Karaoke Forums

Hello,

Well took all of our old karaoke (SGB and I know) and the two sets of karaoke kurrents that I had bought along with some other disk that we have and now they are loaded on the hard drive where I dj at.

We did a test night the other night and only invited a few people over to help test it out, We were told that it's not even close as far as sound go's, we sound better than any other karaoke show around bar none. That was great but we did have one small problem, not near enough music.

We have about 2300 songs I would guess and we need more. I have an idea please let me know what you think and also would appreciate any ideas you might have. Please keep in mind that we open this tuesday the 29th and knowing we can't get everything by then We still need to figure something out.

What I was thinking is this, we could use one of those download sits where you could just play the song online and have it streamed like that. I think a program called karaoke light is the one.
we could at least play the song they wanted and then keep a list and buy the track later on down the road. By later on I am thinking by the next show if possible.

Has anyone used this before and how is the sound quality that comes out of it all?


Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Thank You

Right now downloads are in questionable territory, If Joe C. had his way it would never be allowed because it possibly will put out of business the disc based KJ's because Bars will be looking for KJ's that can do so.
Mid July, Sound Choice is supposed to be releasing a new series directed towards computer KJ's. You might want to check that out. I'll post on the board when it does come out. I am sort of in the same boat when it comes to number of songs but I have a mixture that contains many of the old standards and a lot of newer stuff.

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

It is a pretty tight timeframe, and to rip a lot of disks before the 29th is not going to be too easy.

For targeted song selection Select a track and tricerasoft seem to have the widest selection of songs avalible. They are covered by UK laws and trade treaties so as far as I can tell they seem fully legit to use (and also seem to have the approval of the manufacturers they sell).

I am not certain on the legality of using streaming (not downloaded) karaoke commercially, as that is treated differntly from the purchased downloads. At the very least you probably have to make sure the source of your stream has approval from the maker of the karaoke.

Had to edit -- I just noticed you said your first show is Tuesday? I don't suppose you have any brick and mortar karaoke store in your area? If you do you might want to try to find the Sweet Georgia Brown set of 67 discs for $100 or so. Dangerous has a nice set pretty reasonably priced and the Sav-A country set is usable for classic country when you're starting out.

If streaming is legal, the KJ business is going to suck even worse.

The easiest and least expensive way to increase your song selection is to go on ebay and buy a few sets. All Hits, Sweet Georgia Brown, Chart Buster etc.

Some sets like the ChartBuster 1-6, DK Millennium and Magic Trax(Sweet Georgia Brown) come on SCDG discs and need to be converted but they are VERY inexpensive. The conversion program is from Roxbox and is $59(it was $39 the last time I checked).

Get those inexpensive collections and you'll have several thousand songs and enough to run a decent show to start out. In my opinion, if you are serious and want to KJ regularly and have a good show, you need to spend the $4,500 and get the entire Sound Choice library in addition to the sets mentioned above. At that point you will have an awesome collection and then all you need to do is add some sets or individual discs from the last 10 years to round things out.

No matter how many discs you buy and no matter how big your collection is, you;re going to have people coming up and asking for songs that you don't have. As long as you have the songs that 99% of the people want and if you get what I suggested above, you'll have a great selection and be able to satisfy the majority of people that attend your shows.

You can also get the Nutech and Music Maestro SCDG discs if you want certain songs that those two did well. Both collections have some decent songs and lots of bad ones too. For what they are going for on ebay these days it's probably worth getting both.

Other companies to consider are Monster Hits, Zoom, Pop Hits Monthly, Top Hits Monthly. Some folks like the "Dangerous" set and they are available on ebay. Some folks like Supercore, but I think Supercore is horrible because of the pan flute in the background.

I got some sets recently off amazon . com that are listed under "100 Hits" that are inexpensive and good.

I have the Supercore and there is no pan flute. You must be confusing it with DK or pioneer. Oh and Nutech is good if you like midi.

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

We actually started about a year and a half ago with just 2500 songs and we were up against a has everything show next door. But we had the advantage of having sang at this place for years so we knew which songs to be sure and have.

I wouldn't do the streaming for legal and reliability reasons. But put out a request list and build from there. We doubled our song numbers fairly quickly and I did buy some deals to bulk things up but really found it more effective to buy what people requested. You will find your SGBs have a selection that gets used alot and you can buy better versions later of any songs that aren't up on quality sound or lyrics-wise. But that set seemes to have covered want people want to sing. (it sounds like you already have it which is why I didn't say Supercore.)

If I had to do it over, I would do what the person above suggested and get the SC Foundations and Bricks. We still get requests for songs that are only available on those. When we started we got Foundation I but II wasn't out yet. We are in a country area so the CB collections were really handy, also.

I check out what are hot songs on the Top Ten lists and listen to them to see how "singable" they are and get some of those. Because we couldn't compete song number wise, we competed by having newer songs as the hard drive show hadn't updated since the initial purchase. The new songs weren't the most sung at first but when you get break out groups such as Zac Brown and Lady Antebellum, people WILL actually start wanting new stuff. At first our old crowd didn't sing the new songs at all but we started getting in new people who were looking for the current stuff and I think it did help us to build the show.

I'd have to agree with looking at what's popular and what people request. Why spend thousands of dollars for 10, 20, or 30 thousand songs when most shows play between what 50 - 80 songs a night? There's really no way to do it, but if you knew before hand what 70 songs were going to be requested you could leave the majority of music at home and not need it.

