Magic Sing Blog

Whenever I surf the net about karaoke, there’s always a CDG I see everywhere. ‘What does that mean?’ I often asked myself. And to answer the puzzle once and for all, I checked Wikipedia about this so-called CDG.
 
CDG actually means Compact Disc Graphics (also known as CD+Graphics) which is a special audio compact disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc. The disc can be played on a regular audio CD player, but when played on a special CD+G player, can output a graphics signal (typically, the CD+G player is connected to a television set or a computer monitor); these graphics are almost exclusively used to display lyrics on a television set for karaoke performers to sing along with.

Each of the 96 subchannel data bytes can be thought of as being divided into 8 bits. Each of these bits corresponds to a separate stream of information. These streams are called “channels”, and are labeled starting with the letter P, and so on.

Both the P and Q channels on a regular audio CD are used for timing information. They assist the CD player in tracking the current location on the disc, and to provide the timing information for the time display on the CD player. Note that same space is used for CD-Text as well.

Channel Q is used for control purposes of more sophisticated players. It contains position information the Media Catalog Number (MCN), and International Standard Recording Code (ISRC). The ISRC is used by the media industry, and contains information about the country of origin, the year of publication, owner of the rights, as well as a serial number, and some additional tags.

In the CD+G system, 16-color (4-bit) graphics are displayed on a raster field which is 300×216 pixels in size.

Among the consumer devices that play CD+G format CDs are the NEC TurboGrafx CD (a CD-ROM peripheral for the TurboGrafx 16) and Turbo Duo, the Philips CD-i, the Sega Saturn and Mega-CD (Sega CD in North America), the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, the Commodore Amiga CD32 and CDTV, and the Atari Jaguar CD (which was an attachment for the Atari Jaguar).

CD+G has had a resurgence of late, and is being used for CDs for karaoke systems, with the graphics used to display song lyrics.

That’s pretty technical, but it well answered my CDG question. (: Thanks Wikipedia!

There is a growing number of online karaoke sites nowadays, which fits for you if you are the timid and reserved kind who can’t sing in a public karaoke bar. In an online karaoke site, you have audience too, but virtual online audience who can rate you and tell if you have the potential star power. There is a trend that is observed to be occurring with the online karaoke sites, and new websites are arising swiftly on cyberspace. This happens to be the time of cyber karaoke!

Some very famous sites include kSolo. kSolo was obtained by Fox Interactive, which is a karaoke service that is generated by the user, with the use of a mic and the Internet connection. The visitors can browse music catalog, record, share and rate audio performances. There is a wide selection of genres, including kids’ songs, as well as a feature that recommends music based on other users’ recordings. Another is SingShot. I have mentioned SingShot before in my posts, particularly in the Sims on Stage entry, since SingShot is one of the most popular online karaoke sites in the Internet. You can record and post audio online, and users can mark their songs private or public, and can assign tags. Your recordings can also be embedded into your MySpace profiles and other sites, therefore letting individuals share their vocal talent with friends of their other online social networks. SingShot is also partnered with the online image host Photobucket, so photos and videos can as well be uploaded to go together with your audio. Another popular karaoke site is Bix. Like the other sites, you can sing and share recordings using the service. Bix has multiple talent contests, which includes comedy, dance, and beauty, among others. You can record and upload videos to the site as well. And get this, there are cash prizes for users and at present a spot in The Game’s next music video! If you’re the winner, you might be seeing yourself in a music vid! Bix also allows anyone to create their own contest. How about that. (: 

 Here’s a little game, to give you some karaoke fun! enjoy. (:

Karaoke Be a karaoke legend and sing to all your favourite songs!

Play this free game now!!

It has been recorded that karaoke originated in Kobe, Japan. But do you know that the Karaoke Sing Along System (SAS) as in the practical, versatile compact machine which slots in an amplifier speaker, one or two tape devices, optional radio tuner and microphone mixer with elements to augment one’s voice, like the echo or reverberation to build up an opera hall or a studio sound (ok breathe…) with the entire system enclosed in one cabinet casing, is invented by a Filipino? Yes Pinoys, the Karaoke Sing Along System is patented under Roberto del Rosario, a Filipino prodigy.

