Karaoke Forums

I ordered CB through their mycdg.com site they shared with SC and Sunfly. Eventually the site was either shut down or has closed temporarily, but that's how I got my first six sc customs!

I heard they were going to their own way of doing a track at a time, but never heard the details. I just don't care enough about CB to care to investigate, to be honest.

I've gotten several of the Chartbuster Customs via Chartbuster. Yes, the titles come printed on the disc label. So far every thing has gone well. No scratched or unplayable discs or wrong songs. I usually pay extra for the express shipping which brings it to $3/song but you get it within a week. A lot of times they throw in a free "bonus disc" of obscure hits from weird years.

I'm not happy about buying dupes particularly, I know that PHMs lose value very quickly, the Chartbusters take a little longer and Sound Choice, as a rule generally holds it's value quite well.

Downloads could probably be considered disposable as I wonder how easy it is to legally sell your download on to someone else.

If I was disc based I'd be more concerned about the number of dupes as they would be wasted discs, but since the discs stay under lock and key it's no biggie.

My reasoning is really to have songs available when people browse, songs they wouldn't be thinking of until it was sitting there in front of them. I don't listen to every style of radio station, (pretty much just BBC Radio 1 and that is only when driving to and from gigs) so I buy the subsciptions. I know when I was just getting CB country and Sunfly that I missed out on some US pop that I had to buy extra discs for. I switched to PHM and then CB had songs that PHM didn't, so I gave up and added all of them. I figure for each person that asks for a song that I didn't have there are two or three that don't bother asking.

I know I probably could reevaluate again in a few months to see how well things are panning out. As for only buying songs for where I play, that limits my future venues. I want to be able to provide service to the honky tonks, the thrash metal, europop, dance and any other kind of venue. I may be living in Texas now but might end up back in California, up in New England, or even back to England! I'm buying the Sound Choice to give them a chance (it's only $18 which is a small percentage of my monthly gross karaoke income), when they were at their best they were great and I have some hope they may be able to return to greatness.

I know many people here have been hosting for much longer than I have and have already learned from the mistakes I may be making.

How do you determine when a disc purchase has returned it's investment? 5 plays, 10 plays, 100 plays? This isn't an exact science although I'm sure if pressed (and really really bored) I could work out a formula that would take income from a night down to a per song level and from that get revenue generated per disc or song.

Damn, this hobby has become a business! aaarrgggghhh!

Jonn

Wasted discs isn't so much an issue for me either, it's wasted money on songs that I may get 3 times over with 3 different subscriptions that people don't even want in the first place. That's my main thing - I don't like throwing money away, especially in todays economy.



You should still have a solid base core that has a bit of everything to start with to cover all bases, but if you have current shows & are buying discs not catering to theose customers but for 'possible' future venues, then you could be alienating your current customers needs/wants when they are requesting say some older 80's tunes & you pick up a lot of europop. When I say buy for the venue is exactly that - buy for what the customers in your current clubs WANT to sing. You aren't going to limit anything


I figure if the disc get used for more than a month than it's a safe bet to say it was a good purchase - even if it was only one or two songs. But I know for a fact that I have discs that have never been touched before (or very rarely) - but these were also discs that were bought when I thought I should have every new song available.

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How often you add songs to your library really does depend on the venue. I host 7 nights a week at one club that is frequented by all ages from 21-101 but a majority in the 25-45 age group. On fri and sat nights I usually have a 40-50 singer rotation. I add new songs monthly and many of those songs are picked(10 or so a night). The customers love that I get the new stuff. It does take a few weeks for those new tracks to catch on but I have had several customers that have said "we love coming here because you have the new stuff." They are as sick of hearing Journey's "Don't Stop Ur Screamin" as I am. Speaking of that you all will love this if you haven't seen it yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr1KxvNp4O4

This fits the club I host at to a T!! when I saw it.

Anyway thought I would chime in. No need for new stuff if you have a room full of water drinking, funeral music singin fogees.

That was way too groovy!

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