Karaoke Forums

No problem with discs here. I actually was disc-based, then went PC, and now I'm back to discs.....

For the OP, in my opinion, there is no "best" here. Whatever you are most comfortable with.....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe, why back to discs?

As a member of and experience as VFW club mngr, and years of hosting in posts let me give you some suggestions. A post cannot depend upon regs in the bar for singers. The mngr has to have an active plan to attract young crowds these young crowds sing at home and have their own cd's. Encourage them and let them know they are welcome to bring them and you will play them.

It is not easy to turn a post into a thriving open bar. Turn off the lights in the glass display cases on the walls and dim the lights. Old war stories do not attract young people. There is a time to honor the dead and a time to party and sing.

Without knowing the size of the post or resources I would consider a community drive to get a sound system for the club and hang speakers permanantly on the ceiling. A DJ booth would be nice in the hall.

As a Vet I would be available for consultation even by land line. However if there has been no karaoke there before you have a challenge.

_________________
Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

Karen, if I gave a full answer, it would escalate into one of those ugly disc vs. PC threads- happens every time.


What I CAN do is answer in regard to personal preference.

First, let me just say that I actually still use the PC for very small house parties whers space is at a premium, but never for public venues. I use the original PCDJ/KJ Red- and LOVE it.

1) I found that I was spending too much time with the PC when not working a show.

2) I'm one of those that can hear the difference. I know most can't, but it bugs me.

3) I feel that there is more redundancy/backup as disc-based. Video problems? Audio problems? Effects Problems? On the rare occasion that they come up, a simple flick of a switch or re-route of a plug will solve them in seconds.

I KNOW that in most cases the PCs are reliable. It was my own bad luck that I stumbled on to a few shows where they crapped out. Just luck of the draw, but it made me paranoid... Of course, in these cases the hosts didn't have a backup PC with them. If they lost any piece of the show, they lost it all. I understand that another PC for backup would have solved the problem.


4) MY cost, time, and possible loss. A backup player is a lot less expensive than a good backup PC, and if goes south, the loss is less. A backup player is ready to go instantly, a PC must be set up- even if it's a direct copy. My personal preferance is the KISS principle.


5) I just like the tactile feel of handling the discs well. The index finger to center hole grab from the case, the pinkie flip out of the player- just feels right.


6) In MY area ASCAP has been making a pain of themselves. They have no real juice, but that doesn't mean they can't annoy the bar owners.

Whether there is any reason for it or not, due to the above,( debate at leisure), in MY area some venues are eschewing PC shoes in favor of disc shows.


I have a lot of other reasons, but I figure if I just post Personal Preferences, then it's just my opinion and the debaters will get that.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I applaud you for taking a stance and sticking to it. That's one of the reasons I use SIMPLE computer software - right-click and queue. I dislike the "professional" hosters for this reason... way too many options. Many people get lost in all that. I liked both winamp and clubdjpro for that. Just a player, please!
I can BARELY see the difference on a scope. I played a file for an audience to let them hear the differences between computer 192kbps and wav format. Most couldn't tell the difference. I actually had a couple that said the compressed was the original!

I won't go point/counter point on ya... just those two jumped right out and I wanted to talk about them.

In my experience, it's all about the EXPERIENCE. Those computer glitches happen because people don't know the computers, or flat out haven't stress tested them long enough. I said it before... I was one of the first people to talk about going computer, and one of the last to finally do it... because in my "shows" at home, I would encounter a problem here or there... because I was trying to use too little power, or in my tests I'd corrupted the computer... Once I understood how to solve some problems and troubleshoot with ease, then I finally figured I was ready.

And I did have the occassional problem. Who doesn't? What do you do at a disc based show when the PLAYER screws up? You pull out another $400 player! Same same with computers! You DO have backups with you.

The only thing I never had was a duplicate lcd screen. I had a backup BIG HONKIN' monitor in case the lcd ever died. But IF I needed it, it was there!

I did have that sucker go down on me at the beginning of a show. Swapped it out, and I bought a replacement before the next show.

Having the computer gives you a TON of advantages. But you DO have to be comfortable with a computer. Many of the shows I went to the host didn't know squat about 'em!

Knight, that's why I posted it as merely my opinion. I have no problem working with the PC, and my software rocks! Incredibly easy. Like I said, I just prefer discs.....only my comfort here.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Hey I'm a 100% PCs are awesome camp, but you must be comfortable with the equipment you use. As long as it works for you who care?