Bert del Rosario is an acknowledged inventor with more than twenty inventions patented to his name. Some of his noted patents include the Trebel Voice Color Coded (VCC) Sing Along CDs, the piano tuner’s guide, the piano keyboard stressing device, the voice color tape and the one-man-band (OMB). This one-man-band was later built up as the Sing-Along-System (SAS). The Karaoke Sing Along System was patented on 1975. His other inventions include the Golf car trailer and No look-up Device, which shows his leisure pursuit with golf.

Besides being a productive inventor, Bert is also a flourishing businessman and a gifted musician. He is the president of the Trebel Music Corporation and plays various instruments. He learned to play musical instruments without formal lessons, like the piano, accordion and drums. He’s actually a management graduate at the Far Eastern University, which strikes us remarkable that he has made more than twenty inventions without a degree in engineering or even a science course. Talk about born talent!

I read about him saying, “Be observant. Be creative. Most of all, work hard.” It takes a passion for something to create something out of nothing. Like his passion for music which allowed him to learn instruments solely on his own, and later create things that would be of benefit to other music enthusiasts and experts alike.

See? That’s Roberto del Rosario. Way to go Bert!

Karaoke is “kara” and “oke” in Japanese. Kara comes from “karappo” meaning empty, and oke comes from “okesutura” meaning orchestra. Commonly, a song when recorded has vocals and accompaniment, but music tapes with only the accompaniment recorded were named “karaoke.”

Today, this Japanese word is a Japanese word no more. Take a look at the most renowned of English dictionaries, The Oxford English Dictionary, and there you’ll see your favorite piece of entertainment listed. From the typical kind of entertainment for Japanese business people dropping to karaoke bars after work to have some drink and unwind while singing karaoke songs, now karaoke has been entertaining people all around the world since its invention twenty years ago.

According to karaoke history, the use of karaoke began at a snack bar in Kobe City. The story began when a strolling guitarist could not come to play at the bar because of illness, so the bar owner arranged accompaniment tape recordings, and the singers at the bar enjoyed singing to the tapes. This is only a legend though, but it might have been indeed the beginning of karaoke. Since then, karaoke has been commercialized and has become popular all over Japan.

Moving on to karaoke’s history, it was born in a night amusement quarter at the end of the high economic growth period in Japan. Before that, the clientele were accustomed to listening to famous songs via wire broadcasting, asking for their favorite songs by telephone, and the wire broadcasting company would put the songs on the air. The system like such continued for quite a while. Then again, it was not natural for many Japanese who like singing to only listen to other people sing. There karaoke entered the scene. Holding a microphone and singing a song to the accompaniment of an “orchestra,” they can feel like a professional singer. If the other customers as listeners applause for their performance, there’s the extra satisfaction they get. Karaoke has thus enthused people’s desire to sing. It also served as a pick-me-up tonic in removing stress to those business people and corporate men. As a result, karaoke immediately spread from Kansai (the region of its origin) to all over Japan… and to the rest of the world.

Do you know that karaoke has its own competition that covers contestants across the globe? It’s karaoke world championships!

This competition originated in Finland in 2003 with seven countries. The international karaoke competition features almost thirty countries around the world! It works like any other global competition, where there is a national contest initially held in each competing country, and the winner in each nation will represent their country in the world championships. Talk about how far karaoke has taken you, as far as the entire planet!

The titles to vie are Male Karaoke World Champion and Female Karaoke World Champion. The host country of this world championship has been in the country of its origin, in Finland. But this year is the first time since the birth of the contest that another country other than Finland has hosted the championships. It was held in Thailand last   September 2007.

The participating countries in the Karaoke World Championships are Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan Republic, Canada, China, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Macao, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, and United States Of America.

The champions have had their own chance of fame and recognition as winners of Karaoke World Championships. During the tsunami fundraising concert in Bangkok, Thailand in December 2005, the top five male and female champions were given invitation to sing for the Princess of Thailand. The concert was broadcasted all over Thailand and raised funds for the tsunami victims of that previous year, in 2004. Also, just this April 2007, the winner of the Finnish version of the UK show Pop Idol, Ari Koivunen, happens to be the 2005 Finnish National Karaoke World Champion and the 3rd Place Karaoke World Champion in 2005.

