Karaoke Forums

Am I reading this correctly? I need to reread it to ensure my eyes aren't deceiving me. Coming from Alan - this calls for a toast! Cheers

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

If it's just for someone wanting to do karaoke at home (or professionally) Open KJ is free and does have many of the bells and whistles not to mention the built in song store from Party Tyme, Kiosk/phone app with request system.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Actually, if you really want the basic, no frills just get Winamp and AutoKDJ but uninstall the AutoKDJ plugin itself, leaving the other plugins that come with AutoKDJ intact. Try running a show where you have to do everything from managing the rotation and keeping track using slips on the table to tell you what Karaoke song belongs to what singer because it doesn't keep track of that in the player itself. That's what a local host has been doing since the plugins have available for Winamp.

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

Hello Danny! I always look forward to your comments... But... please don't recommend Winamp for karaoke. Not only is it 100 years old, it's awful. I realize when people started using it with plugins for karaoke, there weren't many choices available for hosting programs. But at this point in time, there are many better choices. Actually, anything would be a better choice.

So my friend... I know you are only trying to help but recommending Winamp is terrible advice. I know, I know... you're probably choked up with emotion right now... and maybe a tear is coming to your eyes since I am taking my valuable time to respond to you. But, it's OK my friend. I'm only too happy to help a nice person.

May you have a wonderful evening.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Yes Brian, you ARE reading this correctly. You see my friend, life is about choices. And we choose what is right for us. For example, some people like Bose while others like Electro-Voice. Nothing wrong with that, my friend. We are who we are and like what we like. And so, there is no right or wrong... we choose what makes us happy.

For some people, that choice may be CompuHost... and for others it may be Karma. You really couldn't go wrong with either of them.

So my friend, may you have a blessed day.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Wasn't recommending it at all, just saying that if a host can successfully run a show basically without any of the tools that most professional karaoke softwares offer, mire power to them, In fact I am willing to concede that they are a better host than me. Although, I am going to a software that is only a step above that because if I have a DJ show, it allows me to add new songs that I download on the fly better than any software that I am aware of, does the same thing for karaoke but has no rotation management system but I have a working around for that by keeping track of the rotation via Wordpad.

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

I've been using Winamp, paper slips, and a white-board-based rotation for 15 years, and guess what? I have by far the most successful shows in this area. We average 35 to 40 or more singers every night. I wonder how we accomplish those numbers with such horrible software. We had a saying in the military "It's the gunner, not the gun." Something to think about.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

I can't begin to express how much I miss white-boards at karaoke. I can take or leave singer scrolls--I figure a host is going to say when I am going to be up regardless--but there was just something great about seeing the entire rotation.

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Co-host of The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly), a karaoke-themed podcast

I agree with Earl, there really isn't anything wrong with using Winamp or other basic players. While I prefer to not worry about the rotation myself, I actually have a great admiration for those willing to successfully rough it if you will. The only rough it method in my opinion are those who totally forgo even a basic player and use a web browser for their player through you tube. Them I hold in contempt. Granted, if I really wanted to, I could run my shows using VirtualDJ. Most versatile database out there. Can even access my buy on the fly songs easier than even Compuhost.

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

I use a basic player program and keep the rotation on a pad of paper. That's not roughing it, that's just plain easy. I do 14 songs an hour that way without breaking a sweat. I buy downloads on the fly on my backup laptop, and can have a brand new song playing by the time the previous song is over.

The one thing hosting software is good for is bringing new employees with no prior experience up to speed fast. The downside of that is that they then have no interest in learning how to do it without the hoster -- it becomes a crutch.

When I suggest they do a show, or even one hour without the hoster so they really get a feel for how it actually all works, they moan and say that would be too hard.

I just said to one of them last night, "hard" was manually loading a different disc for every song -- you wanna see hard try doing that for awhile! He cringed at the thought

or fast forwarding the tape to just the right time.....

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Kinda funny, I'm going to Baltimore in Oct for my 50th HS Reunion, I hope we haven't changed too much, . BTW I still use Karma, since around 2005. Do I love it? Most of the time, but support is lacking, however, it seems to work best with older versions using Win 7. I'm also becoming more of an Apple fan since using my iPhone, and iPad doing my own singing shows. A new program has been developed also for mac called LYRX, and is only $40, at least there's some new stuff for KJ in the mac.

Name tags will be mandatory...... and necessary.

That wasn't hard at all and was actually more fun being hands on - and there were very few that could run a 'fluid' show with discs, almost every one i'd go to in the day would be massive dead air between songs not to mention the time to eject, put disc away, search for and pull new disc out, load, select track (worst case scenario) - most would at the very least have the next disc out and ready. I always ran two players, next song always cued up to the proper place (bypassing all splash screens). I actually sometimes miss it. The way I ran mine was actually faster than using the computer - not by a ton of time but still. Only difference now is I will allow a last minute change as with before they would need to sit out their turn call up the next singer and the changer would wait until the next song so I could swap the song out.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Only time I did that is when customers brought their own tapes in, but after about a year I refused to play them unless they were already cued up. Most were impressed that I could do the same key change on the tapes without altering the speed as I could the laserdisc and cdg.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Update:

Not gotten too far yet, but putting together a business model of what I want to do. Working on website design, social media design and spreading the word. The logo, business cards are ready to print, brochures still need some work (pictures after booth is complete), contract needs some rewording, but otherwise ready to use. Putting together a portable DJ booth that is very cool to look at and flexible in it's use. Going to add some more/different lights to the booth, but that is towards the end of getting the entire business set up. Song library is about half updated and reorganized to fit new software (Siglos is still leading my choice).

I will post some pics of the booth when it is complete, but that is going to be awhile yet. Money is tight, so one step at a time. I am hoping to have the entire process up and running by the end of the summer.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Things I might be overlooking? Thanks ya'll

I'm glad to see that kiosks are still around. They were my idea. It's like leaving muddy footprints on the carpet of history.

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Okay, who took my pants?