Karaoke Forums

How do you guys fix the rotation when the same singer gives you several splips? I usually just put one in & put the others to one side until the rotation is complete, but last week 2 or 3 people gave did it. should I simply refuse & accept only one at a time?

Since I use CompuHost, I just put them all in and it handles it.

When I was using MTU Hoster, which wouldn't do that, I put them in but had to remember to jigger the rotation. It is much easier with Compuhost.

It's up to you. If you lay all your slips out, then you can just keep their stack in their spot, letting them know they may not necessarily get all those songs & you are only going to check the top song so if someone else puts up something you have buried under another, then you may not get to sing it (if that's a policy or not) - also it's the hosts discretion to pick the order of the songs to best fit the crowd style at the moment. It can be a bonus & a hassle at the same time. THis is actually one rule I have relaxed over the years. NEVER would take more than 1 slip, but now I am used to it & it can work to an advantage.
Otherwise just nicely tell them to bring a new one when they sing.

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Hmm thanks. I still use discs so I got to do it manually. I think I handled the rotation ok & everyone was happy enough. I just thought if this happened more often it might get more difficult to manage, but I guess experience will take care of it.
I like the idea of giving them another slip only when they have finished singing. That should keep things in good order.
Thanks for the replies

No you don't. Use a computer and save all the headaches even if you just use it for rotation.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Actually we prefer it but even want them to put all on one slip. When they get used to that they prefer it too. Slips are 2X4". We also take oral requests.

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Yeh, I did plan to use a computer as soon as I decided to do karaoke, but it is a long way off for me right now. I can build one quickly & cheaply enough (I was going to make a rack mountable tower), but I still work full time & long hours so it is enough work just doing the gigs & updating the books as I build my collection e.t.c. right now.

What program & setup do you use? Do you ever get any problems with crashing?

I use CompuHost. It does a great job of keeping rotation. I used to use MTU hoster, but it doesn't do rotation. (I understand there is a beta out that does, but that it isn't really ready for primetime yet.) Neither of them crash at all. Maybe once or twice out of many dozens of gigs, but very, very, rarely. And usually involved with trying to use some other program at the same time.

Rotation isn't all I like CompuHost for. It has a great scrolling promo trailer feature, which helps you promote anything that needs promoting (rules, upcoming gigs, specials the venue is having, whatever). The promo message follows the list of who is singing next, so you can bet your sweet bippy that people are going to read it. It is great.

It also does a decent job of filler tunes and video displays between songs.

I even use their "audio bits" for applause. Not the hokey cheers they give you, subtle things that people can't even tell are not the audience -- it helps trigger audience applause.

Siglos has a new one out which I also own, but it still has quite a few rough edges. The scrolling display is nowhere near as good. They are no doubt improving it, but it has a ways to go.

The rest of them are all Winamp-based, and I don't consider them to be in the same class as far as reliability. Some others will tell you they work fine, and if set up properly they can. But when you see a broken or crippled hosting software at a karaoke venue, it will be based on Winamp. The key changer is constantly going wrong, and because of it's design it cannot be integrated reliably.

(One of the Winamp-based ones, AutoKDJ, is free and has a *lot* of features. It is really is quite nice in many ways. But I don't use it because of ease of use -- I would shudder to think of training anyone else to use it. CompuHost is a piece of cake.)

So having used and seen most all of them, CompuHost is my choice.

Computer makes it nicer & easier. I prefer MTU Hoster. Does a nice job & fits the 'what I need' bill nicely. It doesn't do rotation management - but I do not need it at all, the new version which is targeted to release VERY soon does.
My computer went down after a year - secondary hard drives failed that contained all my music, lost, we even tried a couple of recover programs to no avail (yes I have them all backed up at home). They were working fine up until a few weeks ago, then on occasion a song would just stop. Figuring it was the song file, I went on to the next. Couple days later, it did it again on another file, however I did notice that the file that crashed before worked tonight? Anyway, it started doing it more frequently until one night the entire database I tried to access wasn't there.
So i've been running discs for the last 3 weeks while my tower gets a tune-up. New hard drives, more memory & faster processor. I had to get back in the swing of running discs, but it wasn't hard after the first few, got my groove back....

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If there's more than one slip, I clip them all together with an oversize paper clip and put them all in that singer's spot on the board. I have a box of paper clips with me just for this purpose.

I'm just using Post-Its and prefer each song on it's own slip so I don't get lost. The cost of each slip is next to nothing so there's no waste potential.

Lonnie, I would suggest you turn on SMART feature if you have that on your BIOS or SW version. SMART is a communication method where the drive relays any diagnostic data from itself to the computer. For example, what happened to you. The drive starts to fail, it will get a lot correctable errors. Some will show up as uncorrectable error and it will reallocate the bad sector. SMART will tell you when these reallocation happens a lot or you have a lot of correctable error. Once you get the SMART alert, I would backup to another drive and replace that drive right away.

This has saved me once or twice, just in time once because as soon as rebooted after backing up, the original drive died.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

Eben I never researched or understood smart. Is that common in the bios on newer motherboards even in laptops? The latest DAW I built had it and I didnt have a clue what it was In fact I think I disabled it...

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Compuhost takes care of it for me - but when I used to do it by hand:

Singer gives me 5 slips
I staple them together
This "bunch" goes into the rotation
Rotation comes to singer
Singer sings
Front slip is torn off bunch
Bunch goes back into rotation

Perfect, thanks Nlouch! I'm off to buy a stapler..

Just swipe one from work

That's what I did!

I would, but my sister is my boss and she comes to my gigs..

So how does the rotations in the karaoke programs work. Is it a set rotation meaning you do it the way the manu thinks it should be done or is it manually done where you add singers & can adjust where people are?

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Every one I have seen allows you to adjust it easily, except AutoKDJ, which has amazing capability to set things up with rules, but can be a bit difficult to understand at times.

In CompuHost, when you add someone they go to the end of the current list, i.e. after everyone ahead of them in time and not rotation. But you can easily move them up or down in the list, and adjust the rotation.

When someone leaves and you are not sure they are totally gone, you can make them inactive. That will skip them until you make them active again, but keep their place in the rotation.

You can also delete someone when you are sure they have left.

I tend to add new singers at the end of the rotation unless it gets real big, in which case I interleave the new singer in about four singers down. (That is why I only announce the next four singers on the scrolling rotation display.)

Siglos has a neat capability where you can add text in parentheses after the name, which can differentiate different Daves without showing it in the display. For instance, you could have a Dave (Blond) and a Dave (mustache), and they each would have separate histories but would still show up as just "Dave" on the scrolling display.

CompuHost allows you to "override" the suggested placement while adding the singer, you do NOT have to put them at the bottom and "move them up"!

When adding a singer with the Add Performer dialog, simply change the "Position" by typing over it, presto, the new singer is placed where you want and the rotation is automatically updated!

tbreen

Aha, thanks for pointing that out. I will look at it tonight.