Karaoke Forums

My family runs a few bars and we used to hire someone to come in and host our karaoke nights, but we decided to set up our own system and do it on our own.

We have all the music and hardware and software now, but here's our issue.

The company we hired before had a book of songs to go through for our customers since they ran it through a laptop.

We're trying to set up our own, but here's the issue.

We have a database of 62000+ songs. All the song names are compiled into a list in an excel document and my family is INSISTING I go through all 62000 of them and delete the duplicate songs(ie different versions of the same song and so forth)

I'm pretty computer savvy and I've tried every excel trick of the trade and it still doesn't do what I want it to do and I'm very certain there's a MUCH easier way of doing this.

Does anybody have any ideas for me or am I going to be a slave to this stupid excel document for the next two weeks?

T_T

Thank you for any help.

I find it hard to believe there will be some trick in excel that will figure out what is the best version of a song to keep. You would need to delete on a per song basis.

You can probably come up with a formula to delete all the duplicates from a particular manufacturer, meaning if dup, then keep only A.

I don't think there is an easy solution. You will probably have to listen to all versions of a song and determin which you think is best. Rember, just because you think a version is best, doesn't mean that anyone else will agree with what you think.

I hate DK, but many of my older singers prefer them, so I have them, even though I have "Better" versions.

just some thoughts,
Felix the KJ

How does a anyone come into possession of approximately one hundred and twenty thousand dollars worth of karaoke songs and not have a book????

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Okay, who took my pants?

dubya dubya dubya dot jack sparrow dot com? In 12 years i've easily invested over 50k all emcompassing karaoke, although multiple sets of same discs for different rigs/djs/kjs and am no where near that amount of songs........??

exweedfarmer: I often wonder the same thing. I have 16,000 english songs. It is almost too big for my 4" binders. I use KJ pro printing in two columns, and double sided printing. Much bigger, and nobody will be able to carry the damn things, especially the women.

I have seen one KJ who claimed 100,000 songs, and he very well may have. The problem though, he only had one "book" if that is what you want to call it. It sat on a table, and was about 3 feet long. You often had to wait for the person ahead of you to even see the "Book". You obviously couln't take it to your table and browse at your leasure.

Felix the KJ

Dare I suggest kiosks?

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Okay, who took my pants?

to answer the original question, the only thing you might be able to do is to sort via the manu codes, and then write up a code to not list those.

But you'd be better off doing that in Access.

As for your number of songs, you'll find you will have no help from the members here, as it's pretty obvious that you bought a hard drive with songs on them, or a system someone set up for you.

Either way, we don't support such blatant piracy. Nor will the sponsors of this site, which... hmmm, are karaoke retailers and manufacturers that would be pretty interested in how and where you acquired so many songs in such a relatively short amount of time!

That's one of the biggest problems for people who get a boat load of songs by "hook" or by "crook". They are so spoiled by getting stuff for free that they don't want to spend ANY money for song book software. If you buy your discs legally and have a program like KJ Pro, you can delete your duplicate songs as you buy new discs but when you get 62,000 songs all at once from "somebody" you've got a lot a labor to get rid of all of the dupes. These are usually the shows that never get any new songs once they get their LOADED HARD DRIVES. They always feel that someone should be able to find something to sing out of all of those songs to pick from so why should anyone want to sing a new song? Two years down the road the guy still has 62,000 songs and nothing new for the last 24 months and they wonder why no one comes to their bar for karaoke. This guy sounds like another Host who won't play a customer's disc too. I hope he's in South Florida by Eric.

Wow. I often don't agree with BruceFan, but he hit the nail on the head this time. That's all I have to say about that.

I would agree with everyone that this sounds like an illegal library of songs. I did take the duplicates out of my website list but not for my physical books.


Bruce, you had to get the little dig in at Eric didn't you. Sorry to report, no one brought their own disks last night to my show or if they did, they didn't ask. I did have several requests for songs I don't have, I wrote them down and will work at getting them.

YES! Funny how no one points it out when eric takes shots at other people. Eric calls people ignorant on a regular basis just because they don't agree with him but everyone seems to let that pass without so much as a mention. I make a sarcastic remark and it's front page news for some people who just sit around and wait for me to post ANYTHING negative about anyone. Don't sweat it. I'm used to it and I can handle it.

Assuming all your songs are in a mp3+g format - there are a few programs that will read your hard drive and files and create lists and song books - These programs will even identify duplicates etc and allow you to do many other required things with your files.

look at LATSHAW SYSTEMS

Excel 2007 has a deduping feature, however, it won't automatically allow you to choose which one you eliminate, and they must be exact dupes.

