Karaoke Forums

Well, I just updated my songbooks, and I went with something a little different this time. Since my 3 ring binders are trashed at this point, I decided to get them bound instead of buying new ones.

Staples charges 1.80 for wire binding, and 1.50 for lamenating a page. Thus I had my cover page lamenated, and a heavy black cardstock for the back.

I did this a few months back (june) as an experiment, and the book has held up surpisingly well. I put some blank pages both in the front and the back since it seems the first and last pages are the ones that get messed up the most.

They look great, and take up less space on the bar. A complete book, with 190 pages (I don't print duplicate songs but rank them: SC, DK, CB etc. saved me 80 additional pages) at 10 point type cost $21 for everything.

I have the printing date on the front cover, and it is my idea to print one a month and cycle them out as they get messed up. That way I always have at least one book wtih 95% of my song list available.

I'm going with 5 artist books, and 2 song books to start.

Anyone doing anything similiar? Hows it working?

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Hello Koyote!

I am getting ready to update songbooks myself, and I am going to dedupe the list prior to printing (but keep the full list saved in excel). What do you mean by "ranking" your list by Manu? Can you post an example?

Thanks!

Well, my songbook software allows me to do this. I'm not printing duplicates in the book. If I've 5 versions of the same song, you'll only see one in the book.

I'm using the computer, so I'd don't list disk numbers, just the manufacturer: SC (sound choice), CB (Chartbuster), etc. Artist and name of song.

Thus, I've ranked the codes in order of preference: SC, CB, DK, SF, LG, AH, SG, etc.

thus if I have SC, that's all you'll see, even if I have the CB, or others. If I don't have SC, it will default to the next one I have. I can always look up other versions by request very easily since I'm one computer, but most of the time SC is fine, and my singers don't usually have a preferance and defer to me anyway.

Removing the dupes saved me 80 pages, and i earnestly believe it will help singers with their song selections... not having to ask me which one is best... I've already listed the best one (IMHO) that I have.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I went spiral bound in August and haven't looked back since.

I went coil/spiral bound and print one artist and one song book every month or so, each time the new book is up to date. I even bought a coil binding machine which will pay for itself in a couple of years. I try and keep dupes out of the book but a few sneak in and I catch them later on. I like the idea of adding a tag for the Manu, perhaps with a * if there are multiple versions so the singer can sing their preference. Do a good cover with 10 mil lamination and they can last a year on three shows a week!

I went down the spiral bound trial route. I was convinced this was the better way and I'm sure that it still is, over the 3-ring binder. I deleted the dupes and made a few to test. When I went back a few months later to do the rest of the books, I was informed of "presentation bound" as opposed to the "spiral bound". I've only been using them for 3 weeks, but so far they've been perfect. They are a heat shrunk clip type binding that has the front and back clear sheet. I also have the front and back page made out of card stock. They run about the same price as the spiral bound. I'll post back if there ever becomes an issue. I don't see one, except they wouldn't take a spilled beer. From what I've seen so far, people also seem to be more careful with this type of book. So much easier to store and transport, it's unreal.......MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

I went with those plastic pouches and plastic ringbinder folders for my books. They've lasted 8 months so far, although I have replaced one of them and put new pouches in another. Each book costs around £4 to produce so that's not so bad.

I do a 'Latest Additions' section that I put at the front of all my books. I do them in decending order of the latest monthly releases for the last 4 months, then any other new discs after them. It only works out to be 3-4 pages. The plastic pouches make it easy to simply take the old pages out & replace them with the new ones so all of my books always have 100% of my library.

I'm with you on this one Koyote. It has been the best tip I've picked up from this forum regarding books.

I do a new book every month or so instead of the whole lot once a year. Since I'm still printing them myself it's much less stressful.

I still use plastic sleeves because my group is so hard on books. When extreme things happen like when they get vomited on I can hose them off in my yard and put them back to use.

No three ring hardcover binders either. They didn't last more than a few weeks in them. They're soft bound with heavy duty snap rings. New additions pages get inserted into the older books so they all are updated.

I had spiral bound books for a while and unfortunately did not have the success you folks have expressed. I had durability issues with pages getting torn and the bindings getting bent all to heck. Also I didn't like that I had to make all new books to update them. I keep a songs recently added section in the front of my book and only print new books every 6 months (I add about 10-20 songs a week). So this was a major issue for me. Finally, every time stuff got spilled on any of the pages, it basically ruined the book since the paper was exposed.

I did see the benefits in terms of how nice they looked and the ease of transportation. That part of it was great. But ultimately, I ended up going back to 3 ring binders with the plastic sheet protectors. The durability just can't be beat in my opinion. Especially since I got the extra heavy duty binders which seems to help keep the rings from getting bent out of whack.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

For me, as a singer, I hate paging through the update pages... always have. You get three or four "update section", and trying to fing the "latest song" you want to sing becomes an issue or worse, an "old song" that has just been recently added to YOUR library. Nightmare!

IMHO, its so much easier to look through ONE complet book. This way, each month a complete book is updated... its the same thing as putting update sections in 6 - 8 books each month.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I also like the bound books. I would much rather spend $13.00 for a new book than spend a few hours stuffing sheet protectors.

Also, I find that if you put the books up front instead of on tables, they don't get messed up as easily. When someone comes and gets it, they will often take care of it. If a non-singer sits at a table with a book, they just use it for a coaster.

