Karaoke Forums

I wasn't worried about him hurting your feelings. I'm pretty sure your shoulders are plenty big enough. You've lasted quite awhile here, after all!
I just think the name calling and personal attacks are just unnecessary and in poor taste.
Then again, it does speak volumes, doesn't it?
Oh, and:
Waaay too funny. Sad, true, and funny nonetheless!
Oh, and for the record: That's TWICE now that we've agreed on something!
Just WHAT is this world coming to?

Holy xhit, there are a few members here who reeeeally need to take a break from the forums for a while. Good reading, but..... wow, seriously.

You know what always gets me in these threads?

KJ's can talk all day long about how they have to have just the right equipment: the perfect speakers, a certain brand/model microphone, limiters/processors, top quality disks, yadda yadda yadda.... and we singers can't prefer a certain cdg brand without being labeled a diva?

I think a lot of the times, a KJ is just the diva behind the mixing board.

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

Let me state for the record that I am not "the Cheese" and he is not me although we agree on many points. Notice he has posted no techno-bable which is pretty much a part of everything I do. But... you have to give the guy some credit if he is willing to post something recorded on a Nady mic. Maybe he is that good.... Let's hear what he sounds like.

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Okay, who took my pants?

AND THEY SHOULD RUN AROUND THE VENUE NAKED, 3 TIMES, (IN ORDER TO GET THEIR EGOS IN CHECK) BEFORE THEY START THEIR SHOW!

I'm rootin' for ya; so don't let me down. And you will never let anyone down if you have fun while doing this! AND if the listeners can hear you are enjoying yourself, perhaps that's ALL that really matters?

KARAOKE IS FOR EVERYONE.... NOT JUST "SINGERS"

Amen.

And Mr. "Cut the" was fired the first shot, calling serious singers "anal retentive" in his first post. No wonder he makes friends and influences people.

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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.

diafel.. you conveniently ignore the part where 'bruce' goes on about how he has me figured out, and that my singing was so bad that

"..it really doesn't matter what track he sings to. It's going to suck no matter what brand of karaoke he is singing along with so why should anyone else care which track gets used. A better track will not help Cheese sound any better so he thinks the same thing applies to everyone else. "

I don't presume a singer is good or bad until I at least hear them.

BruceFan4Life says because I disagree with the assessment that the Music Maestro catalog is largely 'unsingable' that I must have no 'ear'. So naturally I check out some of his own musical submissions to see what he considers (at the very least) passable audio quality.

And after hearing that, it became pretty clear this guy was talking directly out of his (@$%&#!).

Not that he was a terrible singer.. but come on.. if you're going to break my balls over using Music Maestro tracks because they're so awful and then turn around and 'Showcase' tracks like that?

Are you people that insecure with yourselves that all you can do is attack and cut down everything? Oh these tracks suck, i'm too good to sing with them. Oh these mics suck.. i'm too good to use them. Oh that equipment sucks, you obviously have no ear.

Because after reading through these threads.. that's what I keep seeing.

Music snobs, gear snobs, club snobs.

Condescending snobs.

In another thread, a person asks about some cheap wireless mics because they want something wireless and inexpensive because they're likely to get trashed.

'mckyj57' totally ignores this and recommends a $200 microphone because the batteries are cheaper. What?

Perhaps I shouldn't have generalized ALL serious singers as being anal retentive condescending snobs.. but you folks certainly haven't proven to be an exception to that rule.

Let's hear all you guy's superior recordings with all your fancy gear and superior backing tracks. The way you guys carry on, your recordings must be better than fried gold dipped in chocolate.

I just uploaded my singing into what many of you snobs consider to be sub par equipment using a Music Maestro track to a club packed full of people whoopin' and hollerin' just as soon as the track started.

It's called fun. Perhaps if you guys would get off your high horses every now and then maybe you could have a little bit of it.

Well, the Cheese can sing but he's still a karaoke guy that I wouldn't support; which is probably what he would want anyway.

Nice job singing. I guess I have to learn a new song today.


Hmmm, Crow ain't that bad with enough hot sauce.

Mo' Hotter, Mo' Better

And for the record Bruce, you're welcome to come to one of my shows anytime (especially late) and i'll bring ya right up. Haha.. just leave your discs at home!

Not sure what your point is. Unless you're trying to say something along the lines of "But he did it first!"
If so, you need to grow up.
I stand by what I've said. Personal attacks have no place here and as someone else pointed out, you alienated a lot of people with your first post.
Maybe you LIKE to fight and argue? Nothing wrong with that, I guess, unless you make assumptions, twist what people have said and make personal attacks.
If you like to argue, fine. Just leave the twisting and personal attacks at home,
Stick to the facts and if you're unsure of what they are, ASK.

