Karaoke Forums

I don't know about it being the longest instrumental break. Check out "Come Sail Away" by Styx on SC. It has a 56 measure break.

Money ~ Pink Floyd, if I remember correctly had 96 measures of Gilmour's guitar solo.
I've A/B'd Johnny B. Goode from SGB and SC, I prefer the SGB version. Not to knock SC, but it sounds like it was done in a nice studio, real clean.
Whereas the original was probably done all in one take with ancient dynamic mics on an obsolete reel to reel.
SGB's version sounds warmer and dirtier, closer to the original. Also, during the guitar solo, I recited the scene from Back to The Future, people like that. It gets some laughs.

I bought the SGB when I started, and since then I have bought MANY other tracks. I did some quick looking at the songbook deluxe database and if you bought the SGB sets and then bought ALL of the SC disks there would still be about 300 tracks from SGB that SC has never made. Yes I could probably get most of those 300 by buying most of the CB, SF or MM lines as well but by then you are talking A LOT of money (10s of thousands at least).

Now some of those may not be the best, but they are better than nothing if someone really wants to sing that special song. As a KJ with now 16,000 unduplicated tracks I still consider SGB a reasonable price for the 400 or so that I dont have from another brand. If we intend to replace them with better tracks as time goes on they still are cheaper than average price for SC for what we cant replace. If I was going to look at either 4 SC spotlight disks (60 songs) or the main SGB pack at somewhere around 1000 songs for the same price, then I would have to go with SGB, even if I end up replacing most of them.

As for PHM they are decent, and can be bought at a good price (if we look at 2+ years old ones) but are really only covering the recent stuff (except about 5 older retro disks). When starting out as a KJ a lot of songs are going to be requested from the 60s-80s and PHM does not help much there. SGB covers many most of the highly requested tracks from that period. I probably have about 100 phm disks, but after accounting for what I have replaced with SC from both sets, I probably use the SGB more.

If you are starting as a KJ SGB is not too bad, and lets you have a starting baseline for your first shows to see if you really want to do this before investing several thousand dollars in a music library.

The magic tracks SCDG is going for 13.99 + shipping on ebay. The $60 I spent on roxbox file converter is a great investment IMHO. Saves me hours of my own time ripping hundreds of individual cdgs, nevermind the price/song ratio I get.
PHM will always be SCDG for me.

It's like comparing a cheap new Yugo (remember those) to a more expensive Honda Civic. Sure they're both cars with four cylinder engines and will get you from Point A and back. but after a year the Yugo has Yougone or needing exhorborant repairs while the Civic continues to gives years of affordable driving.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

My 2 cents? Shell out the money for a good core set from Sound Choice. Mine get used constantly every time I play so if you consider how much they cost you per play, they're worth every penny.

I do own the SGB's and I use some of them when I don't have the song available otherwise, but I would never want to be in a position where I was playing one SGB track after another all night long. They just aren't consistently good enough to do that.

Here's my take:

You're going into business. Like any other business, karaoke requires an investment. You can have the best sounding equipment (speakers, mics, etc.) which will mean nothing if the music you're playing over it is crap.

Forget SGB. Forget NuTech. Forget the crap! Spend the money and stick with Sound Choice & Chartbuster. Even Zoom, SBI & Sunfly are worlds better then SGB.

So, start off on the right foot. Don't settle for crap. And yes, I rather have 300 good versions then 3000 crap versions.

You decide how you want to run your business.

Don't think I have ever heard SGB
so it was probably unfair of me to comment.
Seems like it's one that the pirates don't download.

Actually, any of the SGB discs that you can currently buy from eBay are ALL pirated. Chartbusters bought the catalog a couple of years ago and they haven't authorized he sale of any of them.
As for a good inexpensive alternative, I suggest the Supercore sets. You get a much better quality product for a great price. A great starter set.

I'm not sure if you have to sign over your soul, but if I was just now starting out, professional, or home use, I'd buy 6000 sound choice songs for 3900 bucks. I remember shelling out almost 30 bucks, just to get one song....usually worked out with a few other songs on the cdg, that I discovered I liked. To pay about 60 cents a song now, actually pizzes me off, and I wish it had never become possible to convert the cdgs to computer format. I was doing just fine with cdgs, and the competition would never have been as competitive as it is now. Even if the cdgs were pirated, it took a little more work to dupe them, and a bit more work for a lazy one-eyed jack, KJ to run a show.....not to mention, his pirated cdgs were much easier to spot, than a hard drive full of mp3gs......

Read that agreement carefully before you "rent" the 6,000 songs... you are required to submit ALL your "business records" to SC if they want them.

I listened to SGB Lady on the internet.
Shrill which could have been the the copying.
If not the copy it was EQ'able.
The track was not fantastic.
There were bits that stood out I was not happy with.
But quite acceptable to Joe public.
I could use it if I had to.

I 'could' use them if I wanted to, that's the point, I do not want to. If I personally do not like them I know others will (and have stated so on occasion) not either. I want to provide tracks that I would like to sing from.

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I do agree.
I also have to agree with the post made by cheese.
It is a way to start legally and affordably into the business.
Except for Diafel's research.
But I have reason to think there is legal stuff out there also.

The only thing I find ironic about everytime this subject comes up, is that EVERYONE (at one time or another) states that THEY bought the SGB collection. It may have been for curiosity, or when you just started out. So, how can you tell someone else not to buy it, when YOU bought it also. Why not let the people inquiring about these discs form their own opinion from actually listening to the tracks. For the price, it's not going to kill someone to learn the same lessons that we all learned. And as stated, SGB DOES have some tracks that are BETTER than the other manus. They're actually getting off cheaper than we did when we bought them.

Rosario

I'm not saying not to buy them as a supplement to your collection, I think they're a bargain for that function. What I am saying is not to use them as your core set.

If most KJs have replaced their SGB discs with better quality discs; why would you suggest that someone repeat your mistakes?

I guess we shouldn't tell our kids to stay away from cigarettes either. They should find out for themselves that they can kill you, right?

For me it's wanting to help other not to make the mistakes that I made. Not that I was one of the ones saying not to buy them. They have GEMS in them so they are worth something and might be worth being the core set at the beginning but it is definitely not the set I want to use forever as my core set. In fact I started out with them this time around thinking I could get away with it but they weren't the reason I switched to the GEM series, Nutech was.

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

First off, the OP said that they were just starting to get into karaoke. They didn't say they were going into business. These discs may just be for use in their basement. If they don't like the version, when they go to sing, they can request a different manu. I happen to think that SGB has enough "gems" to be worth $49 for 78 discs. If you find 2 full discs of songs from the WHOLE collection, it's worth it. And Bruce, I've NEVER seen anybody DIE from singing a SGB version of a song, so let's not get so melodramatic about it. I don't think there'll be any long-term side affects from using these discs.

Rosario

Is it a mistake to start cheaply and improve as you go?
Seems like many of you have a lot of money put away.