That feature could save about 50% of your time right there.

I just don't have it in me to help some one eliminate a professional Karaoke Host's job, especially with a.... questionable....library.

Having trouble eleminating dupes? Don't know which ones to keep? A Professional Karaoke Host would, as well have the knowledge of books and printing, getting the ball rolling, building a venue, etc...

There was a venue nearby run by a friend of mine who was a good host. The venue ran successfully for 13 years. Beyond that, it was featured in a documentary titled "Karaoke Knights", and attracted people from a good distance- on MONDAY NIGHTS!

The owner made the same decision you did. Bought a preloaded CAVS player ( At least the library MAY have been legal), and had their pretty waitress moved into the "KJ" position.

Sat at a table with with a sign up sheet and said next. Technical problem? She sat there and looked bewildered, unless a knowledgeable singer helped her out. Otherwise, night over.

Not only did the show die a quick death, but without that income from the original big show, the restaurant went under.

Why not pay for what you get and have a knowledgeable profesional Karaoke Host do what he/she does best- make you money..and with a LEGAL library that won't be the cause of what may be problems for you.

Sorry for the rant, but I just can't believe someone posted that question on a forum full of Karaoke Hosts and expected better.... "Show me How To Eliminate Your Job, Pay Nothing, And Be Successful At It"

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

+1
I can't believe that there are people here who are so willing to help questionable operator. at the very least, someone would have asked politely about the huge collection of songs.

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

I see some people made assumptions on the LEGALITY of the library instead of just asking the OP ? (62,000 songs good bet is ILLEGAL) ..but innocent until proven guilty no? We all know that it takes time to be a succesful host and that some 'family member" just can't get a system and be "GOOD" but no senese trashing someone for trying.

Now to the OP ...

WHAT 62000 songs and you fired your HOST
How dare you ask for help here

The only thing that really suprised me about this thread, is that ANYONE even tried to help the OP. In his first sentence, he stated that he "got rid of" the karaoke host, that "he has a 62,000 song library", and is asking for help to set up his business. I've only been on this forum for a short time, and have seen "pirates", or even SUSPECTED pirates totally shutdown in ONE response, "we don't help pirates on this forum". I was amazed how close this guy got to getting help, from some of the most experienced kjs on this forum, even though they were second guessing themselves.
Maybe it was because he didn't present himself as a kj. I don't know, but "kudos" to Joe for calling him on it. My opinion.

Rosario

Here's the problem as I see it:

NO ONE on this forum is ever gonna stop a pirate, if he can't get help here, there are dozens of forums out there that will help. There is no way to prove that they are/are not a pirate also. Everyone here is making an educated guess that this person is, in fact, a pirate. And, in this case, I would say that is a fairly safe bet.

Once again, this can be proven by simple math: let's say this person has 62k of songs and that they are NOT a pirate... then if we use a simple figure of 15 songs on a disc at $20 per disc (AVERAGE, some higher some lower) then they have an investment in music of approx. $82,660.00

Now, What's WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

#1. They have no songbooks.
You'd think that if the club had actually spent $82,660.00 on discs over the years, they'd have songbooks. You can't effectively run a karaoke night without a songbook (or a kiosk) or SOME method for singers to select songs.

#2. After all this investment, they want to remove all dupes and make the songbooks smaller....
I'm sure that there are some customers that would prefer some of the brands they are about to delete from their collection or in the songbook. I can certainly understand removing a duplicate from within a single brand; i.e. Sound Choice Spotlight or Sound Choice Star Series of the same track. but not removing a different brand altogether. BTW, I call these "inter-brand duplicates" and I have written software to remove them automatically from a songbook.

#3. Their songlist is only in an Excel spreadsheet format.
This factor alone absolutely reeks of piracy. After an $82,660 investment, you can bet your bottom dollar there'd be LOTS of real books around the bar(s) and a songbook program to print them with. But it sounds like this person is attempting to simply make a single system and duplicate it because they did say their family "runs a few bars."


To insinuate that their "hired karaoke host" was in control of this investment and the "songbooks" is really dumb on the part of any bar owner.

(Jian, was this helpful? or was I starting an argument?)

If one were to BUY such a collection, and accepted a fee of say, $150 per show, one would have to work over 530 shows just to break even on THE MUSIC. Throw in equipment, maintainance, travel/fuel, accessories, etc., and we have a money losing host. My guess would be that LOSING money is not a host's intention, which leaves me with at best, a VERY STRONG suspicion of piracy.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."