Karaoke Forums

For years, SC has promised new music.... usually with conditions, but that doesn't matter much, they are welcome to limit their customer base to whatever they want...

They even tried something like this a couple years ago... but their proposed list of songs were just not what they promised; there were songs that others had already made even though PEP promised repeatedly the music would be "never done by anyone before."

And even now, they're proposing the "make your local band into a karaoke track" and I have no idea if that idea has even moved an inch since their Vice President/Corporate Officer/Marketing Manager/Lead Lawsuit Attorney has flown the coop.

So, I'll present it to you whether your crystal ball is operative as ask for a guess....

But I will preface this by saying that if PEP distributes a single song, I'll be right there to verify ALL of the licensing for karaoke use and distribution as Kurt's favorite "in your head rent free KJ"....

And what is your guess?
Remember, you can select 2 options

I'm not holding my breath but I would buy a song or three if they made songs that I liked that weren't already available from another source. If Sc came out with a song the same day that KV came out with the same song; I would probably buy the song from KV since they've been making songs for me and others for the last 8 years.

KJK, In the case of your scenario I would buy KV version every time.

I'm confident that if PEP ever produced a track worth purchasing that wasn't already available elsewhere, it would be a very short wait before I could purchase the PartyTyme version.
I don't mind waiting for a quality track from a quality company with a vested interest in karaoke production.

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KNOW THYSELF

I was never one for having a song just because it's out. It needs to be something that our singers have requested. If one of my submitted requests are made and no one else has it - of course i'll buy it.

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

I am with Lonman on this. Unless it's requested by one of my singers, I don't get the song.

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

It's taken a few years to poison their own well but based on the responses so far, it's not looking good for PEP.... even their cheerleaders aren't here to prop them up.

Looks like they've painted themselves into a very uncomfortable corner...


"Hi Kurt! Having fun yet?"

Sound Choice/PEP took their ball and went home thinking that they would sink every KJ in the business but other companies stepped right in to take their place at the top of the industry and karaoke is alive and well despite not having any new Sound Choice products released in the last 8 years. If PEP didn't sell individual tracks via download; I don't think they'd ever sell another Spotlight disc with 80% filler tracks to get one or two highly desired tracks.

If they ever produce one track, or a million tracks, they'll never see another penny of my money. It's been one empty promise or half-a$$ed scheme after another with them. Not to mention calling their customers thieves and pirates.

I'm only doing 1 show a week (just how I like it) and I have beaucoup singers, usually. Out of my 30-40 average only 1, ONLY 1, consistently asks if the song he has requested is on SC. No one else ever asks or even cares.

Why he is stuck on that I do not know. I have given him several by KV and he loves them, yet he will still ask if the song he has chosen is on SC. Granted, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, though he is unbelievably wealthy and that could not have happened from any intelligence within.

Nope, SC will never again produce. They have too much competition from other manus whose productions are fabulous with consistently correct words to be viable. How many tracks would they have to sell to make the 1st dollar? I do not think they could command enough to make it worth their while. Besides they have pissed off too many for too long over too much to expect enough KJs to support them.

Just my opinion.

What their actions have provided is that SC CDGs have become a collector's item that will continue to increase in value and that does nothing for them, I do think.

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You can never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind ----B. Joel
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence ---- E.A. Poe
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity ----E.A. Poe
I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference! ----A. Einstein
Double bubble, toil and trouble ----W. Shakespeare & Walt Disney
I hate it when I get on FaceBook ----Me
Karaoke might be Groundhog Day ----?
Of All the Martial Arts, Karaoke Inflicts the Most Pain ----?

"Filler" is subjective. Just because you don't want the other 13 songs doesn't make it 'filler' other singers may want those other songs and sing them.

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

Many people buy karaoke tracks for their own personal use and not every karaoke buyer is a KJ. Sound Choice put out a handful of Tom Petty songs and every one of them was on a different disc. That kind of thing wouldn't be tolerated buy the average karaoke purchaser in today's market. Most if not all of those Tom Petty tracks have been made by other producers and there are plenty of others out there that Sound Choice never made.

