Karaoke Forums

Well, this is off topic but mostly on line books. That way I can't lose the foolish thing, the bookmark never falls out, I can make the font any size I want, and as I have a taste for the classics the books are free. Free is good. The big problem is eye strain and if you use light text on a black background you don't even get that.

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Okay, who took my pants?

With bifocals Id rather have it on a computer screen.

I think karaoke books are the equivilant of your "MENU."

So, first off, how would you feel if you went into a restaurant you had never been to before and they told you "just tell us what you want and we'll tell you if we have it."

Bad customer service in my opinion. May be OK for the regulars, but is REALLY going to turn off the CASUAL or NEW karaoke singer.

As for Kiosks - Does anyone remember when Taco Bell decided about 10 years ago that they were going to replace their menu AND their cashiers with automated Kiosks? The customer would walk into Taco Bell, enter their order into an automated touch screen, pay with cash or credit through the touch screen, receive their change, and then walk up to receive their order.

Though it sounds good in theory, what happened nationwide was that the average customer took a LONG time to use the kiosk, resulting in longer than average lines and reducing business. On top of that, the average customer screwed up their own order more times than not when entering it into the kiosk (despite it being a simple touch-screen picture menu), resulting in MORE order delays and overhead costs from remaking orders.

Taco Bell dumped the experiment, ripped out all of the automated kiosks, and went back to cashiers and traditional menus.

I HONESTLY think that while karaoke books are not the latest technology available, and may not be the most CONVENIENT for the host, they are certainly the most effective, efficient, and simple for the average SINGER, and that makes them indispensable if you want to please the most customers you can! And remember, your #1 job is to please the most customers you can!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

This is not a good analogy. First of all, you only have to handle 15 requests per hour on all kiosks, as that is the number of singers you can service. There is no payment step, all you have to do is put in your name and the song found by a menu or a search. I have seen them in operation at three different shows now, and they worked well in the cases I saw. I asked the host about the kiosks at two of the shows, and they said they liked them and never had a problem.

I personally would like to have a couple of books and a kiosk. But I am not going to do it for a mobile show -- I don't want to add to setup time. If I had a permanently installed show with enough space (we don't have much at my service club), I would probably put one in there.

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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.

I also use books and will continue to do so. Yes, they are a royal pain but are very essential to my karaoke shows. If someone wants to come up and tell me their name and song I will accommodate them but I find its better to have them fill out a slip. Why you ask? All of the slips I use have a space for their name, song title, disc id, etc. and the most important....... "e-mail address or phone number". I have well over 600 email addresses stored in my data base that get an automatic email blast every time I have a show.

You might change your mind with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPFzmaSvp4E

neat little program for those wishing to get away from books for those running Compuhost. It's not made by The makers of Compuhost but it is an add on for those who use the hosting solution.

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

Kinda neat, but would you shell out fifty bucks for it? Fifty bucks per kiosk I suspect.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Nope it is allowed to run on as many computers as you own.

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

No thanks. I already rely on one laptop to run a show. I don't need to worry about another laptop crash, etc. I'll just continue lugging the dam books

Actually, spotlightjr brings up a good point. I've never had a kiosk crash, except to the floor when a drunk knocked it off the table. Has anyone ever had a software crash using a kiosk?

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Okay, who took my pants?

I've never had a software crash using a computer based show. Although it could happen I don't forseee it happening in the near future.

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

Wow! A new toy. It does have neat features, love the history feature. What the heck is a dux?

Who out there is using this and what are the pros and cons?

Carrying an extra laptop and stand? Can you depend on the venue having a stand? I carry an extra laptop anyway so I could use it as the kiosh and if my main LT breaks down, I could shut the kiosh down and just use the books. People abuse the laptop at all? Any issues they have trying to use it?

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Do I get this right, and it doesn't have any way of sending requests to the host?

I think this is a poor way to do things. A much better way is to have a web server running on your PC that people can connect to with their iPhone, Blackberry, or yes -- a kiosk you supply.

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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.

Their logic on not connecting with the hosting computer is that it takes away from the interaction between host and singers. I can't say I disagree with it as Compuhost isn't set up to handle new singers the way I handle them. Any new name would have to go before the marker position and Compuhost doesn't do that yet although it has been suggested.

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

I would say more rationalization than logic. I was just talking about the ability to show the request on the screen for host action, not even really put it in the rotation. I wouldn't want that, though if a singer already existing wanted to add something to their list, I would have no problem with that.

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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.

Good catch mckyj57. I missed the fact that it wasn't a kiosk altogether. In that case, it's kinda useless.

As for the idea that you lose interaction with the crowd if you don't use slips... that's pretty silly. If you're not sorting slips you have more time to interact not less.

As long as I'm ranting: the idea of using a lappy for a kiosk is not the best one I've ever heard. Lappys are portable, that's their whole purpose in being. The last thing that you want a kiosk to be is portable because darn sure someone is going to try and port it right out the door.

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Okay, who took my pants?

I think there is still merit to it. Who wants to carry another whole stand for this?

As far as song slips, I'd love to get rid of them. The only thing that scares me is making sure I get the names right. There's been times where I went back thru the slips so from that standpoint, I like them. I would like to get rid of them though.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

This program won't replace slips, just books. CHip's songfinder will however get rid of both. But who is gonna spend the money for that one.

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

I don't carry a stand... it's already on wheels...

There are more than you know. Besides, check your numbers and see how much a set of 15 books "really" costs you. Plus the printing and stuffing of updates, repairs to beat up books, binders, slips, pencils, sleeves, etc....

And this is a cost EVERY YEAR at least that you use books. A kiosk takes really no appreciable time to update and it costs nothing. The kiosk pictured above is the easiest you can imagine. Nothing ever comes off of it, it just gets rolled in and rolled out... just plug it in and it goes. With books, you have to cart them in, distribute them around the bar and make sure there are slips and pencils and at the end of the night, gather all the books, pencils, slips, box them up and haul them out.

I roll my kiosk into the club, plug it in and I'm done until I unplug it and roll it out.