Karaoke Forums

Totally new to karaoke...been djing a couple of years with a laptop running Vista, mixer, EON 15's and about 35,000 MP3's on external HD. Weddings, house parties in an upscale environment where clients wnat the DJ to be in the background and the music to be primary - no "personalities". Have mics, led lighting, etc. Everything digital, have never owned a CD. Mostly house parties, but have had small club settings interested in the karaoke.

Had client request karaoke, so bought VocoPro 7808RV...if it's junk I can send it back, but wanted something to do all my digital stuff with one mixer, and have the ability to switch instantly if clients requested.

Please give advice on karaoke software...I am used to one format for music, and all the formats are crazy, and I can't consistently download the trial sofware. Is it a fantasy to expect one software to handle all the types of files out there? Can you really rip from format to format, particularly midi to whatever you need to get the karaoke software to play? I assumed (!) I could purchase karaoke software digitally, just like MP3's. True? Also just planned to buy a plasma type 22" TV...will this be sufficient?

Also want to record the karaoke people...can you burn a CD directly and just hand it to them in real time? Also want to record wedding vows, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.
Yo Mama Productions
Sun Valley, ID

first if you want to sound good, professional, may I suggest Mp3+G over midi. You get the backing vocals as well as real sounding music. Then all you need is a program that will play both mp3 plus mp3+G which is a lot of software out there. or you can run your dj software beside the other choices. It really depends on what you want your software to do. If you could let us know what you want the software to do (features) it would help.

do you want:
something to keep a rotation for you Hoster, siglos, Compuhost, AutoKDJ, Karma, roxbox, just karaoke
key changer Hoster, siglos, Compuhost, AutoKDJ, Karma, roxbox, justkaraoke
filler music: RoxBox, Karma
multiplex control Hoster, RoxBox
recording RoxBox, COmpuhost, Siglos
announce your singers for you or keeps a list of who is coming up during a performance. Compuhost, RoxBox
Forgot to ask what software you use for your dj as some dj softare will play Mp3+G as well. If your dj software will play Mp3+G then you don't really need to look at other software.

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

i prefer to use 2 lots of software then if one crashes you not lost both music and karaoke.
sax & dotty Show presenter for karaoke and traktor v2 for mp3s ,v2 isnt the newest but i prefer it to the newer versions.

I "like" RoxBox in that I know how to use it, the database import options are pretty broad (ID3 support is nice even if it is stupid slow), and the history basically works right. I found it fails badly if you do not run it as administrator in Vista after some OS update, but the RoxBox forum guided me to the right check-box for that.

As far as recording wedding vows goes, first of all my take on that is you probably want it to be a separate setup from your main system. The vows are at the wedding ceremony which is usually in a church, and the DJ stuff is usually at the reception hall which may be miles away. So if your recording capability is tied into your main audio system or your karaoke stuff, that would be unfortunate. Also, most laptop sound cards don't seem to offer distinct MIC and LINE inputs for input; and I would hesitate to use a laptop mic pre-amp for recording anything important.

I suggest you buy a self-contained device with one or two mic pre-amps if you really want to record wedding vows. Then just position the equipment, press record, and when the ceremony is over go collect your stuff and proceed to the reception hall. Or just leave this job to someone like a videographer, who probably has an appropriately unintrusive directional microphone for scenes like this anyway, and will then get it sync'd to video.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

First...thanks. On recording the wedding vows, first. I have never had a wedding in a church...usually outisde or at the resort, so I'm doing the music for the seating, bride, etc. as well as the reception. They often want both the officiant, as well as the bride and groom with wireless mics, and absolutely do not want a videographer or anyone, including me, to be visible during the actual ceremony.

The software list was great, and I have trial versions of those programs, so I was looking correctly, and when you refer to a MP3 I assume it's MP3+G...correct?

I assume I will need an external drive in case folks bring their own karaoke cd's, and since I'm into stupid questions...why can't one use excel for a basic song list, and export it into a publishing program to spiff it up? I find excel to be really vibrant these days in business, so just wondering. The pilot website indicated I needed to songbook software to move the songs into before I moved them into the program...Siglos? Wondering why 2 steps? I have no problem reformatting/changing properties as I do that on all my MP3's. I'm using softjock, but they wouldn't have the neat little DB functions, like name of singer, and songs from the past, etc. I'm no happy with their limitaitons, however, but don't undestand why I would use serrato or tractor if I'm not using turntables.

Love the input...

Yo Mama

I mean, you can use Excel if you want to; but the nice thing about most CDG ripping programs is they will make a really good guess, based on Internet databases they can query when you do the rip, at what CDG it is. Then they put in the track names, artist, and so on. So the files get named appropriately, then you can import that into your karaoke program, and also make a song book based on it. You would not have to type things into multiple places unless the ripper identified the CDG incorrectly or not at all; and even then, you generally just have to do it once.

Maintaining an Excel file involves retyping information. That is valuable time you could better spend figuring out how to make a MacGuyver joke on the forum that no one finds funny, or drinking beer to kill the pain of your sense of humor being lost on the Internet masses.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

Or creating a playlist for an event that is 2 hours of DJ music for 1000 bikers (of the motorcycle variety) who are waiting around and drinking beer while waiting for Richard Petty to arrive.

Got it on the "songbook" software, and yep, it's worth it. Thanks.

you can use excel if you choose to. The advantage of taking the steps from siglos to pilot (or Compuhost to Fast Tracks) is that it is taking your actual database from your player and creating a songlist from there. Saves having to type in your info into excel or having to go disc by disc to add it into you list like it used to be and still is with KJpro.

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