Karaoke Forums

Don't wanna hijack the tread so.....

For those of you that give thoes of us that don't/won't play customers discs greif.....

What if someone walked in with a LASER disc? Would you go out and buy a laser disc player just to satisfy that one customer??????
Cassette???? (I still have some. Were are your gigs so I can complain you won't play my cassettes)
8-track????? (never knew there was karaoke on 8-track till Bar Rescue show.)


Since I have switched to computer based, I have had 2 people in about 7 years (or so) ask me to play their discs.

& BTW, I will DEFIANTLY not play a customers thumb drive.

Hate to admit it but I could play their laser disc......

I look at it as if you have no need then don't do it. But if someone wants that service, then don't be upset if they go to a show that will play their discs.

I'd play it! Got one guy that comes in about once every month or two with his 1 laser disc.

If people brought in cassettes - i'd have my cassette player there the next night. It actually plugs into my laserdisc player so I can give key changes on cassettes as well! I had a cassette player up until 2005, still sits in my home system.

8 tracks would be getting rediculous to think that anyone really still uses these - so no.

Flash Drive - absolutely - have and can. Well ok, I can't at this moment until I get a new computer, my laptop USB ports are full right now with sound I/O, mouse & hard drive.

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Apples & orangutans , Tony......

It doesn't matter, if you don't like the way someone runs karaoke, then go somewhere that suits you. Years ago, it mattered somewhat to me, but today, not one bit, and I find the subject passe........poll everyone on here, and if only one vote goes to "would you avoid karaoke, where they won't play your cdg", then we can finally move on.....

If someone came over to my house to sing; I already have a cassette player and a Laser Disc player in my karaoke system. If I had a regular show that had people bringing in Laser discs and or Cassette tapes; I would bring those devices with me. If I had the same Laser Disc as the customer, I would rip the MP3 from it and make my own CD+G file for it. If the guy with the cassette tape was sonmeone who came to my show on a regular basis; I would buy the CD+G of the songs that he wanted to sing from that tape and if they weren't available for sale, I would ask that person if I cold borrow his cassette tape and I would make the CD+G graphics for the songs on the tape and burn him a CD+G disc. Then he wouldn't have to read the lyrics from a piece of paper any more.

THAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Before you buy a laser disc player or an 8 track player or even a cassette deck; do yourself a favor and buy a dictionary....and then see if you can buy some customer skills.

I took discs to shows from about 1999 until 2007. During that time, the number of shows that would play discs declined albeit it slowly. But when I moved to the Seattle area in 2006, I noticed that there were far fewer shows that could play discs. It was pretty tough to find shows close to me that could play discs so I stopped bringing them altogether.

But I never stopped going to shows just because they didn't play discs.

-Chris

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-Chris

That is the primary reason people don't bring discs anymore, as the computer age of karaoke started taking off, more and more kj's dropped their players altogether. So people found it pointless to bring in their versions after a while.
I do advertise that I CAN play discs and it pays off. You'd be surprised how many people come in that are totally caught off guard with a 'yes I can play it' answer - they quickly run out to their car and come back with the comment resembling, 'you are the first kj I have found that will play discs anymore'.

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The reason that there are more and more hosts that don't play discs is because there are more and more hosts that have never owned a karaoke disc. I'm not trying to insinuate anything about you with that statement but many of the pirate KJs out there never had a need for a disc player because they started out as DJs and found out that they could also be KJs for the price of a pre-loaded hard drive. With the proliferation of these KJs; it has become a little more difficult to find hosts that play karaoke discs. Thankfully there are still some disc based hosts around here so I don't have to settle for whatever happens to be on the hard drive that they bought 5 years ago and have never updated since.

When the time comes that there are no longer KJs willing to play a customer's disc in a karaoke machine, I will have to start looking for shows that have software that can play a karaoke disc from the DVD drives in their PCs. Maybe they'll come up with a thumb drive that can be played from but not copied without a password? Pirates that steal thousands of songs from companies like Sound Choice will have no problem with stealing songs from me too. I protect my homemade material by not sharing it or trying to sell it. Once you sell it; it will be on the interent in a matter of weeks, maybe days.

I will politely refuse to play thumb drive from singers after two instances that happened. First time I inserted the drive my laptop freezes. I have to reboot from safe mode. Embarrassing to say the least. Second time (different singer) laptop will not even reboot. I have to go to my car & setup my back laptop. Took a good 15 min but still a highly unsatisfactory experience nevertheless. Give me your cd, cdg, dvd, vcd & I’ll play it. Thumbs? Sorry. No can do!

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

And that is why I stepped up with the times (a bit), by not only bringing my personal discs (burns from my originals) with me, but also a copy of the same songs on a Thumb Drive (in Zipped format, CDG format, and MP3+G format).

Bruce, if you "had"(and I wish you did) a regular karaoke gig, and you brought & did all the things you claim you would......you'd probably still do something to pi$$ yourself off, and quit going to your show.....

no problem playing custy CDG, or even thumb drives. Siglos will play direct from the DVD drive as will many others.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Whatever you say Johnny. Regardless of what you believe, I would go out of my way to give my customers what they wanted and wouldn't complain about it and make hooking up an extra piece of equipment seem like a major carastrophe. If I had to I would have an extra laptop on the table to test out a thumb drive for any viruses before plugging it in to my show computer. Why KJs are so against accomodating their customers is beyond me. It's as if they get an inferiority complex if someone has a song that they don't have so they won't let them use it at their show. I have at least a thousand songs that no KJ will have in his library. I go to shows that don't have issues with me wanting to sing songs that are not in their book. They're just happy to have a regular customer who spends plenty of money at their show and sings plenty of really good songs that don't make people want to go outside for a cigarette. I went to one show where the girl ran KJAMS on her apple laptop and didn't know how to load a CDG Zip file from a thumb drive. I converted the songs that I felt like singing at her show to video files that will play on any computer at all. Just plug in the thumb drive and double click on the song that you want and it plays just like a movie.

Bruce, as you aren't a host, you really do not know what it's like to haul all the equipment needed for a show. Every new piece is added weight and added space and added hookup time and an added thing (or group of things) that can go wrong. It's quite different if the system stays set up all the time. I've done both and I can promise you I have not and will not take a player with me on a mobile set up.

Who remembers DIVX karaoke??

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Thumb drives should never be a problem as long as you disable AUTORUN and AUTOPLAY -- which you should do as a matter of course, for security-- on all external media devices.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/ ... sb-drives/

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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.

Great advice, mcky. I really want to accommodate all my singers but not at the expense of shutting down the show for 15 min while fix my 'freezed' laptop. I will try this tomorrow night & insert my own thumbd & see how it works. Thanks!.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

So for the 2 singers in the last several years I should lug around my CDG player to every show?

Or if 1 singer brings in a LD I should go out and buy a LD player for them?

I can't go to McDonnalds and get a Wagyu beef burger topped with caviar.
Is that bad customer service?






IF IF IF IF....

Laserdisc - nah. I have a fluke guy that brings in one every month or so - only reason I can play them is my CDG players are also my laserdisc players. But people DO bring in cdg's because they KNOW I can play them. If you don't advertise you can, no ones going to bother to bring them to the shows so there would be no point in trying to attract those customers since like stated earlier most people don't bring them because most kj's today can't/won't play them.

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