SC only made a few single artist Spotlights (15 songs) as compared to CB, Legends, Zoom etc.

STATUS UPDATE:

#1 : More than 2/3 of the respondents believe PEP won't produce anything at all and,

#2: More than 25% believe if they do, it won't be anything usable.

#3: One person is still drinking.

#4: Not a single vote so far, believes they will produce any decent licensed product.

But back then there was no download option (legally) from any manu so it wasn't just SC that had songs that contained one or two and the rest 'filler'. Now custom discs were available from Sound Choice and even Chartbuster a little after that in which a singer could have bought just the songs they wanted. I turned many singers on to their custom site when I was at a point I didn't buy discs that I had more than half the songs from any manufacturers already. I saw MANY custom discs after that. I even used the service quite a bit myself before the custom site ceased and legit download sites from other manus started popping up.

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

SC Spotlight series along with their sets like the Foundation, Bricks & Mortar packages (later produced) was originally targeted at kj's only. Just like DK and Pioneer and other brands. At the time it made sense to sell a variety of songs on a single disc. At least the SC discs was a little more structured with genres being together 70's rock, 80's rock, hair metal, alternative, etc. Instead of DK and Pioneer that would pretty much put the entire spectrum of genres/years on one disc - making it truly impossible to want to buy a disc for home use for simply that one song. The Star Series came out for the home consumer, the Spotlight was never intended for home users - they just bought them.

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

That's not entirely true. Although I can't speak for SC, the majority of our licenses included a DPD (download) option probably as far back as 2005, maybe even earlier. The reason we didn't offer downloads was not a legal issue but a financial one. Although we saw the writing on the wall years in advance, for better or worse our model was based on disc sales and transitioning from three to four 9 song discs per month to single downloads was going to take a very long time to ease into that model. Unfortunately we got caught up in a licensing snafu that took all of our time and energy and put us in licensing hell. I would make note however that we never put "filler" songs on our discs. It may have seemed that way toward the end as a result of our licensing challenges but we always released the best songs that we could possibly license. Even in the best of times however, when all you do are current releases, sometimes the radio just don't give up 27 to 36 good songs per month.

Lon you seem to have pretty good record tracking.
I would be interested in seeing how much deadweight you have on the SC disks

The following query will give you a list of all SC tracks that have been played at least once in your show sorted by disk and track(assuming your filenames are in disc_ID-track - artist - title or disc_ID-track - title - artist format) anything with disk_ID-track first will work

On the line that contains Like("SC*" You can replace SC with DK, PHM, CB etc to check other disk manufacturers. Just make sure you don't remove the " in front or the * after whatever brand you put in.

You can also filter it by each CD by replacing the SC with the entire cd name minus the track . . . example: Like("SC2280*" . . . still need the " before and the * after the cd name

Open your Karma database in Access
Click on Create new query
In the view dropdown at top left select SQL View

copy and paste the following into the SQL window

SELECT Distinct(Right([MediaPath],Len([MediaPath])-InStrRev([MediaPath],"\"))) AS song
FROM SingerHistory
WHERE (((Right([MediaPath],Len([MediaPath])-InStrRev([MediaPath],"\"))) Like ("SC*")))
ORDER BY Right([MediaPath],Len([MediaPath])-InStrRev([MediaPath],"\"));


Click on Run near the top left to run the query.

K even though you had planned on it - it wasn't 'legally' available to kj's (or anyone else) at that time. Which is all I said.
I never considered anything as 'filler' because someone eventually will sing it - even if it's just once (which is no different than a kj today buying a song on the fly that may only get used that one time). I had some PHM sitting on my shelves for YEARS before the songs on the discs began to be sung. I always laugh at the 'killer' vs 'filler' argument.

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

I don't use Karma, I use Hoster.

But absolutely none of this makes one bit of sense to me as far as the sql queries.

I think my hosting program tells me how many songs have never been done - my data goes back to 2013 (although i've had SC since 94 so very inaccurate data as songs that may have been popular might possibly be dead today).

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