Karaoke Forums

Before I get the standard response of, "You need a drive that will play CDG and the proper software" I can say that I do have a Plextor 8/4/32A that should work and did work in the past. The thing is, I'm not even really looking to backup my own disc. I just want to play them on my PC because I bought an Audigy 2ZS Platinum sound card so I could record some stuff to CD (people singing that is and not the CDG itself). I downloaded Winamp and other software but nothing worked. Finally I started trying out several CDGs and found a couple that it could recognize and they played on winamp (with plugin). What I'm wondering is if there is a new copyright protection on the majority of my karaoke CDGs or what? I've tried several Top Tunes and a couple of Chart Buster CDGs and the PC flat out won't recognize the disc is even there. I can't even play the songs without the words! If this is indeed the way it is going to be then maybe I'm better off taking my soundcard back since I can't even play my karaoke CDGs on my PC. I would appreciate any advice. If I can fix the problem by buying another CD burner then I might do that if I can do it cheap. I really don't want to spend $200 to replace a burner that works fine other than this. By the way, I'm running XP Pro. Thanks in advance.[/b]

XP Pro may not like such an old burner or the burner is too old to have XP drivers- it may work or it may not all the time (welcome to windows XP)... a new 52X Plextor will cost ya 60-90 bucks depending where ya get it... for what you paid for the Audigy soundcard it would be worth to upgrade to a new plextor... the winamp plugin may not recognize every karaoke disk.. I haven't tried to play a cdg in my burner cuz I just rip them to my hard drive in mp3+g format and eliminate the need to play them in the traditional way... there are other software cdg players for your PC available so just look for them... good luck - tig

I have xp pro and the exact same drive, so i don't think that is your problem. More likely it has to do with your ASPI drivers. If you are using the adaptec drivers give it up, they don't work right. I had to fight this battle and I tell you what you need to do is get the Nero ASPI drivers. Go to Nero dot com and download and replace the Adaptec ASPI and yahtzee. Anyway That's what I did, give it a shot..

Thanks or the quick replies. I don't want to buy another drive unless I have to.

pkircher-

First I downloaded forceaspi1.8 and used it to update all of the aspi drivers. That didn't help. I then downloaded and copied the new Nero WNASPI32.DLL file in the windows/system32 dir as well as my Nero directory which prompted me to copy over the previous files.
Still no luck. When I put in these CDGs the Plextor spins the CD but never acknowledges that there is any media in the player. I can't access the drive whatsoever. Now, like I said before I can put in a few of the cheaper off brand CDGs and it reads them in as CDA files but I figure if I wanted to back them up that it would work with CDRWIN. This still doesn't help me in simply accessing my main CDGs so I can view them on my PC. I'm at a loss. I used this same drive and viewed a friend's CDGs on it and even backed up one for him well over a year ago. I'm not sure if I was running XP Pro at that time. Any other thoughts?

On the adaptec web site download page search for aspi32 find aspi_v471.exe download and run the aspi checker......

OK here's what I would do at this point.

1. Remove and reinstall winamp
2. Go into you device manager and uninstall the cd drive. Reboot and let the computer redetect the drive.
3. let me know if they didn't work. I'm gonna think on this some more now that I have a little more info.

Oh yeah this is kinda dumb but try one of those drive cleaner thingys and see if that helps.

Good Luck

Karyoker-

Yep, I've used the ASPI checker (2 of them) and the drivers are indeed changed.

pkircher-
I had done that once before but I figured what the heck. I uninstalled and reinstalled winamp, uninstalled the drive and restarted. It installed the drive with the proper ASPI drivers (used the ASPI checker).
I still have the same problem but have noticed something odd. OK, I can play All Hits CDGs and Chartbuster CDGs but not Sound Choice or Top Tuns (90% of my collection). The odd thing is that when I found I couldn't see anything on the drive with these two CDG types I did a right click on the drive. It had an option to "extract audio". When I selected this it brought up Plextor's Audio Capture and listed the songs which it was ready to extract to WAV files. Now I know that one program can at least see the songs by doing this. Where I go from here I'm not sure. Thanks for everyone's help. Hopefully I'll find out what to do next. I might try removing Audio Capture 2000. It is possible that it is conflicting with the other programs. Any other ideas?

do a full install of windows!! You might have other conflicts going!

