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Karaoke Software Tip | Importing Karaoke Tracks Into Karaoki

PCDJ’s best karaoke software solution for professional KJs and hard-core enthusiasts is PCDJ Karaoki, a robust and feature packed karaoke application that’s now been available for purchase and download for 7 years. 

In this edition of “Tips and Tricks” we focus on importing your MP3+G, Zipped MP3+G and MP4 karaoke files into PCDJ Karaoki and explain what karaoke “naming conventions” are.

  1. MY LIBRARY: Creating A CaseMY Library PCDJ Karaoki
    Launch/Open PCDJ Karaoki.  Click on “My Library” – this is where all your own custom cases of karaoke music can be created, and where you would import your own karaoke music into PCDJ Karaoki. 
  2. ADD CASE:  Create Your First Karaoke Music Groupadd case PCDJ Karaoki
    Click “Add Case” in the bottom left corner of the Karaoki skin/interface.  Clicking Add Case will pull up a dialog box where you can type in a name of your choice. 
  3. NAME YOUR CASE:  Any Name Will Do, Your ChoicePCDJ Karaoki - Name CaseType in the name of your case and click “OK” to create it.  This will create the case as a subtab under “My Library
    Example:
    casehasbeencreated-image4
  4. ADD SONGS:  Now To Import Files Into Your Caseaddsongsscanfolder-image5Once again, in the bottom left hand corner of the PCDJ Karaoki karaoke software interface, click on “Add Songs” and select from the pop up menu “Scan Folder“.  This will bring up a “Browse For Folder” explorer window in the middle of PCDJ Karaoki. 

    Example: 

    browseforfolderwindow-image6
    From the “Browse For Folder” explorer tree view, you can navigate your hard drive or any connected hard drive to locate a folder (or select the drive letter itself if you wish to import the entire contents of the drive) that contains your karaoke music.  You only need to select the parent folder, as PCDJ Karaoki will import any song in any subfolder below the parent folder you’ve selected into your case.

  5.  SELECT THE KARAOKE FOLDER/DIRECTORY YOU WISH TO IMPORTselectfolderyouwanttoimport-image7
    Make sure to click on the folder (or drive) of music you wish to import into your case (again, Karaoki will automatically import any songs in subfolders below the parent directory you’ve selected).   Then click the “OK” button at the bottom of the “Browse For Folder” pop up explorer view. 
  6. IMPORT SCREEN:  Select The File Types You Want To Importimportscreen-image8 
    From the “Scan Files” pop-up menu you can select what file types you wish to import and more.  By default, both “Zip” and “MP3” are checked off.  These are standard karaoke file formats.  However, if you have MP4 karaoke files or other file formats displayed on the “Scan Files” menu, you can check those off as well.  

    I also highly recommend checking off “Only Add If Song Is Not In Case” — this means that if you re-scan a directory into a case that’s already been previously scanned in, only NEW files added to that directory/folder will be displayed.  If you do not check it, and scan the folder into a case again, you will get duplicates in your case. 

    Now, click “Import Now” to start scanning in your tracks from the selected directory/folder into your case.  If you have a lot of files, this may take a few minutes.  You will be presented with a counter on the “Scan Files” menu that will show you a real-time count of files as they are being imported. 

  7. NAMING CONVENTIONS:  Scan Songs Using “Naming Convention” or ID3 Tag Extractionnamingconventionyes-image9As soon as your music is finished importing in your case, you will be presented with a “Scan Case” Dialog box as pictured above. Click “Yes

    Why do you have to select a proper “naming convention“?  In the karaoke world, using file names are standard (instead of id3v2 tags or variations for DJ music). This is primarily due to the popularity of ZIP karaoke files (MP3+G files inside of a zip file), which do not support tags, only file names. All popular download sites, including our KaraokeLocker.com website, sell zip files utilizing file names. For this reason, you want to make sure your file names are conformed, or at least as much as possible.  So if you have “DiscID-trackID – Artist – Title” for instance, you want the same naming convention/file naming method for all your karaoke files. 

  8.  NAMING CONVENTIONS:  Selecting The Proper Naming ConventionSelectnamingconventionthatmatchesfiles-image10
    From the “Extraction Method” drop down box you want to select the naming convention that matches the way your file names are formatted.  I suggest opening up the directory/folder of karaoke music on your drive to view the file names there.  In my “Chartbuster Karaoke” folder as pictured above, my files are all labeled “Title – Artist” (with a space before and after the hyphen), so I will select that naming convention.  

    If you have files in folders that use different naming conventions, the best solution would be to create different cases in Karaoki for each different file naming method.  This way you can use a different “Extraction Method” for each case, allowing your song information to properly display in the Karaoki case/library (with Artist in Artist, and Title in Title etc)

    You can also use “Extract ID3 Tag“.  This is the last option in the “Extraction Method drop down menu.  This will only work with MP3 files that have ID3 Tags.  This feature was added mainly due to older karaoke software PCDJ produced that worked exclusively with ID3 tags, before using file names was the broadly adopted file naming method for karaoke music.  

    Once you’ve selected the proper naming convention from the “Extraction Method” drop down menu that mirrors your file names in the directory you’ve imported, click “Go”  — this will quickly rescan the case with the extraction method and if done properly, you should see your tracks in your case with Artist displayed in the Artist field, and Title in Title, etc.

    hitgo-image11

  9. What Your Finished Karaoke Case Should Look Like

artistinartisttitleintitle-image12

That’s It!  If you need additional help with importing your karaoke files into PCDJ Karaoki, please watch this “Introduction to PCDJ Karaoki” tutorial video:


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