Ripping Karaoke CDs

How to rip the cdg and audio data from a Karaoke CD so you can play it on your computer without needing the CD.

Required Software

1. Gnome CD Master which is a front-end for the cdrdao program. You can install this using the Synaptic Package Manager
2. pykaraoke which can also be installed through Synaptic.
3. CDGtools which will have to be downloaded from http://www.kibosh.org/cdgtools/downloads.php
Save the cdgtools-0.3.tar.gz to your home directory.
Click Applications, Accessories, Terminal.
Type ls to see a listing of the files and directories in your home directory. You should see cdgtools-0.3.tar.gz in this list.
Now type: tar xvfz cdgtools-0.3.tar.gz
A new directory should now be created called cdgtools under your home directory.
If you get an error make sure the cdgtools-0.3.tar.gz file is in your home directory.

Steps Required to Rip and Create your CDG/MP3 files

1. Open the Gnome CD Master program
2. Choose Create a file image from CD.
3. Under More Options, change Sub-Channel Reading Mode to be R-W raw.
4. Under Record options on the main window, click the Browse button beside Directory and change the directory to wherever you wish to save the extracted bin and toc files.
5. Under Record Options, beside name, type in the name you wish to give your new extracted bin and toc files.
6. Click Start. The CD will be ripped and a new bin and toc file will be created where you specified.
7. Open your home directory by clicking on Places Home Folder. Double-click on the cdgtools folder. Right click over the cdggui.py file and click Properties. Under the Permissions tab check the box that says Allow executing file as program. Click Close . Now double-click on the cdggui.py file and choose Run in terminal. If the GUI does not open then you may have a Python conflict. I believe I fixed this by making sure the symbolic link called wx.pth under /etc/alternatives pointed to /usr/lib/wx/python/wx2.6.pth
8. OK, so now with the cdggui.py GUI open, click File, Open TOC file.
9 Browse to the directory where you saved the CD image and choose the TOC file. Click Open.
10. Right click over the track you wish to turn into a CDG and MP3 and click Encode Track. Wait while it encodes.
11.You should now have two new files in the directory where your toc and bin file are with the same name of the track you just encoded. These files will have a .cdg and .mp3 file extension. Repeat step 10 until you have encoded all of the tracks that you want. You can then move the new files where ever you wish. You can also rename them. Just make sure that the cdg and the mp3 file are named exactly the same (minus the file extension of course) or pykaraoke will not be able to play them.

How to Play the CDG/MP3 files you created

1. Open pyKaraoke and click Add Songs. Click Add Folder.
2. Pick the directory where you saved your files. Close out of the Add Songs window and say yes when it asks you to rescan your folders. Also say yes when it asks you to save changes.
3. Click the Search button. Now drag the cdg files that you want to play over to the Playlist window.
4. Double click on the entry to play it. Happy Karaokeing!