Karaoke Forums

Since I'm going to be hosting professionally soon, I should probably have a Pro grade hosting program. At $184 I'm seriously considering it for several reasons.

1. It comes with book making software-that's a $69 savings built in so the hosting
program is really $115 of the total price
2. It has filler music between songs
3. It's simple to learn and operate-I used it a few years ago when I filled in for another KJ
4. It plays video-not a huge feature, but who knows? in the future I might use this
5. It handles the rotation-I'm not that great at doing this-I've done it with a pad and
pen-not the best way and I get confused with all the commotion going on
6. Built in ripper-Power CD+G burner is $39-very good program, but free with Hoster
so that makes Hoster $76

There may be more, but this is what I have been able to come up with.

I'm all about simplicity. The best software is carefully designed to be easy on the eye and easy to learn and navigate. I believe that the simplest user interface is the most powerful. This is why I love Karafun. It's not suitable for hosting, but what a fantastic job of programming and design-it's very stable too.

I've looked at Karma several times and I didn't like the user interface AT ALL. I don't want to change the way I look at things and do things and think about things in order to operate a piece of software and nothing about Karma was intuitive to me.

I know lots of folks love Karma and think it's the cat's meow, but I've tried it several times and couldn't figure out how to operate it and hated the user interface. To me this is a serious design flaw. I've also read more complaints about glitches, crashes and technical problems with Karma than with ANY other hosting program. I've read many positive things about Latshaw's book software. It's probably the best book making program out there from what I can tell.

I bought Just Karaoke 1.0 a couple of years ago and for the price it's a very decent and very simple program. It doesn't come close to the features that Hoster or Compuhost have, but it's capable of running a basic show. I just think I need more than what Just Karaoke has in features.

So, these are just some thoughts of mine . . .

I've always liked Hoster from day 1. Tried all the others and Hoster just fit my needs.

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Same here Hoster has been a very stable program for me. I bought mine when they were offering for 20% off as well. For many of the same reasons you are considering. I have noticed that thier ripping program does a great job compared to many of the other ones I tried. If you are comfortable with the interface go for it. I don't think you will be dissapointed.

Just got back from a Karaoke show where they were using Compuhost. The KJ showed me how it works and how it looks on the laptop and I must say I am very impressed. The one thing that I REALLY liked was how it handles the rotation and how simple it is to change the rotation and move people around and add new singers. Visually it looked very clean and easy to navigate. the sound was clean and clear too.

It played the filler music between singers nicely too. I liked the scrolling marquee at the bottom of the screen too and the splash screen announcing each singer. I need to download the demo and try it out and download the most recent Hoster demo and try it out too. I'm sure Hoster is new and improved compared to when I used it a few years ago. Well, it's nice to know that I have a choice between two very good programs, but this is going to be a tough decision.

Yes Hoster has changed quite alot since you last used it. The marquee is actually separate from the singers coming up - I display both, constant marquee & the next 3 singers with the songs and actual time stamp of when they are coming up.

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CompuHost is the only thing I will use. In my opinion, it is the best hosting software you can get. I can whole heartily recommend it.

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we LOVE MTU hoster...for us the playing videos was a huge plus as we use converted LD files and people love them.

Athena

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I'm a Karma kinda guy.....

I understand, see above ^^^ my comments regarding Karma and why I'm not considering it. I see lots of folks seem to really like it, it's just not my cup of tea.

When I was looking I was split between Hoster & Compuhost I did try out everything I could find at the time. I knew kj's that were useing both of the programs and they were happy with them. So now it just comes down to your personel preference. Either way I think you will be making a good choice.

My husband looked at just every program out there for 2 years. Finally decided on Compuhost. We also have the book program from them and happen to get that when they were doing a free updates for life thing.

But it all depends on what you like and how you want it to run and stuff.

Well, I just downloaded the Hoster demo and TRIED to use it. The demo is so crippled that I couldn't get it to do anything. Couldn't figure out how to even get a single song to play. Visually, it looks very similar from what I remember-still kind of primitive looking. Hoster is still clinging to their proprietary compressed song file format which seems kind of weird to me-I would want everything ripped in a standard file format like MP3+G. It looks like it would be fairly simple to import tracks into the database once the program is fully activated and running. As far as how to use the rotation and how the marquee works and other features go-the demo is so limited that I don't see how I can really try out any of the features. I'm leaning away from Hoster at this point and I'm disappointed because the price is right, I have the ability to have Hoster on a main machine AND a backup laptop in case something happens to the main hosting machine-this is a great feature IMO.

Compuhost clearly looks to be technologically superior and the user interface is better designed and pleasing to the eye-no contest IMO. I loved how the rotation is handled when I saw it in action on Friday night. It's a bit more money since the book software isn't included and I didn't see anywhere on the Compuhost web page that it could be installed on a primary AND a backup laptop. It also looks easier to learn and use than Hoster which are big factors to me. I need to DL the demo and take a deeper look at Compuhost.

On this, we agree 100%!

If you are looking for a user friendly interface with a load of useful functions, I would recommend trying out DigitalKJ. They offer a free full version thirty day trial. I've been using it for nearly ten years trouble free.

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Just took a look at it and I kind of like it. Not sure yet. It looks pretty intuitive and simple. $150, but no ripping software and no song book software. Hmmmm . . .
They have a 30 day trial which I will probably do once I have all the music I've ordered and I have a gig set up. Thanks earthling.

Have you considered Siglos Much cheaper than Hoster and has a better sound engine

http://www.powerkaraoke.com/src/prod_si ... sional.php

I just DLed the demo and I'm going to give it a try.

Ok, tried Siglos Pro and it has a very nice look to it, but I really, really did not like the way it operates. Way too may screens to do what should be done all on one screen-overly complicated for no reason that I can understand. Not a logical process to operate this program IMO. How it operates makes no sense to me at all. It does look very nice, but it would be a much, much better program if there was just one main screen and then all or most functions were operated from there. I think I need to look at the newer version of Justkaraoke from Tricerasoft. The older version that I have is sooooo simple to operate. Thanks Mickey

Again, look at the Karafun user interface-pure simplicity. For hosting a better way would be needed to search and add singers etc., but it's so straight forward and simple to operate.

The ideal hosting program-one screen should be used to add a new singer and to select the song that they will sing and and add them to the rotation, then it should be one single click to launch the song, a single click to change the tempo or to change the key, it should be easy to see the singer's history, it should be simple to add a new song to an existing singer, it should be simple to skip a singer because they are in the bathroom or outside smoking and then to play their song when they come back in without changing the rotation. I don't want to constantly flip back and forth between multiple screens to do basic functions that should be able to be performed from the main screen.

Just downloaded Tricerasoft JustKaraoke and it is the closest to what I want and like. Withing seconds I understood how the program works, I could easily add a singer and a song for them and it placed them in the rotation. It's very simple to move singers around in the rotation too. Version 2.0 just seems a bit more refined than the earlier version which I have already. I bought 1.0 because it was so simple and uncomplicated. Easy to learn and easy to use. The best programmers make software that is simple and intuitive.

Compuhost and Hoster may do a lot more, but this program looks to do pretty much everything I really need. Siglos looks really nice visually, but I really did not like the way it operates, it's unnecessarily complicated. What's amazing is that JustKaraoke is only $50. That's too funny. Looks like I'm back to where I started and back to what I liked before in the first place.

If you haven't tried it yet try Karma everything you need on one screen (except the initial setup) very easy to use!

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