Very good job singing, but the sound quality is really bad. The vocal quality is terrible. It's all midrange and no low highlights -- sounds like a good voice that should feature some low end. Instead only the glottals and their high-range harmonics are present. The MM track is not too bad -- they do have some that are decent, as has been stated. Even then, it is all rhythm and there are no real leads. If you compare the Chartbuster track it has some decent pedal steel and some interspersed leads at the phrase breaks. And during the voiceover, the lead guitar is very cheesy. I do believe it's Music Maestro because of that. Pretty crappy but doesn't sound too bad if you don't pay much attention.

Nothing that changes my opinion. Both the Music Maestro and the Nady sound terrible, as expected. It would be nice to hear the same thing with a Chartbuster track and a decent mic.

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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.

-+

Absolutely not for me! People pay me money to keep my clothes ON!

-James

Where I come from, we call a spade a spade.

For people who like to stand in public and sing, some of you folks have some pretty thin skin.

Storming out of places having a temper tantrum because you get bumped a song or two, or because the KJ won't play your discs?

Little Ms. "I'd be livid" if anyone dared bump the Queen of Karaoke.

Get over yourself.

That's exactly the kind of 'turd in the punch bowl' behavior that make casual singers and people who just want to have some fun avoid any place that says 'Karaoke Tonight!' on the marquee.

But I suspect that's the way you like it, too.

The same way I filter out the 'anal retentive' types with my show mannerisms and policies, you filter out the people you categorically dismiss as 'drunks' or 'people with no ear' or any number of (what could be construed as) disparaging labels you and your ilk have used to describe those who disagree with you.

Sounds like a simple case of being able to dish it out, but not be able to take it.

Btw are the songs in a private forum cause I can't find it?

Well, I'm still in the process of learning how to sing the song in question. A few things that I'd like to point out right away about the Music Maestro track is something very common with that brand and why most people don't like singing along to them. THEY USE THE WRONG WORDS!!! The Music Maestro track reads RHINE COUNTRY instead of RIND COUNTY. Big difference there and later in the song the MM version uses the word JIGGLED instead of GIGGLED.

I agree with Mickey on the sound quality of the MM track as well. Sure, you can sing along with it but it's not as good as the Chartbuster track. Not being familiar with the song myself; seeing the word COUNTRY instead of COUNTY would definintely throw me off if I was going to try to sing it at a karaoke bar for the first time, since I don't memorize songs. I sing from the screen lyrics. It's obvious that The Cheese is very familiar with this song because he didn't sing any of the incorrect lyrics that would be on the screen during the song.

I've revised my assessment of why Cheese is so unreasonable with customers who bring their own discs. He is good enough to sing a song with a lousy track so he thinks that everyone should be able to do it as well as he does. Someone bringing in a different version of a song somehow makes The Cheese feel like he is being insulted in some way because someone is saying that his version isn't good enough. Insult my selection and you are insulting me.

Last but not least... That sounds like a real classy place that you did your gig in last night where it's just fine and dandy for the host, no less, to be dropping the "F" Bomb over the microphone. Cheesy indeed!

They're in the Singers Showcase:

http://www.singersshowcase.com/

There's a link to it over on the left hand side of your screen.. six things down under the 'Karaoke Scene' header

A couple thoughts on Cheese's recording. First, as an experienced recording engineer, that version of the Watermelon Crawl backing track is simply offensive to me. However, even being a self proclaimed gear and recording snob, I agree with Cheese on this. If you can't sing along to that version, then you have problems. Are there better recorded and engineered versions of it? Sure. But for anyone that's out to enjoy just singing along to their favorite songs and having fun with friends, this track is fine. The issues that I hear with the track are technical issues and mix decisions, and while I'm sure most listeners can hear "this doesn't sound as good as the original" I seriously doubt many could even put their finger on what the differences are. If it were my rig would I try to find and use a better version? Sure, but I'm a snob, I can hear the difference and while my singers may not care, I do. BTW, I can find some pretty serious technical issues with the engineering on most SC and CB songs too, so if you really are anal about accuracy, you wouldn't be singing to any of these.

