Karaoke Forums

Hi,

I was recently given a 3 disc set of 50 songs for my birthday and after comparing it to my book, 15 are duplicates. I'm always looking to expand my library with thoughts of buying some larger sets and this got me thinking.

What ratio of new songs to dupes do you consider acceptable when expanding your library? I'd qualify this by saying it has to be a 3 disc set or larger as you might buy an indidual disc just to get that one song.

Thanks,
Ken

this has always been the bane of buying discs. There are some sites where the manufacturers will allow you to purchase and download but sadly I dont think they ever post their whole range.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Ya, the one site that I saw for custom discs would've run me like 30-40 dollars for a 12-15 song disc. I haven't priced the download services yet as I'll be getting a new laptop by this weekend hopefully and have been using the wife's computer and work for all of my research I haven't downloaded anything yet.

Between the 3 disc set I just got and a link Lonman gave for a set of discs for $80 it got me thinking about what an acceptable ratio of dupes would be.

Thanks,
Ken

I am sure you will get lots of answers, but I don't care about ratio. To me the bottom line is cost per new song, and cost per new song that is *really wanted*. I now have upwards of 9,000 unique songs, and that should be enough. I don't need to pad my songbook with filler any more.

I have recently taken to obtaining material in four ways:

1. Downloading requested songs for $1.00 each from tricerasoft.com for immediate coverage. Now that my service club has broadband wireless, I do mean *immediate*.
2. Once a year buying Chartbuster's 50-song compilation of the country hits for the previous year. (For my very country area)
3. Buying custom SoundChoice disks for megahits where my version is lacking (last one "Picture, Suds In The Bucket, Family Tradition, Ol Red, Big Girls Don't Cry,Rockstar,Lips of an Angel, plus some songs I wanted for me")
4. Buying selected closeout disks on karaoke.com for $5.00 or less. I have obtained most of the PopHits in the past 10 years this way (at an average disk cost of $3.00) and all of DK Millenium (average disk cost $4.00 or so). This is now only if I really want at least one of the songs. If I have never seen one sung, I will not get it.

I believe that any dupes are unacceptable unless they are looking at providing a "best of" or greatest hits set based upon the popularity of previous songs sung at karaoke...but who if anyone actually surveys the kjs to see they have their information correct?

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

I take the same view as Mcky (cost per track) and use the same approach to supplementing my catalog. I recommend his methodology. Consider e-bay, as well!

Wow! After the initial investment in equipment and the $79 I had spent on the IMPK 520 song pack for the cheap little player we had gotten from Costco originally I was amazed at what it cost to build a library. At $5 a disc or less I could definitely afford to expand my library. There is so much valuable information on this board it is amazing. I don't want to pad my library either unless it means getting a better version of a song I already have.

It just seems a lot of times when you find a good deal on a set, there are a certain amount of dupes that you will end up getting and I wondered what everyone else would call acceptable.

Thanks,
Ken

Ok,

How about on a cost/track basis then and I would assume that any dupes on a disc would count against the cost/track. What is your average cost/track?

Thanks,
Ken

When talking about your personal library- I never cared about the number DUPS as long as I had the best version of the song for ME. Keys timing musical quality of the backing tracks etc are all subject to personal tastes. From a business point of view you want to cut down and eliminate duplicate purchases as much as possible.
As long as I had an "acceptable" version of a song I would not look to add a duplicate ..unless I had a special request from a good customer.
sometimes you have no choice but always calculate the cost per songs of the ones you need ----- A $20 disc containing 15 songs seems to cost $1.33 per song but if 7 are duplicates that you don't need ....you are really paying $2.50 per song

If a disc more than half duplicate I generally will not buy it (and even half is very iffy) - at least for full price. It has to be a pretty special request or just a flat out perfect version over something I already have. That being said, I have bought large bulks of discs that averaged about $4 per (Sound Choice Spots mind you) that I was able to find on e-bay & closeouts. I've been buying discs for 15 years, never bought just to have (well I did at first but quickly learned that was not the way to go). I buy what people request to sing. My duplicate ratio has grown the last couple years due to the closeout bulk sales, but have about 15K songs overall, but only list the singles which is about 11K. About a 26% duplicate rate - a little higher than i'd like, but not as bad as some books i've seen that have songs listed 5 or more times over and bragging 50k song or better.