SOMEtimes you have to go back to the beginning!

Yeah I'm gonna have to go with knight on this one. I can't think of any reason one would work and not the other. There must be something strange conflicting.

I'll do that this evening and get back with the results. I removed that program (Plextor Audio Capture) and reinstalled everything else again with no luck. Without Audio Capture I have no way to access the CDGs at all. I work as Tech Support but don't deal with CD burning issues that much. Even without having that much to do with the burners I know that Windows is flaky enough to have to reboot and even reinstall stuff for unknown reasons. Oh well, I just hope that reloading the software will work. I'm assuming I can do another install and it will retain all of my other settings. I have a VPN and tons of other stuff set up so I don't want to start from scratch and reload everything unless I have to. That would take a LONG while to do. Thanks agian for the help. I'll post back up after I've reloaded the OS.

The problem with reloading windows over itself to keep your settings is that sometimes it's those settings that are screwing you up. I'd say go ahead and try but without wiping your harddrive clean first there is a good chance you may still be stuck.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. Sometimes you can fix problems that way but much of the time you have to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. The problem is that I do my business work on the same PC so I don't want to screw everything up on the day that my manager is leaving (today) and we will be short staffed. So, I may delay this till the following weekend. Well, I do have my laptop that I could get functioning perfectly for work and then I would be free to screw up my PC settings all I want. Hehehe, yeah.. that's it.. yeah.... *devious laugh* Ok, so I'm losing it.

I have another option for you. You could buy an external drive enclosure that will make the cdr either usb, firewire, or both and then use it on both machines. That's what I ended up doing with mine. I use a laptop for gigs and that way if people bring their own disks that they want to use It's no problem.

Winamp will not play a multisession disk like the SC & TT. You'll need a software like Microstudio to import or what I'm using, CDG Ripper.

If you are looking for a better freeware to play your mp3+g once in you HD, let me suggest Karawin which also plays them directly from the cd-rom!! This software uses THE best audio engine (Bass Audio) & also has the ability to record your vocal only coming from where ever you wish!

Winamp has everything except the ability to read multisession disk and it also has the worst audio engine in the industry!

Good Luck!

Thanks for all your help you guys. I loaded the OS totally seperate on my second HD and I still couldn't get the CDGs to work with Winamp and the CDG plugin (which works for some CDGs). I looked back here and saw Micky's post so I thought, "What have I got to lose?" I downloaded Microstudio and CHA CHING! It works like a charm. Now I'll delete the second OS I have set up. I should have tested this software in the beginning but thoughts kept running through my mind of how easily this worked like a year or so ago and I didn't remember having to have that software package. Anyway, the demo version works. Now I just have to decide if I want that or another karaoke package like CDG Ripper. I don't want to buy both. Thanks a TON!

JMan,
a lot of people use microstudio to host karaoke shows. mainly the ones who havent tried hoster. But if you are wanting to rip cdg's to a small file and use them for karaoke Hoster is the way to go. It compresses the file on the harddrive in a .kma format VS a mp3+g format and an added benefit. it does your songbook for you also.

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I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

Have you tested Karawin Pro? This software reads directly from the cd-rom or burner & it will soon have a cdg extractor with a web database!!

Hoster is a great software but it's design for KJ's, it's expensive, it's limited because it only supports the Plextor drives and it uses the wma format & not the mp3+g (for now).

You want my opinion? Get CDG Ripper (comes with data base) so this way you'll have your songs in your hard drive in mp3+g or wave+g and you can download Karawin for free to play them!! You'll get the best sound with this software still for less than Micro!!

PS- Make sure to get the latest Lame encoder from their website when you extract to mp3+g, nothing will play better than this encoder!

Good Luck!