OK, I bought an external soundblaster, and it worked a charm at home testing. Get to the show and whenever I got Compuhost to record, the output went, well - a bit hissy and clipped a little. Obvious solution for there and then - don't record.
Going to setup in my hall again later and test a few things. It sounds almost like the "line-in" was being played (it wasn't). If nothing else, I can use this one card for recording and another for output.
But I do now like that setting up has become a lot easier - seeing as I put it all through a USB hub, which also connected the external hard drive, Compuhost dongle, Griffin Powermate, etc. 1 cable as opposed to 4
Anyhow, got great feedback from the owners (excuse the pun), said I made their regular seem dull, and will be getting more bookings. To be fair, I said that any karaoke show, if people play and sing the same things week in, week out could be repetative, and it's not his fault. I am not in the habbit of stepping on people's toes.
Only 1 minor incident, when some idiot tried to walk off with the mic. Easily dealt with - all music down and simply announce I needed the mic back or nobody else can sing - played some "Boo" wav file, and everyone in the place looked like they wanted to lynch him. As he brought it back, played a cheer wav