Karaoke World Championships is without a doubt a solid venue for singers’ dreams to come true!

Karaoke becoming a widespread phenomenon has penetrated different aspects of entertainment, including video games, in mobile phones, computers and the Internet.

In video games, there is the Karaoke Revolution by Konami, which is produced for PlayStation2.  This console was made available in North America in 2003 and was finally released for the Microsoft Xbox in late 2004. This console works similarly like a normal karaoke, where a player sings the song with the lyrics on screen. The player is given a score based on rhythm, timing and pitch. Karaoke Revolution gained Karaoke Revolution Vol. 2, Karaoke Revolution Vol. 3, Karaoke Revolution Party Edition and CMT Presents Karaoke Revolution: Country. There is also SingStar created by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. This video game is especially well-liked in Europe and Australia.

You can also enjoy karaoke on your mobile phone! With the use of Java Midlet where a text file having the lyrics and Midi file having the music are run. Karaokini is one popular mobile karaoke provider.

In computers and the Internet, there had been plenty of softwares and websites that were created in line with karaoke success. There are computer softwares where you can play karaoke songs in your personal computer, and in the Internet, there are sites where you can sing and the entire world can listen as your audience and rate your song. There are a lot of online karaoke communities like singsnap.com, bix.com, singshot.com and ksolo.com.

In the East and Southeast side of Asia, video CDs became a widely popular means of entertainment, owing to the fame of karaoke. And they are continually selling up to these days! Even with the advent of DVDs and other high-tech entertainment bits and pieces, VCD players with karaoke functions are still part of the people’s entertainment systems.

Indeed, you can go where karaoke takes you, even in cars! In China, there has been a car furnished with a karaoke machine! Talk about karaoke transport!

How many times have you seen karaoke as part of the cast in movies? If you’re a karaoke fan, you know when your favorite singing gadget has appeared as a film prop. Like in my My Best Friend’s Wedding, when Julia Robert’s character wanted to embarrass Cameron Diaz’ character in front of everyone, including obviously the fiancé (Dermot Mulroney’s character) by pushing her to sing which she knows the fiancée can’t, with karaoke of course as our valuable prop. In turn, the planned turned out the opposite, with the fiancée’s croaking voice becoming adorable to the audience. We all know what happened after that. Actually, that part of the movie was pretty memorable to me, since the first time I sang with a karaoke in a big class party, my classmate said my voice was similar to that of Cameron’s character, which also, such croaky voice became adorable to them. Haha.

How about in High School Musical, where Zac Ephron and Vannessa Hudgens’ characters first met in a party as randomly chosen guests to sing a duet, making initially visible their chemistry for singing and visible our valuable prop once more! Until they met again in school and tried out for the school play. There are in the list, like in Jim Carrey’s The Cable Guy, Lost in Translation, and Rush Hour 2, where Chris Tucker had his own karaoke act, including outmaneuvering another karaoke singer. Duets is also another film featuring karaoke as the central theme. Jackpot, also featured karaoke bars as locations where the lead character toured, taking chances to fame as a country singer.

Then there’s also the 2006 independent film “The Karaoke King” and the Thai comedy-movie Fun Bar Karaoke, where the lead actress’ father fell in love with a karaoke bar hostess who’s the girlfriend of a mobster. A hitman is dispatched to kill the father, and the lead actress ends up falling in love with the hitman. There is also the documentary “Karaoke Fever” featuring karaoke contestants. In the documentary they go after six aspirants as they vie for one of the coveted spaces in America’s largest singing contest, the Karaoke fest. Competing for fifteen thousand dollars and a recording contract, they are not only singing for the audience’s enjoyment, they are also singing for their lives.

Wow, look! She’s a star, the karaoke!

A piece of trivia for karaoke lovers:
Did you know that famous Hollywood stars, multi-awarded music artists, and even royal persons in monarchy have a penchant for karaoke? This amazing invention has been entertaining people all around the world, from top to bottom of the social hierarchy.

