Latest revision as of 17:33, 14 June 2010

How to rip Karaoke CDs to computer files for free

Background

Karaoke CDs contain CD+G tracks that show up as regular CD tracks (*.cda) in the PC, and can play on any CD player. However, they have embedded graphics that will show up if a karaoke machine player is attached to a TV or played with karaoke software such as Karafun.

It is possible to convert (for free!) the CD+G tracks to MP3+G files (paired mp3 and cdg files) that are both named and tagged.

Software

1. Karaoke song lists

   Software that will show song names from karaoke CDs: http://www.airwer.com/

   allows searching Karaoke CD database; not necessary but might be helpful

2. Rippers
   1. Free: MP3+G Toolz 4 http://www.activeaspsoftware.net/default.aspx?p=home

      rips the CD+G tracks from a karaoke CD to *.bin files (contains the mp3 track and the cdg graphics track)

      1. Or Convert CDG to Audio+G

   2. Pay: Power CD+G Burner http://www.powerkaraoke.com/

      Will convert directly to MP3+G; trialware version only rips the first part of the track

3. Perl
   1. I used ActivePerl 5.10.0
   2. Uses the following modules:
      • MP3::Tag
      • File::Basename
      • Getopt::Std
4. My scripts for renaming and tagging files
   1. cpname.pl
   2. mp3tag.pl

Ripping

1. Rip using MP3+G

   This will create a set of complete bin files that have bunk names.

   1. Right-click the CD in Windows Explorer and select MP3+G Toolz and Convert CDG to bin
   2. Save to any directory
2. Rip using the trialware version of Power CD+G Burner.

   This will create truncated bin files that have good names.

   1. Make sure to select BIN as the output format.
   2. Use {Album} - {TrackNumber} - {Song} as the output filename mask. This will assure that the output bin files have good names for later use
   3. Save to any directory that is different from the one used in the first rip.
3. Rename the files with bad names (from MP3+G) using the good names (from Power CD+G) using the script cpname.pl.

   Syntax: cpname.pl -s [sourcdir] -d [destdir]

4. Delete the truncated files from Power CD+G Burner.
5. Rip the now properly named and complete bin files to Audio + G using MP3+G Toolz
   1. Right-click the dir and select Convert bin to Audio+G.

   Now we have complete named mp3 and cdg tracks that can be played directly in Karafun

6. Tag the mp3 files so they show up with title/artist/album etc.
   1. The mp3tag.pl script will take the file names and update the MP3 tags.
   2. The write_mp3_songlist.pl writes 2 lists, one sorted by song, the other by artist into a file.
   3. Sometimes files have tags but bad filenames. The tag2filename.pl script will suck the tags and rename the files.
7. Done!