enter appropriate value in second into Custom field. Here I have instructed Siglos to skip 30 seconds from the beginning of the song, removing part of the intro. This value will be used every time the song is being played. To revert to the default settings you need to reopen Song Properties and switch back to Global settings.

Song Properties are also accessible through Edit song button in Song details window that can be opened for currently selected song on the rotation or playlist (there is Details button on the rotation window to open or hide Song details window).

What is multiplex audio and how to use it in Siglos Karaoke Player software

Most karaoke backing tracks contain instrumental part only. This is great while singing and performing, but sometimes it would be nice to have a guide to sing along with. Of course you can sing along to the original recording, however is happen that karaoke version differs from the source recording. Also if you are a karaoke host and you would like to help the singer that is struggling with a particular performance, you have an option to sing with them, but what if you cannot sing good enough? Multiplex audio comes to the rescue here. It is a special kind of a backing track that has vocals removed in one of the stereo channels and full vocals in the other. If you were using karaoke machines in the past, they all had balance know that would allow for adjustment of multiplex audio. But what to do nowadays, when all the karaoke is played from the computer with karaoke software like we make?

Siglos Karaoke Player/Recorder and Siglos Karaoke Professional karaoke software players both support multiplex audio. There is a slider on the main program window that works just as the balance know used to work in the karaoke machines.

Siglos Karaoke Player/Recorder main window

It is marked with red rectangle on the image above.

If your karaoke song contains multiplex audio, you can control it with this slider.

Mutliplex audio control in Siglos Karaoke Player/Recorder software works in all types of files, so you can play CD+G discs, MP3+G files, or video files, and you can use the multiplex audio feature on every one of them.

And this all does not stop here. Karaoke Sound Tools 3 can create a multiplex karaoke song from a regular recording. All you have to do is drop an audio MP3 file and Karaoke Sound Tools will remove the vocal part and then mix appropriately to create multiplex track.

Remove vocals from any song with Karaoke Sound Tools 3

Vocal removers have been present in previous versions of Karaoke Sound Tools and in Karaoke Creator product line, however the results varied depending on the quality of the recording and the mixing techniques used. With Karaoke Sound Tools 3 this is no longer an issue. We have incorporated powerful deep learning technology that now allows to make a perfect backing track from nearly all songs, regardless of where they come from. It even works with really old songs!

And more good news: using vocal remover in Karaoke Sound Tools 3 is as easy as it gets. There are no advanced settings, the software simply gets the job done.

So to remove a lead vocal from the song you need to open it in Karaoke Sound Tools 3. Either drag and drop or use Browse button. The program will analyze the song, it may take a second or two.

Karaoke Sound Tools 3 main window

Once the song is loaded and analyzed you may use Play result button to listen if the singing voice is really gone. In most cases it is.

You may also apply two additional effects to the processed song. Key changer allows to adjust the pitch of the song, so you can make it lower or higher to better suit your voice. You may also use Tempo changer to slow down or speed up the song.

Once you are happy with the results you are hearing, click Run button. Karaoke Sound Tools 3 will save the results as MP3 file (you can adjust the compression settings).

And as you have probably noticed, Karaoke Sound Tools 3 have two other processing modes: Merge that allows to combine several karaoke songs into one long medley, and Clip to remove silence from the song without breaking it.

Trial version is available for download so you can check the magic it does for yourself before making a purchase.

CD drive not visible in karaoke software on Windows 10 and 11 (disable ransomware protection)

If you are running Siglos Karaoke Player/Recorder, Power CD+G Burner or other karaoke software that allows CD reading or writing, you may encounter a nasty problem in latest versions of Windows 10 or 11 that results in CD drive not being visible or accessible. This would make playing, ripping and burning karaoke impossible. This is due to Windows being overprotective (which probably is a good thing) in its effort to block ransomware. Fortunately the solution is available if few simple steps.

If your drive is not listed in karaoke software, you need to disable ransomware protection for karaoke program that you are using. To do this follow these steps (screenshots are for Windows 11, but steps for Windows 10 are the same):

  1. Run Windows Security from Start menu
Run Windows Security from Start menu

2. Select Virus & threat protection and click Manage ransomware protection at the bottom

Open Manage ransomware protection

3. Click Allow an app through Controlled folder access

Click Allow an app through

You will be asked for a confirmation a this point.

4. Click Add an allowed app and choose Recently blocked apps

Add an allowed app

5. Click plus sign next to Siglos (or other karaoke software that you want to unblock)

Recently blocked apps

6. Siglos should disappear from the list

No recent blocks

And that is it — you are good to go. Windows will no longer block an access to CD drive and Siglos will play your CD+G discs again.

Happy singing!