_________________
Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Might be in the sound card as well - I run an M-Audio Audiophile & can definitely tell the difference between that & on the oonboard Realtek. I did the same test when I got my computer (M-Audio card) & having the graphics turned off (you can tell computer vs disc this way), no one could distinguish between the two & many picked the computer for the original.

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

I'm using a usb out, and it bypasses the onboard sound... maybe that's the problem.

I use an M-Audio USB interface as well. What a difference it makes. That said, I was still having some issues with an occasional "skip". Nothing too obvious, but it annoyed me. I cut the computer's graphics to 16 bit, and turned off ALL the windows extras )animations, etc.)

The other thing I did was elevate my laptop with a steel monitor stand so the cooling pad had better air flow. My laptop stays cool as can be now, and the sound is awesome, and the skips are gone.

The other factor is how much you compress your files. I use the 75% variable compression and that helps too. I learned that the hard way and had to go back and re-rip a lot of disks in the beginning.

_________________
Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I've heard a lot of people bashing sweet georgia brown. Is it really that bad? I plan on just offering karaoke as an add-on to my mobile DJ service. I was orginially going to slowly buy the foundation and brick sets from sound choice or the essential sets from chartbuster. Is it better to have a big block of songs to offer and then slowly replace with better quality?

some of the SGB discs are so bad, I won't even list them.

You get what you pay for!

I don't care for SGB at all for real quality.
It's better to have a good core library of songs people actually want than just a big book to say I have a big book. Once you get a good core, you can continue to add as you get customer requests - just like dj, the music is an ongoing expense, you may be getting new music almost daily as your customers ask if you have such & such.
The Foundations & Bricks are a good core set.

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

Yep. But the set is so cheap that it's still a viable purchase. Because it's not all bad, and quite a bit of it is OK to great.

The Supercore is a better starter set though. Even though it's much smaller, it's overall quality is much better. Much more consistent.

To Shalty, I'm going to take the other side of the argument here. If your mobile DJ work involves a younger crowd, those SC Foundation sets really aren't geared to that group. And they're not cheap as you know.

It's possible to be a success either way. I did it by using starter packs and replacing bum tracks that were actually being sung, and looking back on it it was the right way to go for me. But I'm not catering to a wide spectrum of age groups. Mostly I'm in one room and my book (rather small by this community's standards) is geared specifically towards them.

The Supercore set has many of the songs that are in SoundChoice Foundation. There is a reason for that -- they are the classics.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I didn't mean to hijack the thread, but as someone else who just up and "decided to be a KJ" I've agonized over the music itself more than anything.

For me, the karaoke will be sort of a "test," mainly to see if there is an interest in it around here. If it was just going out and buying all the "new" hits of today, I wouldn't be worried about it so much. But every time I've been to karaoke, it's the classics that get sang more than anything. So having that big back library is important to me. However, I'm not quite ready to drop a few grand on a library, especially since there is a good chance is might end up un-used in my storage room. So I guess my plan now is to spend a couple hundred on the back library and a few dollars getting more recent hits that are from a better quality brand than SGB or supercore, so if it doesn't pan out, I'm not out too much. But if people like what I'm doing, I can always upgrade.

So that's my plan anyway. If it's a bad one, someone stop me now!

It sounds like you already know what your audience is like, which is a big plus. You can build towards them.

My comments about the Sound Choice Foundations is, unlike the Supercore set, it's not updated. In my opinion, there are many songs that are basic to practically all rooms today that should be in a starter set this large and expensive. Just looking the songlist over, I don't even see "Picture" for Pete's sake. And no...

Hand In Pocket
You Oughta Know
Oops I Did It Again
What's Up
Follow me
Lady Marmalade
It's Been Awhile
Like A Virgin
Desperado
Hotel California
Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy
Before He Cheats
Stay
any Miranda Lambert
any Eminem

...and if I'm doing this I've got way too much time on my hands today!

But all those are in the current Supercore set. And since I don't own the SC sets I probably screwed up somewhere and listed a song that is there. But it's about the philosophies of these two companies that I'm trying to highlight anyway.

