Karaoke Forums

Hello!  I was wondering if anyone can help get me in the right direction for going to a laptop for both my karaoke & music.  I assume I would just plug the laptop into my mixer board and my tv.  I pretty much have only seen one laptop that is karaoke ready, I just think that would be the easiest route to go but if anyone could give me other laptops out there that can be made to work for karaoke/music at the club, let me know!  I appreciate the help, thanks!

I run a disc based show, but my PC is set up with MP3s and PCDJ/KJ, and I occasionally use it for very small private events.  


   Rather than advise you on setup, I would rather give you some advice if you're going to use the laptop professionally:


    Make sure that you carry a preloaded back-up hard drive, video card, and sound card. Or, even better, a second laptop set up as the first.

    If you value your customers, also carry a CD player for those who want to use their own, and make sure that either the player has it's own keychanger, unless you are using an external mixer rather than the PCs software.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

I use a lappy and I can add that if you want  trouble free usage then do not get a celeron chip...pentium or AMD athlon. Having said that I use an AMD semperon chip and it manages really well

Joe

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

I thank ya very much for your advice!

pluging any "off the shelf" laptop into a mixer will work, but you will eventually buy a external "pro" soundcard for the system.

As for purchasing extra hard drive and/or extra laptop for "backup" it is an unnecessary expense, your current cdg player and cdgs are your backup, so save the $$$$ buying extra hardware and getsomethin realy good.

And rember you can never have enought ram!!!!   When you buy a laptop spend the extra $$$ and max out the ram on it.

I couldn't disagree more with the unnecessary backup...

just the sheer amount of time it takes to rip to hard drive makes it worth the expense of having a backup!

I also disagree with the "pro soundcard" option. I use a usb Denon mixer that connects directly to my pc, and before that, a Soundblaster MP3+ usb device. Both give outstanding sound. I've never had a complaint on my sound system.

hells teeth Matt thats twice this year I have agreed wiv ya...scarey

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Matt,

   What type MB are you using ?

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

MB as in MOTHERBOARD? or Mixer?

Motherboard.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I dunno... it was a cheapie. I've had three separate computers all hooked up to the system. I like AMDs because they're easy to build. I've had one Intel, and hated it.

When I get home, I'll look it up.

Thanks Matt,  I was about to get AMD for the first time.  Reason being I can't imagine AMD being much worse than my current Celeron Laptop, but I'm sure you know how the pro/con discussion goes when Intel vs AMD comes up, so I'm currently at an impasse holding out for Intel.  Naturally saving bucks on a (home DAW) system would be a preference. Yet it seems that this AMD vs Intel discussion is starting to look similar to the Behrenger vs never again Behrenger situation.. Trying to decide if what is problematic for some with AMD would be a founded concern given my use.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Kappy AMD is far superior to celeron and in my opinion I prefer them over pentium. This desktop is an AMD athlon dual core, my laptop has a sempron chip. If I am correct then I believe sempron replaced the duron which was so very ordinary. Anyway Athlon is the equiv of Pentium and Sempron/Duron the equiv of Celeron except that I have found the sempron infinately superior to Celeron.
AMD originally had probs with overheating but its a widely recognised issue so most store bought desktops have extra fans, and if you are building from scratch then I suggest you do the same thing

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Hey, don't mean to disagree with you all but to be honest, I fixed all my problems when going from my Athlon XP to an Intel Core2 Duo! AMD will not handle heavy loads like, multitrack recording with lot's of vst plugins enabled and will be very slow for video editing!

You see, I love building desktop and also love reading forums about pc hardware and it's unanimous, you do NOT build a pc for studio purposes on an AMD platform, any pro audio expert will agree on that and some pro software will also not recommend it either!

AMD is cheaper alright but for me, nothing compares to the Core2 Duo if matched with the proper chipset.  I've build some desktop using a Celeron D and an ASUS motherboard and tested it with the same pro software that my AMD wasn't able to handle, I was amazed, it never crashed and it had less ram memory!

If surfing, playing mp3's or video's is what you wish to do, no problem, you'll be pleased but forget about the real heavy stuff, you might not find it funny at all

Here's some nice reading:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/12091/14

Micky whats the difference between dual core and hyperthreading? Any advantage to either?

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dual core - that is a cpu with two physical cores

hyper threading - that is one cpu with one core but acts to the operating system that it has two cores, multitasking based.

dual core is the future as games and more programs take the power of the cores into use. My core2 duo will let me extract/compress a dual layer dvd while I'm mixing my audio tracks with my vst loaded or surfing the net and nothing slows down, wouldn't want to try this with my old amd

Dual Core's are 2 cpu's, you can load one with what ever you wish and use the other one to do something else and believe me, I can't describe how great it is, it never slows down or freezes while the other cpu is fully loaded, it's the BEST thing ever invented in our beautiful world of pc's!  Now keep in mind that Mac also uses an Intel Core2 Duo on their machine, wonder why

Micky I adore you but I beg to differ, I ran a radio station 24/7 on one purpose built AMD puter. That was the full automated radio program plus production using multitrack recorder, all on the one machine. That computer (and this was 6 years ago) was hitch-free and only needed to reboot once a fortnight. I upgraded that computer two years ago (yep took it with me when I moved from the town I was running the station from) and thinking that technology would have improved to such an extent that I could get away with a celeron chip for using CEP and doing a spot of home recording...WRONG!!! what a piece of crap!!! So it went down the road and back to my purpose built dual core Athlon.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

What Asus motherboard and cpu are you using?

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Hey, I adore you to and I believe you, Celeron are good for surfing the net and yes, I would probably go with an AMD dual core over a Celeron.  But the truth is, nothing compares to an Intel Core2 Duo  I've builded some great AMD system using an Asus MB and yes, it really worked well with out a glitch, but I honestly have to recommend spending just a bit more on an Intel Core2 Duo, it's worth every penny spent!  AMD duo core laptop run hot, run slower, but yes, they are cheaper and will probably do the job! just compare a dell vostro built on amd vs intel, is it really worth the saving? Please, don't get me wrong, I have 5 pc's at home, 2 amd and 3 intel ( no celeron) and they're all working fine

Question for me? I have the ASUS P5B Deluxe with the 965 chipset & Intel Core2 Duo E6600.  I use 2 gig ram (kingston hyper x) and 2 seagates sataII drive. No overclocking needed.

I just bought a new Dell laptop, the Vostro 1500 with an Intel Core2 Duo (T7100) and the 965 chipset, 2 gig ram and MOST important, a 7200 rpm drive which not many brand can offer! Oh yes, got it on XP Home