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call it a Sing a Long, call if filler music, but put on the Brady Bunch and observe how many people get into it, particularly if the words are on the screen....

Gilligan's Isle rate pretty high up there, too!

6 String
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Re: Filler Tunes or Dead Air?
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 4:40 pm
I use filler music because I'm still using discs. I just bought compuhost & all the necessary computer hardware peripherals, but compuhost will arrive in about 10 days ( i wish they would do it by download!). I did buy a twin drive cdg player so that I could have the next song cued up ready, but when someone changes their mind when they get to the stage, the dead air goes on & on so I now just use that 2nd drive for filler music whilst I call the next singer & change the disc.

Maybe that will change when I have it all transferred to computer.


6 string, they can't download the dongle to you. Actually you can start using compuhost now, you just can't play the full song. You should be able to try out their filler music feature. I personally play filler music, or transition music as lonnie calls it at about half volume. If someone comes up for their turn and says "uhhhh I changed my mind, I can't do Jive Talkin', I want to do Hot Blooded." You will be able to keep the transition music playing and still have Hot Blooded started up within 10 seconds or less. You can try that without the compuhost dongle.

Compuhost is awesome. Every KJ that come to my show, whether they are on computer or still using discs flip when I show them its features.

I think "filler music" is a misnomer. "Background Music" or "Transition music" is better, and more accurate. I keep the volume of the music much lower and can talk over it easily, and yes, switching a singer's song is a breeze.

One of my regulars sings the song T-R-O-U-B-L-E (and does an awesome job, BTW). Its in his history of course, and when he comes up he smiles and says, "Hey Dave, I'm gonna spell!" I laugh, and cue him in just seconds. Hosting a karaoke show is just a real joy... freeing you to better perform the hosting function (which to me is the fun part).

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I've played with Compuhost... and it's fine for what it does.

I just don't need all those bells and whistles.

My favorite player software is clubdjpro. No rotation, but has the best vidoe and fading/queuing features I've ever had the pleasure of plyaing with it.

Like ericlater, I deal with filler as needed. If I have singers to fill the night then that's all that gets played. Filler is just that music to fill the void left by lack of singers. I judge the success of my shows by how much filler or lack of it I play. The less the better. Most of my nights I never get to play a single filler song.

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

Leo, where are you located?


I have hundreds of movies quotes. I've used them and get a lot of laughs.

Knight, you sound like the old man on Saturday night---"and we LIKED it!" I like the bells and whistles on Compuhost. In fact, I'm about to start a new thread about one of them.

I sound like an old man because I don't act like a lemming and just follow the herd?

I didn't say "I liked it", and I know the quote you're using it from. I'm VERY particular how I run my show, and there are things I use and things I don't.

Rotational software just gets in the way. I like my slips or signup board. SO why should I pay for something I'm NEVER going to use? More than that, I've already mentioned how clubdjpro has a superior video fading in to compuhost (at least the version I tried when I purchased clubdjpr, version 2)

Are you talkingn to me, Ripman? We are an hour or so east of Carson City Nevada. A bit far from Iowa.

I personally can't do a show without filler music. I have a small mp3 player (1GB with a little over 100 songs on it) that I have constantly playing on one channel that I turn up and down between karaoke songs. My personal selection of filler music is mostly modern with a couple old rock tunes. Almost all of them are pretty popular so people can recognize them and not ask "what is this crap???" and always upbeat! Nearly everytime I turn up my filler music I'll see the patrons bobbing their heads and "grooving". I include songs like "Old Time Rock and Roll" up to Lady Gaga's "Just Dance." It keeps the party going even when there's no one on stage. (Which that length of time can vary depending on how long your next singer takes to get up to the mic. It allows me to relax and not constantly worry about the dead air in between tracks. It works well for me.

Filler music is a Definite. You lose the momentum of energy between singers without it.

That has been both my observation at other venues, and my personal experience as a KJ, but there are those here who will swear and be d@mned that that is not the case.

In the two years I've been a KJ, running 2 to 4 shows a week... thats hundreds of shows... Not once has anyone said the my background music took away from their fun... not once.

On the other hand, almost every night, someone take the time to tell me how they appreciate the music inbetween singers.... hundreds of people. I can observe people singing, bobbing their heads, dancing to the music while the singer makes their way to the front to sing.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

It's not a definite for me, but all of our tastes and methods are different.

It seems like it would be a definite if you spent a long time getting singers up. That is part of my problem with filler as a singer. Most, but of course not all, of the shows that use it take a lot of time between singers. That is of course from my experience, but I have been to a lot of shows.

I just went to a relatively new show that rates to get our business because of an early start. They play our CDGs, and I can hear myself, which is a plus. But they don't have good sound, and the killer is that they average maybe 10 singers an hour. The filler runs 1-2 minutes between every singer as they take their sweet time getting the next singer up. And to top it off, the host sings every rotation.

I like the woman OK, and I wish I could feel like I could say something to her. The reason is that I came at the end of the show one time, and she was complaining about how she has lost all of her gigs in the past year. I want to tell her -- "you aren't competitive in sound or show tempo". If my wife and I stop going there, that makes a number of other people less likely to go there too. Eventually everyone in our crowd stops going.

If you think you can keep a show going without catering to your singers, more power to you. But in my opinion that is the core of a show -- the people who will show up week-in, week-out. Non-singers come and go, as they have many more choices of where to go to. Often they come where something is "happening", and the core of singers and their companions provides the something happening.

In some venues that have a certain built-in crowd that is going to be there regardless of whether they attract singers, you can probably do things a lot different. Around here, there aren't many of those. We don't have many "bar districts" in the Cincinnati area. People go from place to place, and a place with nothing happening can be dead on a Friday night just as easily as on a weeknight.

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

At one of "our" newest gigs the owner has insisted on filler music to satisfy his non-singing customers!

I have a new gig starting next friday and plan on meeting with the owner to get answers to certain questions including if she wants filler music and if so what type of music does she want played, that way I know what playlist to use.

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

Excellent thing to learn. I keep a few playlists on my iPod and pick one out according to the crowd. You can generally tell by what's playing on the jukebox what style folks are looking for.