Karaoke Forums

There is a reason for asking this. I had a guy come in said he would only sing if I had his songs in Sound Choice. He was upset because he was seeing other brands onscreen. He then informed me that he knew something about karaoke and that his home room, in a city five hours from here, was exclusively Sound Choice.

I gave him my thoughts on the matter, which is that while Sound Choice is certainly a quality brand, in newer material particularly it's not the only choice for good karaoke. But I'm getting the impression that in many people's minds its still "the standard"...

But I wouldn't say it is with my younger group though.

So I"m curious. Where is everyone at? What percentage is actually being sung in your room? I'm at 1/4 - 1/3 SC probably on average, even though my library is higher than that. And that's because of the way SC packages their material, which is not as KJ friendly as other brands.

Way less than 1/4. I play mostly Chartbuster, DK, Pop Hits, Legends, and Supercore. DK covers a lot of the popular oldies -- Black Velvet, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Wanted Dead or Alive, and Folsom Prison Blues are done almost every show. Supercore has decent versions of a lot of things that are done often.

Our Chartbuster CB9xxx and Legends artist collections and Pop Hits Nashville cover a whole lot of the rest, since we are so heavily country. I have started buying custom SoundChoice of some of the most popular rock songs which have versions that lack a bit. But in our very country area the top choice is Chartbuster, and I like to buy the artist collections when possible. You get a lot of men coming in and saying "What do you have by Gene Watson|Earl Thomas Connolly|Tom T. Hall". Not so much the women, who seem to gravitate towards the same megahits. We had four women ask for Black Velvet in the same round this last Saturday night....

If SoundChoice had more artist collections, I would buy some of them. But they choose not to do it that way, and for country we don't mind since Chartbuster is often better there anyway.

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

I Play SC mostly simply b/c thats all I used to buy...now that SC has slowed wayyy down on production of new cdgs I use alot of Chartbuster & feel that SC will continue to "drop" in popularity due to the slowing of production Just my opinion.

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Kelley
Star Sounds Karaoke & Mobile Recording Studio


[shadow=black][scroll]You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself....KD Lang[/scroll][/shadow]

I have more SC than anything but have never been locked into the brand exclusively as they don't always have certain songs. Out of 960 cdgs, I would figure about 600+ are SC. The rest are a mix of other brands, at this point. Pop Hits Monthly would be the next largest count, then Chartbuster.

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I'm about 2/3 SC... have lots of monthly discs, overseas manus like STTW, SBI, Zoom, Sunfly & Legends, my main core of Pioneer.

To be elitist about SC being the ONLY one to sing with is limiting yourself. I've found a couple of manus that just NAIL certain songs. SC does a danged good job with 70s and 80's pop, headbangers... and they say that their country outsells all their other discs... but I've not been too terribly impressed with their country. Almost everytime I've gotten a country disc, I've found the monthlies or Chartbuster that seems to do a better job!

I would say about 70% SC in my selection. I have been replacing other versions with SC for about 3 years now.

As for the guy that gets upset with you not having SC I would suggest to him that He go online and get his favorites in SC on a Custom CDG and carry it with him to every show then he won't have to complain.

This guy has no idea what you have invested in music so he can't relate to building a library from scratch.

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FlipSide Karaoke
Scott

To suggest that S/C is the only manufacturer with good music is just absurd - maybe this guy was trying to impress you with his great knowledge of karaoke music? I'd have had to really control myself not to laugh at his comment.

I agree - tell him to get his own custom-made collection (major investment for a host but not for someone who only wants to sing a certain brand, with a limited number of songs) and he'll never have to worry about it, unless he goes to a show where the host can't/won't play personal CDGs.

I use mostly SC, but that doesn't mean they always have the best versions. It is a personal choice by me.

That guy must be looney. He would be hard pressed to find a KJ that only used SC. I agree if you are going to be that picky you should carry your own discs to the shows.

I have people ask me what version I have for particular songs. That doesn't bother me because they may only feel comfortable singing that particular song by that manufacturer, but to make a blanket statement that they won't sing unless everything is SC is silly.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

I'm over in the UK, so I had a slightly different discussion with a new customer. He wanted to know if the songs he wanted to sing were available on either EK, DK or Sunfly rather than those rubbish american brands.

It took well over half an hour to explain, that I use a lot of different brands with the aim to buy the best version, I replace any poor versions as I discover them, and since the show has been running for 7 years it is unlikely he would find a version where the lyrics wouldn't match the music. I also explained that even those rubbish american brands have the odd track which can blow people away, and that the majority of the American brands I use are rated highly in the KJ community.

After explaining I personally don't like EK and Sunfly as I find that their tracks sound a little "midi", but i was happy to purchase any track from any brand providing he could justify that the version was better/different to the one I had, he finally gave karaoke a go, on a SGB track as well .....
Everything went fine.... he was impressed with my customer service and raved about the show all night.

One thing he said interested me though.... He didn't like legends....
I tried to tell him Legends and Sunfly were essentially the same brand, he didn't care.... he just liked EK, DK or Sunfly.

Thus far the majority of you KJs are mostly Sound Choice. Since I am emphatically not, maybe that's what prompted his assessment of my show. And that's what I was trying to find out... just where you folks sit with this brand and how accurate his observation was.

As Flipper and others have done, I'm in an ongoing process of replacing dud tracks with better versions. For older things often SC... but sometimes DK, which I also like and are available for 99c a track online. I have no regulars who state a brand preference, but they let me know about it if it's not right!