SGB is all midi, which means it is missing a "warmth" and depth to the music. Second, the lyric tracks are frequently wrong, wrong, wrong. Third, SGB tends to add an addition riff between verses which can throw a singer off trememdously. You think you're supose to start and you have to wait an additional couple of measures before the lyrics start.

There are some interesting tracks that while done elsewhere are still kind of obscure.
The "Weird Al" disc, and South Park stuff is kinda fun (chocolate salty balls), and the "Follow me" by Uncle Kracker ain't bad. Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" is tolerable...

However, given the choice between SGB and just about anything else, I'll go with "anything else".

SGB is cheap, and is usually found in a beginngin KJ's library. (68 discs for like $70 on ebay).

_________________
Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Not true. Listen to "If You Could Read My Mind", "Alone Again Naturally", "Riders On The Storm" and "Doctor My Eyes" and tell me that it's all MIDI.

The lyrics of SGB tracks are generally putrid. But the instrumentals are quite competitive in a lot of cases.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

If you're getting the impression that the karaoke business is far more subjective than objective you would be right. We each have our own ideas abou equipment and about what disc sets we're going to use.

As far as the music is concerned I think there are nearly as many faults as good points about all of the different sets. I too prefer some over others but I have a variety in my book because it seems that just about every manufacturer includes something that no one else does. One thing I have found in that no single manufacturer has a monopoly on bad lyrics. They all do it . . . some more than others but everyone seems to have problems. It's just one of those things we have to contend with.

I recently changed my rig to a CAVS player with a USB port and a 500 gigabyte hard drive. To me it's much easier to than dealing with all of those CDs which take up space and need to be lugged around.

When I made the change I decided to buy new music on CAVS DVDs because I didn't look forward to converting several hundred CDs to the hard drive.

Ebay became my best friend in this effort. I bought all six of the Charbuster Essential 450 series for less than $50 including shipping. Another $20 got me the three Nutech Party Pack DVDs with 1,234 songs on each. And I paid $25 for the entire SGB set on DVDs. Add a few other miscellaneous discs from SC and a few others and I've got a fairly good book at minimal cost. For the record, my singers don't seem to have a problem with SGB. Those songs get just about as much use as everything else. I haven't had any complaints thus far.

I agree with what everyone has said about quality sound reinforcement equipment. Your equipment won't make a bad singer sound better but it will make good singers sound great. That's important.

I use a Carvin 12 channel powered mixer with four 300 watt amps in it. It's not light but its much easier to lug around than a rack with a couple of power amps and a mixing board.

I also use the Carvin LM15 speaker cabs. There has been a lot of conversation hereabouts regarding the negative aspects of ABS speaker cabs. I can't speak for every brand. I've used Carvin and I was in a band awhile back that used JBLs. In both cases I think you would be hard pressed to find better sounding cabs but that's just my opinion. The chief advantage, if the sound quality is to your liking, is that my cabs weigh in at 31 lb. apiece.

I have yet to play a room, either for karaoke or with my band, that my Carvin set-up didn't handle with ease. As far as sound quality is concerned about all I can say is that I bought the Carvin rig because I thought it was the best sounding portable system I had ever heard. And their prices are terrific. My opinion has since been reinforced by virtually every other musician I know. At one time or another they have all visited my show and each one has commented on what great sound I'm getting. Carvin has sold several other systems in this area as the result.

Maybe because I'm a musician but I favor running the mics through the sound system as opposed to plugging them into the karaoke machine. When you've got a big rotation and a lot of different voices you really need to be able to EQ them individually. It keeps you on your toes but it does add to the quality of the show.

Finally a word about mics. On ebay you'll find a selection of "pro" mics running anywhere from $15 - $30. Many of the karaoke shops sell them as well and advertise them as pro mics. They aren't. They are prone to feedback and the "pop" filters are virtually useless. And some of them distort very easily. A singer with a strong voice can easily over power them. Please consider investing in high quality mics. There are plenty to choose from. I use Shure SM58s. They run about $100 and have always been considered the workhorses of the industry. Shure runs ads claiming that the SM58 is so rugged that it's even been used as a hammer to nail a stage together and then used for the performance that night. I have some doubts about the accuracy of that but I can say that my SM58s have never let me down.

In any case, whatever you buy, an investment in good mics will save you money in the long run because you won't have to replace them regularly.

Good luck with your show. I hope you and your singers have as much fun as we have had over the years.

Larry

_________________
"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"