I’m on a quest. It’s not a quest to get back the $30 that my daughter gave the guys at make-your-own-karaoke.com (even though I’d like that); it’s a quest to expose these asswipes, fire up the geek community, and have someone burn down the basement they call an office. They’re distributing open source software, providing some text instructions on how to use it, and selling it for $30. Read on.
My 13 year-old daughter participated in a contest at school called “OP Idol,” where the students sing songs in front of their peers…just like American idol. They’re responsible for providing the music for their songs, if their song choice isn’t one of the options available. My daughter wanted to sing a song that wasn’t available, and began looking around for ways to create her own karaoke version of a popular song.
Now, I use Audacity for my podcast editing, and I’m moderately well versed in its use. Audacity is an open source audio editing program that does a pretty bang up job. There’s an old trick whereby you separate out the “center” channel of a stereo song, and cancel out the left and right by inverting the stereo channels. On many songs, the result is a version of the song without the vocals…but it doesn’t work that well. In my experience, one might find a 30-40% success rate on modern songs; but we’d tried it anyway, before my daughter started Googling for alternatives.
She found make-your-own-karaoke.com, read all the propaganda, and decided that she’d use her teen pre-paid spending card to invest in some software. (For those of you about to condemn her for buying software from a site as ghetto as this one, chill: she’s 13). What she got was a packaged version of Audacity, with the following instructions:
USE AUDACITY TO REMOVE THE VOCALS FROM YOUR MUSIC FILE.
http://www.make-your-own-karaoke.com/removingvocals.htm
To sucessfully remove vocals your music file should be in stereo.
It works best with songs where you can hear the lead vocals directly
in the center of your two speakers, while hearing the music differently
on the right and left sides. The technique works by removing audio that
is exactly the same on the left and right side (the lead vocals), while
preserving the audio that is different on the left and right side (the music).
If some of the vocals remain, it’s due to the way the song was recorded and
you might have better luck trying a different song.LAUNCH THE AUDACITY SOFTWARE PROGRAM, AND FOLLOW THESE STEPS CAREFULLY.
1. Import a stereo recording, then click on the track pop-up menu.
(It’s the black down arrow over the Mute & Solo buttons on the left
side of the track.)
Select “Split Stereo Track”.2. Select the entire lower track (the right channel). One way to
do this is to click in the area around the mute/solo buttons.3. Choose invert from the effect menu.
4. Use the track pop-up menus again
(They are the black down arrows over the Mute & Solo buttons on the left
sides of each track.)
Select “Mono” for each of the 2 tracks.5. Listen to the results by pressing the play button. In most cases the vocals
will be completely gone or drastically reduced!6. Highlight both tracks: Choose the Edit menu, then Select, then ALL.
Then quick mix the tracks: Choose the Project menu, then Quick Mix.7. Save your new song without vocals to a file using the
“EXPORT AS WAV” option from the FILE menu.
(see below if you want to export files in the MP3 format)For the vocals to be completely removed, the song must be in stereo and the
vocals should have been recorded directly in the center of the track. If
there is still an echo from the vocals, they were probably not recorded in thecenter of the stereo, so no software will be able to completely remove them.
This is a complete scam, and I’m honestly shocked that it’s legal (is it?). It seems to me that repackaging Audacity and providing instructions on how to use it should be a violation of the GPL (or whatever open source licensing rule applies).
Needless to say, there wasn’t anything new in these instructions, and the “software” didn’t work. In fairness, the site does say that they’ll offer a full refund if you’re unsatisfied in any way…but I’m far too vengeful for that. I want these thieving bastards to pay through the education of unsuspecting consumers.
Ugh. </rant>
technorati tags:make-your-own-karaoke.com, scam, opensource, audio, karaoke
17 responses so far ↓
1 Andrew // May 10, 2008 at 6:45 am
Wow, thanks! I downloaded audacity for free and the instructions worked perfectly. The very first song I tried (’Always’ by Bon Jovi) completely removed the vocals and now sounds like a perfect karaoke version. But I feel a little dirty for having used make-your-own-karaoke.com’s intellectual property (their instructions) without compensating them.
2 John // May 16, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I feel for your plight! It’s an unfortunate thing that has happened to your daughter! However, I’m afraid there’s little you can do in the way of licensing. Here’s why:
The GPL allows people to sell open source software, provided they include the source code of the software to you. It is completely legal to sell you a packaged version of open source software…
HOWEVER, you may have a case in any of the following circumstances:
1) make-your-own-karaoke.com did not provide you with the source code for audacity (violation of GPL)
2) They fraudulently told you that they were the originators of the software if they weren’t (plagiarism and / or fraud)
3) They attempted to deceive you maliciously by lying in the web page.
Unless you meet one of these three conditions, it’s very unlikely that anything will happen to these douchebags. I’m sorry about this, and I’m glad you’re out there talking about it. They’re capitalizing on the generosity of the open source community without contributing back — taking advantage of the naiive.
I hope they get their asses kicked. Best of luck.
Caveat: I’m not a lawyer, just very well versed in the GPL. You may want to consult one if you think you have a case.
3 Gregg // Jun 18, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Thank You. My wife was about to download the program and I told her to wait. I Googled and up came your site. You saved us 30.00.
4 Pamela // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I really would like to have this program and was really willing to do it until it wanted to charge me $2 .95 for…shipping? Then they wanted all my credit card info… hello! A big red flag here.
5 Chris // Feb 20, 2009 at 8:40 am
When I went to download Audacity, it gave me AVS, is that the same thing? ( I doing a Karaoke song for my 10 year old daughter for a talent show) By the way thanks for your help!