For newer things I believe that several labels are doing a good job currently, and overall quality as a group has improved in the last few years.

I am not surprised that some customers would only ask for the SoundChoice versions. I just bought almost the entire SoundChoice library (300CDGs) plus the entire Zoom catalog for my Karaoke room business. SoundChoice are the best quality I have heard so far and Zoom is about the same.

These companies have quality backing vocals, authentic arrangements, correct instrumentation and a higher recording quality, which gives more space in the recording. I orginally thought I could get away with lower quality recordings (Monster, DK) but compared to the above they sound poor.

In the end I will have about 25% Soundchoice, 20% zoom and 45% others

Now I am looking at Chartbuster (for deeper country) and Sunfly (for more of everything) to fill out the collection.

Most of my library is Sound Choice but I also use Zoom, Chartbusters, and some of the lesser brands for songs I couldn't get with Sound Choice. For Most of the duplicates that I have the SOund Choice is the better version but I can name a few examples that I believe are better versions than Sound Choice. Any of the Eagles that Sound Choice has are inferior in my opinion when compred to Zoom's versions of the same songs. I would rather sing Desperado off of Zoom than Sound Choice.
I'm a little like that guy with Journey's Faithfully. I won't sing it unless it is either Amerising's version or Priddis' Version as they are so close to the original lyrics. I especially won't sing it in a contest if the only version they have is Sound Choice as they messed up big time with the lyrics and I refuse to sing in a contest incorrect lyrics. I'll change the wrong lyrics on the screen to the real ones and most judges when they score accuracy only go by what is on the screen. Faithfully is my signature song. If I don't sing it by end of the show I get asked when I am going to sing it and I end up putting it in for my closing song even when I planned on not singing it.
On another note some of my Sound Choice was imported by a friend to speed up the import process and several songs were poorly imported using AudioGrabber and mp3+Gtoolz to zip them. So I end up having to use another brands version so that my singers can sing the song. One such song was the SOund Choice version of Blueberry Hill. It had the opening graphic and then the screen went completely blank. So I have a singer who always sings the song come to my shows and have to pull out my DK version for him to sing.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I avoid Soundchoice because of their stand on digital copies. I hate to start that argument up but I really dont want to haul around all of my discs. They also have the most expensive discs compared to the other companies.

Someone mentioned Journey too. Have you tried the Radio Starz Journey disc? I really like that one and their Pearl Jam one.

I use about 90% soundchoice.

Largest problem is new realeases. Other than a few old songs not on Sound Choice Ziggy Stardust and a Few Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam songs come to mind.

Since Sound Choice has no new music I'm finding I'm finally using the Pop Hits I have been getting for 10 years now, at least the disc from 2006, 2007 and 2008.

This isn't an arguement anymore unless you do not shop around, most places you can get SC discs for $17.99, i've seen some of the other brands going for more nowdays, Chartbusters NEW line of 10 songs are going for $19.99 avg.
This is a weak arguement!

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Ive bought a lot of sound choice, and it probably is about 1/3 of my song list. It gets about 1/3 of the singing as well.

I do have a lot of others though, and they tend to get sung a lot.

As for bang for the buck I have bought about 100 songs from SBI and since they are all hard to find songs and mostly requests they are among the most sung songs on my book even theough they are only 2% of the songs they probably make up 20% of what gets sung.

I have a few MM songs that somehow got purchased and I am seriously thinking about replacing them entirely...

I am happy with SC, Zoom and most Sunfly. DK is good. PHM is ok for recent stuff, and SGB is ok if you turn it down -10 dbs. Otherwise SGB is too loud compared to how other manus record.

Our is about a third Sound Choice. We bought some cheaper sets to fill in because we are just starting out but the Sound Choice just have a more live feel to them. However some of the country singers get startled but what seems to be a slower tempo on oldies like Hank Williams and the Chartbusters seem to be more popular in that area.

I also like Zoom but for the second time have found they left out verses in a song. One Christmas song "Mary's Boy Child" by Boney M was probably just shortened for length reasons but their Dire Straits "Money For Nothing" obviously had some "content issues." I bought the Zoom version on the basis of a 30 second sample as the background sounded good. But someone tried it last night and it had just the first verse and then the chorus repeated over and over. The person was a good enough singer that they just stumbled for a syllable and then recovered but it was very abrupt and disappointing. I will have to replace it. Does Sound Choice have the real thing?

SC also has mistakes; On the Elton John album, they replaced the LaLaLa with a synth on Crocodile Rock, also, they repeated 3 times the same mistakes on a Supertramp track where Zoom did it right! I also feel that SC is often on the wrong key, I need to go down half a step on all tracks on that E-J SC album as oppose to the Zoom where it's been recorded on the original key. I personally feel that SC often uses lot's of electronic instruments as oppose to the acoustic instruments used on Zoom or Chartbuster??? But, for the old classic rock band, SC sure knows how to do it right!

But it was not the whole argument. What about the other point?

I didn't want to bring that other point up, but if it needs to be commented on as well, Chartbuster & Stellar (PHM) has that same stance on digital transferring & copying (if not moreso), are they avoided by you as well? However that's fine, not knocking you if that's your opinion, silly reason IMO not to purchase a particular brand.
I was just commenting on the point that no longer applies as it isn't accurate anymore.

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