Karaoke Forums

I see that Latshaw Systems has just released Karma 2010.

Now, I am a die-hard Compuhost user but this new Karma has some sweet features that don't exist in Compuhost...and I wish they did!

Such as:

• Ability to set a start point & end point for each track. Finally you can eliminate the "dead roll" at the beginning of a song.
  
• Adjust the lyric timing on the fly. How many times have you played a song and the lyric scroll is just a little off and it throwns off the singer? Now you can bump up/down the scroll speed while the song is playing on a temporary basis.
  
• Song count in rotation list. At a glance you can see home many times a particular singer has been up.
  
• Quick version change. A song start, and the singer looks at you and says "But thats the wrong version!". Click the now playing bar, and quickly swap to a different one.
  
• Plays iTunes M4A files. Great for filler music.
  
• A real customer database. You can even store singers email addresses.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am still a Compuhost fanboy (for the moment) and CH still has a better GUI in my opinion, but these features, combined with the fact that they added a lot of features that were formerly only available in Compuhost (scrolling "up next", promos, etc) really kick the game up a notch. It absolutely will not run on my (unsupported) 64-bit Vista machine however. It crashes as soon as you start it up. Runs fine on my 32-bit XP box though.

Competition is good! It makes everyone better.

I believe CompuHost has automatic "silence skip", doesn't it?

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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.

No, CH doesn't offer silence skip yet. But after previewing the Karma demo, I wouldn't want it unless they're able to implement it without being so invasive. The time it takes to locate the start/stop points in Karma is way too long for it to be useful in my shows.

After previewing Karma I've found, and of course I'll preface this with the fact that I too am an avid CH user....

The scroller, of which CH was the first to offer, comes nowhere near CH's scroller. It's nowhere near as smooth, offers only a static advertising line, and no instring color and formatting. The latest CH, of which is currently in beta, adds what they call Cycling-Promos, whereby you can configure unlimited promo-messages that cycle after each pass. Also they've added full color and formatting tagging options to make the scrolling messages really stand out.

CH also already offers support for M4A ITunes files within its FillerTunes player, of which I feel is one of the most powerful features CH offers. All of the latest offerings by competitors seem to offer only a very basic between performance filler option, nowhere near as powerful and useful as the CH implementation.

As for the ability to quick change an improper song, I think that's pretty neat. CH already offers something like this when adding songs to a singers queue. When adding songs with a known song number, ie:26356 , you can just add a + to the end ie:26356+ to preview all versions of the song. While somewhat useful, I like the faster implementation of Karma. Being a beta tester for CH, I'm going to suggest something like this to them. They have a great history of listening to their users, so I'm sure that if they agree it's useful, it will be added.

The other things that I've come to appreciate in CH and no other offers...
1. Advanced Promo-Trailer and Slide Show capabilities. This has proven to be invaluable to me, both as a revenue generator and a show enhancer.
2. The FillerTunes player. In my opinion, the very best in the industry.
3. The VideoBits and AudioBits, I use them all the time. By the way, CH offers 45 buttons each, of which I'm using most. Karma's limited number of buttons, and the fact that Karma does not provide the ability to stop an ongoing AudioBit (of which they call SFX) would be a big limitation to me.

I agree that competition is a great things, however I find it funny how all of the competitors seem to be chasing CH, while CH continues to pull ahead. I think I'll stick with the leader.

tbreen

Well, you wouldn't do it during your show. When you play a song with a long dead-roll, you make a note of it and mark it up later at home. Then the next time you play that song, problem solved. I think this feature is extremely useful.

As it turns out, the guy who designed and programed Karma (Bob), and the KJ who helped him design it live in my area, and the KJ (Galen Beck) is a very good friend of mine, and one of my mentors (the other is Mark Bishop). I do fills for both of them, and Galen has gotten me two of my regular gigs. The KJs featured on this page are some of the most experienced and tops in my area:

http://www.latshawsystems.com/about.aspx

Martine, who is as sweet as she can be, has virtually no computer ability at all. She was using Winamp before she switched to Karma, and Joey has a decent system, and a degree in music... but can't mix worth crap... but I like the guy and enjoy both of their shows.

As a result, Karma is pretty pervasive here. Just about every KJ I know on computer is running it... except for those who have come to my show and watched me use Compuhost.

The most prominent to make the switch, Mark Bishop, another good friend of mine... can't stop bragging about it. It's funny because Mark is pretty big here... He's also got a comedy show and is a local radio personality. I found out he was using it before he had a chance to tell me because his folks were coming to my show, "Hey, you use the same program Mark does..."

"Oh really? Stop playing."

He came to my show a few weeks ago and I said, "So how do you like Compuhost?"

The look he gave me was incredulous. "How the frick did you learn about that before I told you?"

I laughed. "Because, when your folks come to my show they talk about how I'm using YOUR program..."

We had a good laugh about that one. Check out Mark's Website:

http://www.markbishop.net/

The parody song "Badonkadonk from Dundalk" is a local hit. I'm from Dundalk, so all the locals referred to in the song are in my neighborhood. Funny song.

You can compare features all day, but for ease of use and intuitive design Compuhost is difficult to beat. I can find 90% of song by typing six letters... and with the search as you type feature is can be less. I can usually have a singer's song request cued before they finish asking me if I have it. People who watch me use it... especially other KJ just drop their jaw. Bells and whistles aside, isn't fulfilling song requests and cuing songs the primary purpose of hosting software?

As a result, several top KJs who frequent my show have switched from karma to compuhost, and they LOVE it. LOVE IT. "Dude, this is sooo much easier... " is the comments I hear. I would love to support Bob, and his local business, but I just can't justify it.... But that's ok. Trust me... he's doing well. We all get together at Herb's show on Tuesday nights and he's quite good at buying us all red headed sluts until we're ready to fall down... .

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Same here, I can't think of one KJ in the area that's seen CH in action that's not now using it for their shows. And, as a beta tester, if they're impressed with the older version, they're going to REALLY be impressed with the new version due out soon.

tbreen

I'd also point out that CH uses minimal resources, and runs smoothly on as little as 512MB of RAM.

I've talked to several KJ's around that use it, and Karma is a resource hog, requiring at least 2GB of RAM to run smoothly. (Yeah, I know it say 1 GB, I'm just telling what's being said by the people who use it.)

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I use Karma and love it for its ease of use and features.
Karma is only $99 while Compuhost is $179 ?

but Compuhost is Worth the money. If Karma Won't run on your show computer then it's not worth buying. I have tried everything aside from upgrading my RAM and it won't run and I have very little money to upgrade my ram to what will run it.

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

NOt saying its not worth the money --just stating facts
Karma works fine for many KJ's and costs $99 - do what you want with the information --The OP was informing about the positives about KARMA --simple

FYI, Karma does now work on 64 bit Windows (XP, Vista, or 7) as of version 2010.0.10