6 David // Apr 3, 2009 at 12:27 pm
We too are quite upset with this scam put on by make-your-own-karaoke.com (MYOK).
MTU has been doing vocal removers (analog, DSP and now software only) since 1968. We constantly evolve our product to make it the best in the world. Forgive me if I sound proud of our work over 4 decades.
However, because of our long-standing honest reputation, MYOK is now buying ads illegally that is confusing the marketplace of their product (dare I call what they do a product?) with ours. That’s illegal and our lawyer will contact them next week. I am legally going after them as we did two other companies in the UK and Canada that tried to pass-off their product on our reputation. We are a USA company.
If anyone knows exactly who this person is (I’m 99.9% sure it is one “marketing guru”) I would appreciate if you post it here.
If not, our Attorney will soon find out and I assure you, MTU will do everything in our power to EXPOSE this person. If you search for him, you won’t find him.
HIS WORSE FEAR… is being disclosed. Guess what folks, I’m on a mission and I will not stop until he is exposed in every forum that mentions his product.
Any and all help is appreciated. You may contact me via our Web Contact Form at http://www.mtu.com/customer-support.htm#WebEmailForm.
7 David // Apr 3, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Don’t know why the URL didn’t work. Here it is again:
http://www.mtu.com/support/customer-support.htm#WebEmailForm
8 Ed // May 12, 2009 at 4:16 am
I wish I would have thought to research this company before I handed over my $30 for open-source software I already own. Lesson learned.
9 Dana // Jun 16, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Wow!!! I have been using Audacity for my daughter’s Karaoke tracks and it does a decent job but I thought surely by now there must be a better product. I found Make-Your-Own-Karaoke and the price seemed okay and it was compatible with Mac so I almost bought it. Then I remembered I better google it and found this!
MAY I SAY THANK YOU!! You saved us the money and the anger that would have ensued!
The $30 you didn’t ask for from them obviously is being filled ten fold by the Karma you are getting back. Thanks again!!!!!!
10 Lee // Jul 31, 2009 at 4:50 am
I also thank you greatly. My wife and I do praise and worship at church and were looking for a way to make instrumentals from some songs we were looking to perform, I was about to buy this mess, but thank God I researched. It means a lot that you stood up against these deceivers and are providing the light of truth. Thank you, and I thank God for you.
11 PAUL // Sep 14, 2009 at 5:20 am
Thankyou also, as I was another one going to buy that software. My 10 yr old daughter is going to a school camp in October 2009 and 3 students are singing a song and would like the back up for it, but I’ll now try Audacity. Thankyou for saving me the $39 Australian. I hope you have success in nailing these theiving parasites. There’s to many of these type of people in the world today and I think all decent people have had enough of it. Where has the pleasure in being HONEST gone in society. All the best Paul, Australia.
12 Judy // Oct 12, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Oh my Gosh! How I wish I had found you FIRST. I am a struggling artist and in my haste to create a song track I needed in 48 hrs, I downloaded the Make you own karaoke. It was 39.99, plus tax, plus $8.95 shipping. I could NOT download it as there was no Vista link. Then I returned to the home page to order the CD instead, and they wanted $12.oo MORE for the CD. I just blew $50.00 that I DONT have, and I have nothing. I searched everywhere for a phone number, and there is NONE! I sent an email but God knows when I will hear back. AND I allowed my credit card info to go through. I must be nuts, but I wanted to do a good job on the singing gig I was just hired for. I am SO upset/sad/angry. Any suggestions? Judy
13 Tim // Oct 12, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Sorry, Judy…I wish I could offer some insight. At a minimum, you can go do this for free using Audacity and the instructions I posted in the link.
You probably don’t need to wait for the “software” they’re going to send you.
14 Kathy // Mar 15, 2010 at 7:34 am
Wow, and to think I was seriously considering purchasing this software – and it’s $39.99 now!! Glad I checked further. Thanks for the heads-up!
15 David // Aug 18, 2010 at 11:06 am
Another Thank you! Unlike your daughter I am old and cynical and something just didn’t ‘feel’ right. So I Googled ‘is make-your-own-karaoke.com good?’ and got your review. Great work, good luck, and thanks for being at the top of the rankings.
16 Yvonne // Aug 29, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I’m another who bought supposedly $39.99 for download and CD and was charged $52.43. I never wanted or used the download…my mistake for not buying CD only. But, the company Cus. Ser. Britney Robertson (888) 221-1161 says they’ll help me. I loaded program from CD and it only REDUCED the vocal; never removed it. On one music CD, it garbled the echo-ing vocal and accompaniment as well. I don’t know Audacity, but if it is the same technology as MYOK, I don’t want it. Doesn’t work. I’m disappointed!!!
17 Isan // Aug 29, 2010 at 7:20 pm
I was looking up on google where I could get a song that I want to sing for a family members wedding. The very first thing that popped up was Make your own cd but it looked a little iffy so I kept looking on other sites and it kept popping up. If it was not the first it was in the first five. So I looked at the website. One link offered it for 29.99 and another offered it for 9.99. At first I was considering it but decided to google for a review of the product and came across this as well as a few other sites that gave this program bad reviews. I did this because I almost got scammed into selling Cutco knives a company who uses a subsidiary called Vetco to get college students to sell their inferior product at overly inflated prices to their family and friends. I still ended up waisting two hours of my life at the “interview.” Anyway from them I learned that it is best to do your research first before you waste your time. I am so gratefull that you put up this alert. You have saved me money that I really cannot afford to spend but was willing to for this particular family member’s wedding. Even though you posted it in 2007 it is still helping people more than three years later. Thank you for your vigilance.
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