Karoke DVD player woes

[fmctm1sw]

I picked up a karoake DVD player last week. I can't seem to get enough volume out of the microphone. You sing but can't hear your voice over the music. I either need to make the microphone louder or the music quieter (cheaply). Surely this is not an uncommon occurance?

[WesleyHester]

Please give player name and model. Also information about how you get into "karaoke" mode on it.

[Richard_G]

It will depend what microphone is intended to be used with the player and what you are actually using. It may be that it is designed for a professional type moving coil microphone and you are trying to use an electret (such as what is used on a computer) which needs to be powered.

[fmctm1sw]

It's a Deawoo 8500 (or 8600?). I bought a fairly decent microphone separately. Same kind I see on ebay "karaoke microphone." It just seems to load up karoake DVD automatically, I didn't do anything to activate it. I fooled around with all the settings too...

[WesleyHester]

Info below based on Daewoo DVD5900 player manual PDF downloaded from Daewoo USA:

First, to get the microphone sound out to your receiver or television, you will need to be using the RCA L/R (white/red) connections. Even if you are using the optical or coaxial cable for digital sound for DVD movies, you will still need to hook up the analog audio outputs for the microphone sound. This is pretty standard with all types of these players.

The vocal assist button on the remote is for VCDs and other discs that have the vocals in one channel and the music in the other. Pressing the vocal assist button during playback of such discs switches between left only, right only and stereo.

Just FYI but looking at screen shots of this player, it is based on a ESS chipset. This is good since I have 2 or 3 karaoke players that share chipset made by ESS.

The manuals for "these players" (read not just Daewoo) are usually pretty bad and I must say this one is one of the baddest ones I've seen. It's only 10 pages (at least the download version) and seems to stop suddenly without finishing.

However, looking at the screen shot of the Setup Menu (which is NOT fully explained in the manual) there is an Audio Setup option.

Press Setup on the Remote to access the SETUP MENU

Use the Arrow Up/Down keys to highlight AUDIO SETUP

Press PLAY/SELECT on the Remote to select it.

At the SPDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) OUTPUT option, select OFF (you'll have to turn in back "on" to SPDIF/RAW to use your digital connection again after karaoke use).

The Daewoo doesn't appear to have a KARAOKE SETUP option.

Of course make sure the mic volume on the front faceplate of the player is turned up.

Most of my karaoke players have either a Karaoke Mode in the setup menu, Key control on the remote, a mic button or something to start karaoke/microphone and I do have one I can just plug the mic in and go (with the SPDIF set to OFF).

The manual refers to echo but not key control. Maybe try pressing the left/right remote keys when a CD+G/VCD disc is playing.

Try anything to get the microphone to operate. Let me know what you find out about this player.

[WesleyHester]

Daewoo DVD5900 Manual I Was Going By

[fmctm1sw]

Very nice.. I'll look back into it soon... Thanks..

[Manokat]

Info below based on Daewoo DVD5900 player manual PDF downloaded from Daewoo USA:

First, to get the microphone sound out to your receiver or television, you will need to be using the RCA L/R (white/red) connections. Even if you are using the optical or coaxial cable for digital sound for DVD movies, you will still need to hook up the analog audio outputs for the microphone sound. This is pretty standard with all types of these players.

The vocal assist button on the remote is for VCDs and other discs that have the vocals in one channel and the music in the other. Pressing the vocal assist button during playback of such discs switches between left only, right only and stereo.

Just FYI but looking at screen shots of this player, it is based on a ESS chipset. This is good since I have 2 or 3 karaoke players that share chipset made by ESS.
.................

The Mic output (line level output) on most Karaoke enabled DVD player is normally mixed at the analog line level amplification. There is a chip or two that mixes the audio decoded from DVD/VCD/CD-A etc.,and the line level output of the karaoke circuit at analog gate.

My Malata MVD6828 MIDI Karaoke is like this. It can only work with analog audio output. What I do not like with my Malata is that if there is no disc playing the Microphone does not work. So there is an automatic switch that will toggle the microphone output "on and off" depending on the disc playback.

[WesleyHester]

Manokat, my CAVS DVD-103G and RJ-Tech RJ1500DVXII players are like your player too. The microphone can be toggled on and off with or without a disc playing which is one of the better karaoke function types.

[Manokat]

Manokat, my CAVS DVD-103G and RJ-Tech RJ1500DVXII players are like your player too. The microphone can be toggled on and off with or without a disc playing which is one of the better karaoke function types.

Yeah I used to have an Elektrohome ($100 player) with a karaoke function. It worked without disc playback. But my Malata MVD6828 that I bought for US $449 depends on disc playback. I guess because this unit has a "scoring system" which compares playbacked "MIDI notes" off the disc with "notes" converted from human vocals inputed through microphone. I am really amazed with its "scoring system". It does the job very well.

I have checked your CAVS DVD-103G. It looks like a nice Karaoke player too. How does the Super-CD+G work? Is it much better than regular CD+G?

[WesleyHester]

The Super CD+G format is a pretty cool idea. The audio/video quality is pretty much at the VCD to CD+G level (single color background). The discs are DVDs with compressed audio and video which allows for discs containing many more tracks than a standard CD+G. I've seen discs with 388, 444, 741, 1000, 1029 and 1234 total tracks. The discs I've seen aren't multiplex so no vocal demonstrations (which I actually like).
The CAVS DVD-103G comes with a 50 song Super CD+G sampler disc. When the disc is inserted, a menu appears allowing you to either enter a track's number and then its title is displayed and playback starts or you can manual scroll through the song titles on the screen.
Only thing I don't like is that the format is proprietary with CAVS so it may or may not be used by other manufacturers. Also, karaoke right now is getting even more compressed formats like DivX+G, Neo+G, etc. that bring other features to the table as well.
Now I got the DVD-103G because I really liked the look and feature set. It had just replaced their low end DVD-102G player at the time. I knew they would replace their higher end DVD-202G but didn't need the additional features. NOTE: CAVS has recenlty released the DVD-203G replacement player that costs more and features more faceplate controls like direct track selection, key controls, etc.

[fmctm1sw]

I want to thank everyone for helping out with this. I think I isolated the problem to bad A/V cables of all things. I plugged it in again and nearly blasted my eardrums out. I also noticed I had to set my receiver to "source audio" instaed of using any of the processing modes. I am now in the final process of getting the levels right.