Second, the mic choice. This track does a great job of demonstrating exactly what I've been talking about in terms of the differences between cheap wireless mics and quality wireless mics. You can hear the lack of clarity in the sound envelope, specifically on the edges (the attack and release portions). This is what some will refer to as a mic sounding "crisp", these mics don't have it. There are definite vocal nuances that from Cheese's voice I can tell are there but can't be heard in this recording. For a pro audio engineer, that's a very frustrating thing but as we covered before, I'm a snob so I don't know how many others would even notice or care. The effects of poorly designed cheap companding technology and poor pickup pattern are very evident but I'm sure most singers wouldn't even hear it without comparing side by side to a better mic.

Third, comments about the tonality of the mic are really irrelevant. Remember this recording was EQ'ed and mixed for his PA not the recorded product. Things sound very different on a PA in a specific room than they do on recorded media. I can provide many examples of recordings that sounded phenominal in the live mix environment but were really lacking on playback. How many of you listened to his track on your PA versus your PC speakers BTW? Just curious, cuz I did both.

Finally, again this is a snobbish thing but being a country music fan and in particular someone that's worked on gigs with Tracy Byrd, this rendition of the song was overall a pretty good representation of the artist's original work. However, the lack of vocal effects really sucks. A very light treatment of small room verb (fast early reflections, quick decay) is really needed on this song. Also, without getting overly personal, Cheese showed the classic Karaoke singer's habit of over singing the song and over doing the drawl in an effort to sound like Tracy rather than sound like Cheese singing Tracy's song. I work with vocalists all the time who do the same in the recording studio. They try to hard to imitate the artist rather than just sing the song the way they would naturally. A good voice and a good rendition, just a bit over done though.

So I don't know if I was being lumped in with the snobs or not, but I"ll lump myself in there. The Nady's don't sound "good" as I've said a hundred times before. Do they meet the definition of good enough for karaoke singers though? You bet at least for 90% of them. I mean it's not like you're asking your singers to sing into a tin can right? The MM track, same basic thing. On the spectrum of all the susbsequent recordings that have been made of that song, sure it's closer to the bottom, but still way better than a garage band that recorded it with their boombox right? And again, 90% or better of Karaoke singers will have no problem with that track.

Unfortunately, I know this is not the end of the peeing match, in fact likely only the beginning. So now I'll wait to see the second round of fireworks. I'm loving it guys, keep up the good work!!

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Ok I just had a listen, and I'm actually pretty impressed. your probably a better singer than I am.


There are some parts that I could tell that the qaulity suffered, but hey over all, i certainly wouldn't call it "unsingable"


I also just HAD to laugh at the "F you" shout out!

-James

Bruce.. you mean to tell me that you go through the effort to purchase and bring your own track to a KJ show and you still have to read the words off the screen?

I mean, I can see having a loose idea of the words, and using the guide vocals to keep you on track, or signal you for breaks and whatnot.. but I can't imagine anyone going 'blind' into a song and trying to sing it based solely on the words and relying on the highlight for the timing.

I mean.. if you're going to nit pick about lyrics being wrong, there are plenty of goofs in all the different manufacturers discs.

mckyj57, I won't ever claim the Nady is a world class vocal mic, and on the submitted track, you're hearing what comes out of the Record Out.

The mixers built in EQ is set to match not only the room, but also the way the SV115v's tend to 'color' the sound.. so in the room, it didn't sound quite as 'flat'.. or 'dry' for that matter.

Not to say it's as good as my wired SM58's in sound or build quality.. but as a wireless option that costs about $20 per mic, they certainly aren't unusable.

Which begs a question perhaps best suited for an entirely new thread.

[quote="theCheese @ August 7th 2010, 12:33 pm"]Bruce.. you mean to tell me that you go through the effort to purchase and bring your own track to a KJ show and you still have to read the words off the screen?quote]

In short. YES! I can't remember lyrics for the life of me. I sing thousands of songs but none of the lyrics seem to stick in my head. It's just a cross that I have to bear. That's why karaoke is a fun outlet for me. I enjoy singing and without the words on the screen, I'd be cut out of the fun. That is just one other reason why one version is preferable to me than another. If the Sound Choice or Chartbuster version doesn't paint the lyrics on the screen ahead of when the words are meant to be sung(first line on a new page of a fast song) then I have a hard time singing the song. If the same song is on a Pop Hits Monthly disc, I usually prefer that version , even if the music isn't recorded as well as the other two versions. Some people have a knack for memorizing songs quickly. I'm not one of them. I've been asked every now and again to join a band after people have heard me sing and I always thank them for the offer but I can't sing without a monitor. It is what it is. That is why I feel more comfortable singing from a disc that I'm familiar with. If that makes me a DIVA in your eyes....Oh Well.

My version of Watermelon Crawl is now up on the Singers Showcase. Warts and all, LIVE from the SEWER PIPE.