Hello peeps.
I'm looking at moving back to karaoke, and rather than buy a dedicated machine (although was very impressed with the new all in one Numark machine at PLASA), I am looking at adding a karaoke decoder to my existing "spare" CDN22.
They seem to be about £50 on ebay. But are they any good? Do they work reliably??
And will it work with a CDN22?
My main deck is Citronic CD3 and it wont work with that because it's anti-shock, but the CDN22 isn't, and the websites seem to say it will work with "any non anti-shock CD player with digital out".
Anyone comment please??
I all ready have a Mackie DX6 (I think) mixer, with built in effects etc, so all I am looking for is something to actually play the discs....
PS. If anyone has a 5U case going cheap....???
Full Version: Karaoke Decoders
|
|
|
The KD-1 works well in all but one situation - and you've already got the details on that - it wont work with CD-decks that have Anti-shock - the reason for this is that Anti-shock only buffers/stores the music data, not the sub-code layer with the CD-G/Karaoke information on it.
Some cd-players have a on/off feature on their "Digital out" socket, which disables the anti-shock whilst the digital out socket is on. Numark confirmed that some of their older Axis range had this feature - giving you "best" of both worlds - eg: Anti-shock while the dancefloor's bouncing Vs Digital Out whilst there's just one or two people on stage standing rigidly still in-front of the Lyrics screen and mic stand.
The only downsides which I've heard about the KD-1 was that it didn't like a "cheap'n'cheerful" lead being used to connect the digital in/outs (you'd need a fairly decent digital lead, and secondly, that the KD-1 didn't like driving more than one or two monitors for the graphics - eg: you couldnt run 3 or 4 monitors simultaneously, without a booster.
Some cd-players have a on/off feature on their "Digital out" socket, which disables the anti-shock whilst the digital out socket is on. Numark confirmed that some of their older Axis range had this feature - giving you "best" of both worlds - eg: Anti-shock while the dancefloor's bouncing Vs Digital Out whilst there's just one or two people on stage standing rigidly still in-front of the Lyrics screen and mic stand.
The only downsides which I've heard about the KD-1 was that it didn't like a "cheap'n'cheerful" lead being used to connect the digital in/outs (you'd need a fairly decent digital lead, and secondly, that the KD-1 didn't like driving more than one or two monitors for the graphics - eg: you couldnt run 3 or 4 monitors simultaneously, without a booster.
It depends on how much karaoke you are doing and how seriously you take it.
I have had an Essential Karaoke Twinology for years, basically the same thing, in fact probably exactly the same thing but rebadged.
Gary's point about a high quality lead is well made. It DOES count. Doesn't have to be amazing, just not the B-Tech red & white leads or the type that come thrown in with a cd player for free.
What you will find though is that if you own legal discs the cost of a real karaoke machine starts to become minimal in comparison to the cost of the disc library. Real machines have a lot more facilities, read faster and put fewer strange black blotches on the screen.
If all you are doing is buying the Bassline 6 pack for parties and offering it to people without really pushing karaoke, it is a fine option.
What I found was that because I was not a frustrated singer pretending to be a karaoke host, people started to enjoy the karaoke and started wanting more. Then I had to treat it more professionally and buy a proper machine. (A Soundlab! One of the few Soundlab products I own! Eeek!).
One thing I found about the Twinology. It doesn't get on well with cheap radio mikes.
It introduces an amazing amount of interference to the cheap "throwaway" radio mikes I handed out to singers. The Numark CDN25+G doesn't do that, nor does any other real karaoke machine.
There is a lot more to the anti-shock thing than most people realise. Contacting the tech support of various companies does NOT yield thorough answers as their staff are not properly briefed on this aspect of their machines.
Eventually all this anti-shock/digital out/twinology compatibility business was explained to me by someone not involved in the disco field. The disco manufacturers buy in chipsets from Chinese companies. The Chinese companies are very dynamic and will change where they licence the chipset designs from in a heartbeat.
This means that anti-shock/digital out/twinology compatibility can vary not just from machine to machine but even from production run to production run. No one really knows what is going on.
In short if you have an anti-shock machine, test it with the converter. That's the best advice I can give.
I still say it would be a great idea to have a machine that has anti-shock that does not strip out the subcode that Gary is talking about (possible and some Numark and Skytec machines at least), AND that has digital out WITH DSP effects (like the Denon machines). Technically, this IS possible, but no single machine that I have come across does it.
Of course this is far too good an idea to actually ever happen!
I have had an Essential Karaoke Twinology for years, basically the same thing, in fact probably exactly the same thing but rebadged.
Gary's point about a high quality lead is well made. It DOES count. Doesn't have to be amazing, just not the B-Tech red & white leads or the type that come thrown in with a cd player for free.
What you will find though is that if you own legal discs the cost of a real karaoke machine starts to become minimal in comparison to the cost of the disc library. Real machines have a lot more facilities, read faster and put fewer strange black blotches on the screen.
If all you are doing is buying the Bassline 6 pack for parties and offering it to people without really pushing karaoke, it is a fine option.
What I found was that because I was not a frustrated singer pretending to be a karaoke host, people started to enjoy the karaoke and started wanting more. Then I had to treat it more professionally and buy a proper machine. (A Soundlab! One of the few Soundlab products I own! Eeek!).
One thing I found about the Twinology. It doesn't get on well with cheap radio mikes.
It introduces an amazing amount of interference to the cheap "throwaway" radio mikes I handed out to singers. The Numark CDN25+G doesn't do that, nor does any other real karaoke machine.
There is a lot more to the anti-shock thing than most people realise. Contacting the tech support of various companies does NOT yield thorough answers as their staff are not properly briefed on this aspect of their machines.
Eventually all this anti-shock/digital out/twinology compatibility business was explained to me by someone not involved in the disco field. The disco manufacturers buy in chipsets from Chinese companies. The Chinese companies are very dynamic and will change where they licence the chipset designs from in a heartbeat.
This means that anti-shock/digital out/twinology compatibility can vary not just from machine to machine but even from production run to production run. No one really knows what is going on.
In short if you have an anti-shock machine, test it with the converter. That's the best advice I can give.
I still say it would be a great idea to have a machine that has anti-shock that does not strip out the subcode that Gary is talking about (possible and some Numark and Skytec machines at least), AND that has digital out WITH DSP effects (like the Denon machines). Technically, this IS possible, but no single machine that I have come across does it.
Of course this is far too good an idea to actually ever happen!
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.