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

My average cost per unique track has probably been about $.90 at this point. At this point, since I am being more selective, I would guess $2.00 per unique track. This counts investment in top-notch versions of mega-hits (i.e. songs sung more nights than not).

Bear in mind I am still going to make special purchases, i.e. Hannah Montana disks for my kid-based shows.

As far as customs, you have to figure that $30-40 for 12-15 songs (this is actually a great price BTW), these are 12-15 songs that you want & will be used (theoretically). Now if you were to buy those same 12-15 songs on discs, lets just say that you could get all 15 songs on 7 individual discs @ $17.99 (average price for a new/retail 'quality' manu disc), well you just spent about $125 - if you had to get all 15 songs on 15 individual discs, the price just jumped that much more! And the other songs on the discs may just be 'fluff' to fill the books - sometimes not. I've bought discs for 1 request & had a couple other songs done more than the actual requested song.
Acceptable duplicate ratio is up to you, I personally do not like spending money on songs that I already have - again, unless it's a real special request, or a replacement for a crap version.

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

Has anyone ever thought about a "Heads Up" section for the board? I belong to a Christmas website and deals that are found whether they be on ebay or from a normal retailer are posted there. Just a thought as it would be a good way for closeouts and ebay deals to be spread to members of the forum that might be interested. I hadn't even thought about ebay as a source of discs until I came here.

Thanks,
Ken

While the closeouts are good deals sometimes, one consideration is they are being closed out for a reason. Sometimes due to a manu being closed down & the stores are liquidating, due to slow sellers ie discs with songs no one wants or cares about, or the quality is so bad that the discs just don't sell at a regular price.
A couple years ago I bought almost 250 Sound Choice Spotlights for $4 each (at the time SC discs were retailing for $22.95 per), many of these had more duplicates than I would have liked, however the cost per song offset the actual dup factor and filled a bunch of requests that I normally wouldn't have picked up. These deals aren't as common today it seems as these particular discs were all discontinued by Sound Choice so they are no longer out.

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

I guess it also depends on your perspective as to what constitutes a good deal. When first starting the library and not having many songs I looked at package deals for songs that I liked and the price/song ration was really good because duplicates weren't much of an issue. Now, I need to change my thinking a bit about what a good deal is as you pointed out in your post. My library has grown and the price/song ration isn't going to be as attractive as it was when I was first buying because of dupes. When at first I could get a disc for 19.99 with 12-15 songs and most if not all be songs I didn't have and would get sung I now have a much harder time finding that so you are right Lon, the custom disc deal starts looking quite a bit more attractive.

I think where you are in your library influences what a "good deal" is and I grew mine rather quickly at first and just hadn't adjusted my thinking.

Thanks,
Ken

Plus the fact that MANY songs aren't avaiable on discs anymore. Sound Choice for example, the majority of the songs on the discontinued discs (with the exception of the songs that made it be discontinued in the first place) are available on their custom site. But if you were to try to find the actual disc it was on, you may have a harder time - depending on when it was pulled. Older numbers, probably no chance, newer ones you may be able to still find at the stores until they deplenish the stock.
I just paid $69 for a 16 song custom. Many of these were songs that are either no longer available on disc or the songs were on discs that I already had most of the songs. I'm on my 3 custom now & putting together a new one for my next buy as I type!

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

I think it also depends on how badly you need the other songs that are not dups. In this case you have to way out need. It maybe more cost effective to go with the custom disc.

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

On a side note, who did your signature Babs? That is really neat.

Ken

Thanks Ken it's nice of you to notice

That's my neurotic creative side - I enjoy creating when I can.

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

Wow! Very well done. I'm still looking for my creative side. My increasing interest in karaoke over the last year is probably the most 'artistic' thing I've done in my lifetime. I was always the very logical person in the group.

Ken