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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.

Yep, me too, in the process of updating songbooks right now. I have alot of "New Additions" that I'm putting into my books. Since I'm still pretty new to the business, I'm still adding alot of songs, and still RIPPING alot of songs. I have 12 books, 6 title, 6 artist. I'm updating 3 of each, then that will give me 3 of each to print COMPLETE songbooks when I'm done ripping, and then I can replace the UPDATED books with the COMPLETE books. In this way, I can always be as up to date as possible. I'm using heavy duty 3 ring binders with sleeves. Found that having them printed was not cost effective for me, so I bought my own printer able to do double sided printing. Connect if to the laptop with the songbook program, and print away. To me, the only part that is a pain, is STUFFING the plastic sleeves. OH WELL, somebody's got to do it. I hope to be done by tonight, so I can have them for tomorrow's show.

Srnitynow

I found with using spiral bound books it is key to use the right binding. The single wire binding is the best ! The plastic bindings couldn't hold up to the abuse.

I've been doing my books like this for 4 yrs or so. Plastic sleeves actually made my books deteriorate faster. Mold in between pages from beer spills mainly, yuck! I was amazed that the loose pages without plastic sleeves did so well.

May I also suggest Office Max. It is the cheapest I've found so far for making books in my area.

I update with new songs once a year instead of adding them into my books every month. Being established already new song updates aren't that big a deal. If my books are still in good shape I'll make a couple 3 ring binders up of new songs until I redo books.

It drives me nuts to go to a karaoke place and try to look through a book only to find endless additions of new songs added at the front of the book. Now I have to search through different groupings of months or years not added alphabetically to the entire book.

I use laminated front and back pages which amazingly last longer than binders. I always had the problem of the binders falling apart. It's wierd that books made this way are cheaper and withstand more abuse. Wire bindings at Office Max are only $1 a book.

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Yeah, I HATE stuffing (and unstuffing) plastic sheet protectors... and washing off the "karasplooge".

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

When you do one new book a month there's always one book out that has everything rolled up into one, one with only one update page, and one with only two. But as a KJ what I get asked most is "What have you got that's new?" These singers may not know what they want to try yet, they just want to look it over. So for them the books a few months old with the update pages in the front work best.

Like you I clearly mark the printing date of each book on front so I can hand the appropriate book to the singer. But even the oldest books aren't that unwieldy - 6-8 update pages in front for the oldest ones.

As many in this forum with rowdy rooms do, I never set the books out on the tables anymore. That's just asking for it. They have to come up front to get one.

Well, I guess I've got a slight advantage here, as my wednesday night gig is as much DJ music as it is karaoke. I pay a lot of attention to what the younger set is asking me to play, as invaribaly that's stuff that will be requested karaoke elsewhere. "king of leon - sex on fire" for example... or I write down karaoke requests for things I don't have and get them ASAP. I initially created my library with the basics, and have, over the last two years populated it with requests (usually going ahead and getting artists that I didn't have a lot of to begin with i.e. Bush, Sublime, etc.).

So, if someone asks me "what do you have that's new?", I ask back, "What do you like, country, pop, rock? What artist do you like? Are you looking for something specific?

I have found that if I'm getting asked that question, the person already has a specific new song in mind, and wants to know if I have it. Ususally, I know off the top of my head, or its just as easy to look it up on the computer.

Logically, the only reason to have an update section is for the regulars who might be familiar with the songbook already... so they can search for just the things you've added. I have ONE of these in a small 3 ring. It RARELY gets used.

For someone who's never looked at your songbook before, the update section is just a pain in the A$$!

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I've been reading some of the replys lately, and may I say, i'm greatly intrigued. At the moment I am using 3" 3 ring binders for my books. I have 12 books total, each of which has the "by artist" and "by song" listed. Each page is printed on both sides, (cuts the paper use in half), and use the page protectors. I really don't mind having a "stuffing" party with my kids. I'm so cruel! Last time I printed, I actully only stuffed 4 books, and the kids stuffed the rest. The part I don't like is the cost. Initially, before I found a better way of printing, the cost for each book was around 27 dollars. (binder, paper, protectors and toner) So I wanted to find a better solution to the cost issue. I found it, but I cheated. I used the printer at work which will print both sides, and the toner is 90 bucks each, and will print around 30 thousand pages on a toner. My printing is around 6 thousand pages total, printed on both sides (3000 sheets of paper). So I only used about a fifth of a toner, costing me around 20 bucks. Much better than my printer at home which prints both sides too, but the toners only last about 2500 pages, and cost 80 dollars. That really got expensive.

Now, after reading some of the different ways of doing up books, i'm thinking of doing the next printing differently. So, gonna take some of your guys advice. Thanks

with my books, The page protectors protected against the mold... but then again, I updated the books with a section called "brand spankin' new!"... so when I did those pages, I always gave the rest of the book a cursory look through. Any books collected that dripped got wiped down that night. I NEVER put away a book wet!

Aww man, guilty as charged. At the end of the night, with the prospect of breaking down the equipment and putting it away the last thing I wanna do is wipe down books.

I know that some of them had some horrid "karasploughe" on them too. Ack!

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Matt 2 thumbs up !!! I am way to lazy to wipe down books. If a book is obviously wet I'll do the professional thing and wipe it on my pant leg and put it back on the pile though.

In my defense I do clean my mics regularly. I'll actually use a clean towel too.

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]