Stereo tracks and Vocal tracks...?

[GordonF]

I find that CDGs I make with KHP sometimes are too loud or too quiet when played at the locak Karaoke bar, but sound just right when played on my PC.

I found this in Sound Choice's FAQ:

http://www.soundchoice.com/faq/2.20.shtml

This suggests that Karaoke players only play both channels when they enable any vocal track on the CDG disk, essentially they have the vocal on one stereo channel, and the music on the other. This suggests all CDG music is mono, so if I play a stereo CD in a Karaoke machine I will only ever hear one channel (!) No wonder some tracks would be quieter than others. And I thought I was missing some sound last night when I played a heavily stereo-ized track.

So when I make CDG tracks, should I make them mono? Or if I make them stereo, which channel, left or right, does the music belong on?

[admin]

The CDG spec is stereo audio, just like Audio CDs.

What a particular manufacturer chooses to place on the left and right tracks is their decision. Anything goes. To have music and voice on left (for example) and music only on right is one way some manufacturers use. Then, muting the left track and playing the right bridged to both channels would only play music.

I expect the problem you are hearing might be the control settings on the Karaoke player at the bar. I expect a "Vocal Eliminate" button might play only one track and duplicate it to play on both tracks (called bridged output). The next time you are at that bar, check with the operator to see what controls are there that might affect which channels play.

Another point we wondered about is if the bar's player is mono (one speaker) or stereo (two speakers)? If it is mono, playing a true stereo tracked song would sum the channels (with some control settings) and thus make the sound louder.

[Scoob7809]

This brings up a good point. I used a third party software to reduce vocals from an existing song. I plugged it into KHP, and as said before, sounded fine on the PC. When played on a "deck" CDG player, the music doesn't sound the same. Maybe KHP could introduce a "normalize" function into the "Import Music" section of the software, kind of like a standardization of sorts.

If the vocally reduced track really does reside on a mono channel, then in theory could be duplicated (if on the left channel, for instance) to the opposite channel, making both channels contain the vocally reduced track. Another option to add to KHP, perhaps?

[admin]

All vocal eliminators will reduce the audio amplitude. If a song is not lower in amplitude, you have not removed much with the vocal eliminator.

That type of function does not belong in Karaoke Home Producer. When the audio is brought in, it should already be processed.

I will make a note that we should consider adding a Normalize processing pass into Vogone, where it belongs.

[Scoob7809]

Thanks for the reply admin. Does Vogone adjust for this loss in amplitude? I tried to run the reduced track through an EQ adding amplitude, and that seemed to work well. Using the EQ also allows adjustment of the sound (i.e. bass, mids, etc).

Still tweaking.. KHP is one of the best programs I've seen in a while!

[admin]

Thanks for the kind words on KHP Scoob! It cost a fortune to develop and make work on all Karaoke Players!

Vogone currently does not have amplitude correction adjustment. As indicated above, I have added that to our "specs" list. I don't know if this will be added to Vogone 1, or added into Vogone 2 when we do that. I expect it will be in V2.

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Admin note 07-31-01 Vogone 2 has a Output Adjust amplitude control and VU meter.
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We are trying to finish KeyRite for CDG file processing. Once we have that fully released, we'll look at Vogone 2.

[GordonF]

Now that I own a couple of Sound Choice disks I should have posted what I found about demonstration tracks and how they're used... also, how you can make a KHP track with a demo vocal.

CDG players that support enable/disable of vocals and vocal assist rely on having the music and bkg vocals on the LEFT channel and the main vocal on the RIGHT channel. When you play a vocal demo track with the vocals turned off (or when using vocal assist) the music will be mono. The player should either play the left channel through both channels OR the two get mixed on output and you get mono sound anyway (even if the track is stereo without a vocal track).

So... to make a CDG track with KHP that supports a vocal track and vocal assist, etc, mix the two stereo channels into the left channel, record yourself singing on the right channel (many good recorders let you record to one channel only) and use that finished track in your KHP project.

[danny_g]

Sound Choice recorded Yesterday the way the beatles did and on every Karaoke player I've played their version in except for on the pc the music started late because the music was on one channel and the players only played the other in "stereo" mode.
It isn't the software it's the hardware causing the problem because in my sony Cd player which I hook a cdg decoder into the music comes out fine. It is a poroblem with cdg karaoke players only.

[Corbin]

Way to go Danny G!
Couldn't have put it better myself.

Corbin
SLC-UT