While scanning the newspaper the other day, I noticed the banner of an entertainment article which read, The Karaoke’s International Appeal. Indeed, karaoke’s appeal through the years has been large-scale, making it a global entertainer.

In Hollywood, one of the gorgeous faces of today enjoys throwing karaoke parties for her Hollywood friends in her house. Penelope Cruz does karaoke parties at home. She even says everybody arrives and they would tell her they are not going to sing, but they end up fighting for the microphone. Even Oscar winning actor Nicolas Cage winds down and relaxes while singing karaoke. He would even invite cast and crew when shooting a movie to karaoke joints.

Black Eyed Peas’ female stellar Fergie also includes karaoke as her favorite hobbies together with her boyfriend, besides fishing and cooking. Her boyfriend owns a karaoke machine at home and he would sing Total Eclipse of the Heart untiringly.

When Prince Harry was to be announced that he would be sent to Iraq, he had a karaoke spree on that eve of announcement, reportedly singing Don McLean’s American Pie and Bryan Adam’s Summer of ’69.  Even though his would-be sending off was deferred because of him being a huge security risk, at least he had some fun doing karaoke!

Even in this side of the globe, celebrities enjoy karaoke joints together with their famous friends. Popular karaoke hubs are teemed with well-known personalities singing alongside regular people. Karaoke certainly has the mass appeal, and it proved it even has the celebrity appeal. Talk about universal charm!

If you are a fan of karaoke singing, you’ll enjoy this one. I just found out an online karaoke site where you can select from a broad variety of songs and sing along using the microphone in your PC. The songs can be recorded and uploaded for your family and friends, the online singing community or the whole cyberspace to check out.

The site comes by the name Sims On Stage, a free interactive online website based on SingShot Media, a karaoke community created by Electronic Arts.

In the Sims on Stage, songs ranging from pop to rock to country are available in the site. A window shows the lyrics while the music plays, like the usual karaoke set-up. The songs you record and upload can even be commented and rated.

You can even do more than recording, watching and sharing karaoke songs in the Sims on Stage. You can also share stories, comedy acts, open-mic materials, and other original ingenious stuff you personally create. And you can post your work on blogs and social network sites like MySpace or Friendster. There’s also a “Movie Mashup” where the members can produce their own original movies using contents of The Sims.

We all know The Sims as one of the biggest, warmest and most original communities in the globe. From video games to the online community, The Sims is well-liked and been around in the interactive entertainment for years now. Now The Sims on Stage adds to The Sims’ array of fun!

If karaoke singing is one of your best source of fun and entertainment, like having you and your Magic Sing karaoke microphone always up and running, this online karaoke site can add up to the enjoyment. The sign-up is easy, so you can readily share your karaoke on stage!

Familiar with local singing karaoke shows where contestants try to fill in the missing lyrics? America has one too, a music game show in which contestants “sing in the blanks” when presented with partial song lyrics. Holly Cruikshank is the Honey Bee in the show, Tom Sartori played himself for seven episodes and its host is Joey Fatone.

It’s a one hour game show, also known as ‘The Great American Singing Bee.’ According to a reviewer in one site I saw, the show’s better than she thought it would be. It’s creative, and liked the fact that it is more like a game show than a competition. Contestants are changed every week, which makes the show more exciting than just seeing the same people over and over. It seems to be set up pretty good as well, and the songs are actually well known, and commonly confused songs, instead of songs that no one in their right mind would go.

With this NBC’s reality series doing so well in the ratings, the network has decided to renew the show for another run during the fall television season. The premiere drew about 13 million viewers, while the second episode earned a 6.8/11 ratings share. The karaoke competition will remain on the network’s Tuesday night lineup when it comes in the fall. The Singing Bee starts off each week with six contestants, who then try to advance to the next round by completing songs played on the show.  The first four who provide the right set of lyrics move to the next round, where they go against each other in pairs.  The two contestants from the winning pair then go head-to-head in the championship round.  Whoever wins the championship round gets the chance to earn big money during the Final Countdown.