You're show will be more enjoyable and successful if you cater to the crowd. I've seen quite a few lists online for top requested songs. Maybe compare those to the group buys and see how many of those songs are covered. This is what I plan on doing as I add to my collection here at the house.

Here's a link to a list I found of the Top 500 most requested karaoke songs
http://www.google.com/search?q=karaoke+most+requested+songs+top+500&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=88v&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&ei=zYcnTL-WFsL88Abb2oXPDw&start=10&sa=N.

I can't find the page where I originally found it but, this list was composed over several months using several venues and KJ's. Might be a good place to start.

Just a small caveat to anyone who decides to use tricerasoft.

Do not download any of the tracks from "Top Hits Monthly" as these are supposed to be owned by Stellar Records who has not licensed any of their track for download.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, there is no licensing available to sell DK tracks by download.

However, I have contacted all the overseas producers and they have granted licensing which to date, Tricerasoft has always paid.

-James

I almost forgot, if you have 2300 unique songs then that is a very good start. It's more than I had when I first started, and I did okay. Like everyone else has stated, figure out what your crowd wants to sing, then buy accordingly.


Another good place for downloads is selectatrack. Just be aware that the subject of using these tracks for a show is in question.


hope this helps,

-James

If anyone's interested, someone has the original DK1-99 set on ebay for sale. At the moment no one has bid and the opening bid is $495.00. Auction ends Mon. 20:45 PDT.
I know some people have issues with the pan flute, but as a core set DK was one of the best. If in decent condition, that set at only $500 or $600 is a steal.

A lot of what people like to sing is on that set.

http://cgi.ebay.com/DK-Karaoke-Discs-1- ... 255b6007b9


here is the ebay link mentioned. I would be cautious, this seller has no rep and the account was created in June.


Ask if this is a hard drive and if so, whether it comes with all 99 original cds *ie not cdr copies*

If they say yes and you want to go for it, pay thru paypal so you can take advantage of their buyer protection.

-James

First thanks for all the replies I do appreciate the input. I agree and had almost came to that conclusion before I started this thread that I wouldn't do singing from straight online source but just wanted to get that verified and you have done that.

I do have the SGB set that someone mentioned above and we have had that for years plus some other disk bought here and there.

I get asked for music when I am djing and if I don't have it I always have kids (younger crowd..much younger ) offering to hook me up with large amounts of music and I have to keep telling them that I purchase and own every song and they look at me like I am crazy. I try explaining but I don't think they really care.

The problem I have with buying another brick set or something is all the dupes. I started to cross check a set of a different manu with the ones I have and before I got to thirty there were only 4 songs I found I did not have, did not finish it as the average to that point was horrible, 60 - 40 maybe but not that.

Again, Thanks for your time and will look forward to seeing what sc does in the future, I have none of their stuff yet but who knows. One thing, we will sound good and we will let everyone know that we will get their music if they ask for it and we don't have it,

Thanks

I started doing gigs with less than 2000 songs. I kept a spreadsheet open and when someone requested a song I didn't have (apparently didn't believe my songbooks) I would tell them I would do my best to have it the next week. It wasn't flapjaw, I usually would have it the next week which impressed them.
I worked off this for 6 months in the meantime putting down a lot of money to building my library. At the time I had to leave everything at the bar so when I came the next week, I was either adding pages or replacing all the pages in my book. You'll be find starting out with what you have.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

I would definitely get that original DK 1-99 set if you can. I think they're one of the bets products (and over Sound Choice, as well), and you really can't heard the pan flute guide when someone is singing.

birdofsong

This is a problem when buying big sets, however, chances are you will be getting better versions over the SGB and cheaper sets. If the singers don't care what versions you use, then you are alright, if they do, then you may/may not get people to come in to sing.

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

When did Stellar purchase the Top Hits Monthly catalog? THM was owned by Panorama Record - not Stellar, Pop Hits Monthly is owned by Stellar which is not available on Tricerasoft.

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

The official top hits monthly became pop hits monthly. Panarama came later and illegally used the top hits monthly name without compensation to Steller. Steller sued panarama for their use of the top hits monthly name and that is why panarama no longer makes discs.

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

Well that is not the only reason, THM (Panorama) was sued into oblivion for not licensing their music to begin with in which they gave up, but Stellar has not purchased any of their (Panorama) library which is what was implied above as far as downloading.

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

What would I do? Here's what I did....

I started in CA with SGB and just a few other discs, building with the Sunfly discs because I was fed up with my local KJs not having any brit music. I added SC discs using The Mortar and various Zoom and other discs.

Moving to TX I was able to add 350 discs from the country bar I started hosting at, then moved on to adding monthly CB, PHM, Sunfly and SC discs (dropped PHM about a year ago) Running 2 rigs I double up only on the CB discs and alternate the other new discs between each rig along with downloads from Tricerasoft, SBI, Selectatrack, Karaoke Version and VenueVJ. Chartbuster's downloads are (in my experience and 'don't sue me' opinion) problematic due to 'beta' website and their reluctance to let me use my 'all in one' karaoke search tool with their site. Feel free to try them yourself!

You can definitely start with a fairly crappy selection and build it up. On the night downloads are one way to earn kudos points from your singers - I generally get more in tips from those singers than the costs of the songs when they see I am whipping out the old flexible friend. In the event that you can't get those then a custom CB (previously SC) disc is the way to go until you are making good bank.

Supplementing the SGB set with SC foundations is worth the money when you can afford it as people will see that you care enough to improve your show and that will itself pay dividends.


Jonn