Bandai Karaoke Studio - Mic won't work on NES

[shinobi-wan]

I bought the Bandai Karaoke Studio Famicom cart on ebay about 10 years ago.  The seller said everything worked but when i use a pin converter to play it on my NES the game loads fine but the microphone doesn't work at all.  

I know there is a difference between the sound hardware in Famicom and NES, does anyone know if that would be the reason why the mic won't work?   I always assumed it to be broken but just today i started thinking that maybe it has something to do with the different hardware?   

Any definitive or speculative answers will be appreciated.  Thanks!

*in case you're not sure what it is.....    http://famicomworld.com/system/other/karaoke-studio/

[ericj]

I've never seen one of these in person. Where does it plug into? I'm assuming the cart connector.

If it does plug into the cart connector, maybe your pin converter needs modded to accept the audio input. If it uses the extra audio expansion port pins, there are 2 pins that will need connected inside the NES in addition to the cart connector mod. See this thread for additional info:

http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=1860.0

If I'm way off base, someone will correct me.

[shinobi-wan]

@ericj Yes, it does plug into the cartridge slot, though it's so big that i had to disassemble the whole thing before connecting it to the converter and inserting it into the cartridge slot.

The post looks interesting.  Thanks.  I hope that's the reason it never worked & i'd love to try it out sometime.  It doesn't seems too electronically challenging.  Now i just hope i didn't break it while taking it apart to see why it was broken!    If only i'd bought more of the original NES carts with the converters in them years ago, instead of settling at one, just in case i screw something up. 

BTW, someone else posted a similar reply a few minutes after i posted this but now it's gone and i never received an email saying that the first reply had been posted, only an email regarding ericj's reply.  I wonder why?

[ericj]

I hope it helps you out and solves the problem. The cart converter mod isn't hard to do; it's just 3 solder points.

The reply last night you're referring to was mine. I was going to edit it to have more info, but didn't have the time to finish it so it made sense, so I just deleted it. 

[shinobi-wan]

oh, ok thanks.  If i can get it to work, i'll post pics.  But what i'll really need to do after is find a copy of Akumajou Densetsu!! 

[maverick]

wow eric youve never seen one in person? would of thought you have seen it all.  maybe ill take mine out of the box and try on nes. i know mine works perfect on famicom, but never tried on nes. sorry i cant help til i try it on nes. will try and test it and check it for you. copy of
Akumajou Densetsu.......dont give up 


maverick

[shinobi-wan]

@maverick   I'd love to see if yours works or not on the NES, thanks!

[Xious]

The mic signals are routed via the mapper and I know that it uses pins 45 and 46 (FC Expansion Sound), just as the FDS, so if your NES is not routing the signals from these pins to the correct assignment on the NES EXP port, you won't be able to use it.

You need to enable expansion sound first, either directly on the EXP connector and then on the adapter, or directly between your adapter and the EXP connector (the lazy way), and then you will be able to use devices such as this and the FDS, as well as games like 'Akumajou Densetsu', all of which use EXP sound.