Karaoke Forums

Hey all, I'm an old school KJ using discs looking to enter the 21st Century and move to running the show via a computer. I've found bits and pieces on this forum for what I need to know but I need to dig a little deeper.

My old equipment still sounds great but its showing its age and my old Pioneer dual CD player, bless it's old heart, is on its last legs. I run a show predominately at a Florida beach bar, usually high humidity conditions.

Questions:

1. I'm kind of biased toward getting a laptop for convenience. I'm pretty aware of the pros/cons but my bad back is probably going to help finalize that decision! Any MUST-HAVE options/items on a laptop I'll need or will most any new laptop be up to the task (forgetting HD size for the moment, see question 3). In spite of my back I do have a Dell Dimension 3000 desktop, P4/3Ghz/1GB/140 gig HD/integrated video, which I may consider using to save a few bucks. Comments on using this for my purposes?

2. What type of video output would be best for the system? Any computer comes with a VGA output, and if I use a laptop I can look at the laptop screen while also runing a separate line from the VGA port to a splitter to two TVs, right? Is this sufficient? I've seen various posts about s-video, what makes it superior to VGA for our purposes? I'm definitely fuzzy on best choices here.

3. I know the more storage on the computer the better... is it pretty much a given I'll need an external drive to get the storage I need or are there reasonably priced laptops with storage up to the task for 5000-7500 songs?

4. Hooking up audio out of computer to the mixer: maybe this is a dumb question, but would I use the regular "speaker out" jack for this? "Audio Line Out"? I imagine Line Out would normally be the best choice but not all computers, especially laptops, come with that option, right?

5. Anyone have a experience using a Linux system for karaoke shows? I'm only thinking in terms of the purported speed and lack of hangups associated with Linux, but I'll tell you now I'll probably use a Windows system for this no matter what, XP if possible since I hate Vista...

6. I'm just getting started looking into Karaoke software. Many of my CDs are 10+ years old and lack the digital encoded song name/artist so I'll be doing some manual typing of them into the software I'm sure. Here's the thing: which software can I buy that will also allow me to also print books? I'm going to make new books and it would be nice to not have to type the information twice...

Thanks in advance for any assistance,
JP

It will work, though you'll have to get a video card that has an S-Video output.


I personally like to use VGA to one of these:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... 1&format=2

I then use a VGA monitor for the singer monitor, and then an S-Video or RCA for an audience TV.

The downside of S-Video is that the connector can wear out or joints fracture on the motherboard. This won't usually happen with VGA, which has better strain relief and pins that will not wear out.



160G will hold that no problem, even ripped at 384K.


No, speaker out is what you want. A lot of people will recommend getting an EMU or Lexicon USB interface, and they may be right.


If you could use Linux, I would. You can't, not really.


I like CompuHost -- by far the best software, IMHO. Their ripper interfaces with their Fast Tracks database, and you should have to enter very few titles/artists. Most of the rippers will interface with FreeDB, and that will find 80% of disks.

MTU Hoster is a choice too, but I find their stuff to be klunky in many ways. Those are the main two choices for a hosting system. If you are just looking for a player that doesn't do singer history and rotation, you can pick anything.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Although I dont use it I have converted Roxbox to Ubuntu and others. It worked good but at the time it did not support my dual video card. Any software which is truly windows based can be converted with wine or Codeweavers. The sound engine blows windows away and of course it is efficient and more stable.

This is a link to my forum where at one time I was experimenting with it. I do this to try to get the interest started again.

link

May pro recording studios have shifted to Linux and it is the future for DAWS and professionals that can not deal with typical Windoze problems

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Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

MTU Hoster has a great feature that builds your song database at the same time as you rip your music so at the very minute your last song is ripped, you have a book ready to print. I found this to be a very great feature.

Another big seller for me is the fact that you can temporarily load someone else's music, play it, and at the point it is finished playing, it disappears - you aren't actually copying anyone else's music. For those with legal issues, this is a big seller for me. You're not required to carry an extra player if you have a lot of singers who bring their own music.

Their format is proprietary - you create .kma files, but frankly this has never been an issue with me. The marquee is a great and the singer list on the second screen is a great feature, too. It now has a feature where each singer's songlist is stored for you as well so you can refer to it if someone says to you, 'Oh, just put anything up for me.' You can read about MTU Hoster on their site. Lots on here don't care for it but we've been using it for over a year and it's been a great program for us.

I think you will eventually decide to convert to a laptop, not that desktop computer. It will be less things to carry around and plug in. Either way, as long as you have a VGA output jack you can use one of these converter boxes: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815117102 and connect the RCA output to something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6882140001

I own two sets of those and they work great. Your laptop or desktop computer does not need support for 2 screens to work with that converter, but it is helpful. If you only have support for 1 screen, zoom the converter into the area of the screen that shows your karaoke lyrics. You can do it with the buttons on the white box, or there is also a remote control. I never use the remote. Finally, the monster box takes normal AC power but the white box accepts USB power. If you don't have a spare USB port for power you can get a powered USB hub, or you can buy a USB electrical adapter. These should be easy to find at Best Buy, RadioShack, etc.

You can probably find cheaper devices than the ones I linked. These are what work well for me.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