Karaoke Forums

The neat thing about karaoke books is it gives you a chance to find out what all the drinks the bar serves smell like!

I like being able to look through a book. Especially if your turn is coming up and you have to frantically locate a song.

I can already access my songlist via my cell phone. Just gotta google dannygkaraoke and my website is the first up there.

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

I feel like I'm in the dark ages. I've not seen a kiosk yet and didn't know they existed until I started reading this thread. But then the karaoke show I attend most frequently still uses CDs. I've stopped going to another one that's laptop based because she can't play my CDs. So much for technology. The lesson is the singers don't really care about the technology . . . they are there to sing. As long as the music is coming through the speakers and the words are on the screen, the singers really don't care where they came from.

This kiosk thing is interesting. I can see both the benefits and the potential pitfalls. I'll echo the sentiment that using one successfully probably depends upon the room and the crowd. The demographic of my shows tends to skew a little older. These are the people who avoid the automated checkout line at the supermarket and who pay by check rather than using a debit card.

But if I ever get to the place where I'm doing enough shows to justify the cost of a laptop and a kiosk I'll plan on giving it a go. Around here the average payday is about $150 per show. I'm going to have to be a whole lot busier before I'll figure that the additional investment will pay off.

Larry

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

I remember CASSETTE TAPES AND LYRIC SHEETS at BARS !!!

Kiosk cost cheaper than books, sound strange but its true. Just do the calculation.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Jian is right. The first time you update your books you could pay for a kiosk. They are a real pain to haul around but I think the time saved during the show and the money saved in printing and assembling is well worth digging some old dog computer out of a dumpster.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Weed, where would I find the old dog computers. I would do some serious dumpster diving if I knew where to look.

The trend here is less and less books and slips used but no kiosks they just go up to the KJ and tell him what they want. That is another reason I use a snake and sit offstage and part of the audience. I will do a search on an artist and let them look at the search results. If I do get a slip I like 3 or 4 songs on it. Slips can be lost...

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Well, you could actually keep checking the dumpster if you live in an apartment complex, I have about five of them sitting around here I got like that. Banks and colleges get rid of a lot of computers and related junk. Thrift shores are a great place. They plug the donated computer in and if it doesn't boot they toss it. The mind reels at all the junk computers out there which would be yours for the asking.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Three things college kids toss are vcr's vacum cleaners and computers Not so much computers anymore because laptops are easy to take back home. Win 2K Pro is ample for for search engines.

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correct. I played with a kiosc type of setup with win 2k pro, and it was more than powerful enough, had the networking capabilities for Lan setups without extensive modifications.

Tried it once, and about three people even looked at it. Everyone went back to the books. Nobody else bothered it the next week... so I took it back home, and reformatted the hdd.

of course my books are always updated. Like Lonnie, I reprint the new additions, and do a yearly (or in one case, every two years) major update to the book. But the new sections are almost always the first thing the customers check out!

It has alot to with age. The younger college students would use it in a minute. They have bars that supply internet access and they group thee and study. The terminals are all tied into one computer. Some even txt message requests to the host

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try freecycle.org
Do a search for your nearest city, join, and post a wanted!

The day that happens to me, I'll set them straight. If they can't bother to get their a$$ off a chair and walk the 10 feet to speak to me directly then they won't sing. I HATE text messaging. 10 - 20 people out as a group supposed to be hanging with each other having fun and sure enough, almost all of them will have their heads down, leaving the one or two who aren't texting just sitting there.
I find it incredibly RUDE. About as rude as going on a date and spending your time on cell phone call while the other person sits there waiting.
And sure enough, I had it the other night. Someone texting WHILE singing!
When will it end???

Diafel

I'm with you on texting... why don't you add your thoughts ALL your thoughts to the "Pet Peeve" thread?

Okay, let's narrow this down so we're not talking apples to oranges:



then it must not have been a kiosk. It must have been a simple "lookup station." There's a difference between a kiosk and a computer station that lets you view a copy of a paper book. (Viewing an adobe PDF file of a printed/printable book on a computer is NOT a kiosk, sorry.)

karyoker said:

So what's the difference then between 1 kiosk and less books? If the KJ is wanting them to simply come up and tell them, then there are NO opportunities to browse are there? (and I thought browsing was so very important to those singers) There are no "idea starters" either.

Most KJ's here are quick to criticize a kiosk but more than willing to take away the books/browsing aren't they?

(not a reflection on anyone in particular, just agreeing with the observation of karyoker.)

Timberlea said:

Absolutely.... you need 1 or 2 kiosks for every person in the club, they have to be HUGE, noisey, crash alot, singers will hog them, others will get ticked off, there will be huge lines and it will suck so much electricity, you won't have enough left to run your disc players.....

Any other situations you'd like to invent and project into the mix?

It's appearing more and more like the KJ's here are so resistant to change that they will literally imagine what could be the worst without a clue of what happens in the real world.

You folks really need to talk to mckyj57, he's seen several, he's used several. He can tell you for certain what does and does NOT happen in real life.

Nope! I'm avoiding that one and a certain poster of that thread.

c. staley, well put!
Come on people! You can't honestly critique something you've never used nor even seen in action.
If you saw what they do, you would probably be all over it like a dirty shirt. And NO you DON'T have to get rid of your book! It doesn't have to be an either/or situation unless YOU make it that way!

Danny, I think you're talking about the FREE Viewer they offer with Fasttracks. That is not a kiosk, and to my knowledge they never touted it as such. It's just a viewer that can be used anyway you wish.

As for the kiosk they proposed, it's still on. I spoke to a rep recently regarding another issue and they mentioned the kiosk and several other enhancements they are working on. Things like this take time, so be patient.

tbreen said:

B-I-N-G-O!

(Thank you tbreen, my point exactly; "a viewer does not a kiosk make.")



I have several customers that already use a kiosk with fasttracks/compuhost, sax & dottie, hoster, swift elite, etc. As a matter of fact, if you can create an Excel text file (*.csv) with the columns in the correct order, even someone disc-based (like Timberlea) could use it.

If I ever install one it will be wireless lan and they will send requests to the host.


kiosk

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