Karaoke Forums

Just thought I'd throw this out here. What karaoke collections; CD-G, DVD, whatever, are the best bang for your bucks now-a-days?

I'll be going full time soon, or at least attempting to, and my very small song collection needs to grow in a cost effective manner.

I have about 1500 songs on CD-G, an older DK collection. I'd like to get up to at least 5000...?

Ideas?

Mark

Get what people want to sing instead of just wanting a target number. Your buck will be more productive!

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I'm going to go against the grain here. Most people here will recommend Sound Choice and while they are very good, they're quite a bit of money when you're just starting out. The least expensive way to jumpstart your collection is to go on ebay and get two collections, All Hits and Sweet Georgia Brown. They are decent and will get you a lot of song for very little money. Stay away from Supercore IMO unless you like the pan flute playing the melody the way most of the DK tracks do, I can't stand that.

Also, go to Tricerasoft and take a look at their selection. For something like $100 you can get 75 songs I think. The good thing about that is you get only the songs you want to round out your collection.

Once you're moving along and making money you can invest in the Soundchoice Foundations and bricks.

People here will tell you Sweet Georgia Brown is terrible, but I don't agree. They have lots of good tracks that I use regularly.

I used to think just getting more songs was better, and it is at first, but once you get a couple thousand songs, which is about where you are, I'd try to get only the songs you want, like lon said. that being said, if you can find the old dangerous karaoke selection, those are great...and sweet gerogia brown are pretty good if you are on a budget and need content. alot of people don't like SGB, but I think you can pick up the 1000 song collection for like 80 bucks. the songs range from great to terrible, but most are at least passable. so if you want content and don't have 5000 dollars just lying around, go for it. if I were you, with 1500 songs, I'd look for a decent used collection of someone getting out of the business. pull that trigger, then you can just stop buying in bulk and buy the few songs you really want.

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[glow=red]Yo sucka, we need this hea CHOPTER, and we need it now![/glow]

You can also pick up the Chartbuster Essential 1-6 SCDG set on eBay for well under $100. Spend $39 for the RoxBox ripper and you have 2700 new songs.

Now the downside is that they rip out at 128kbps, not superb quality but passable in a noisy bar. At the very least it will give you a n inexpensive jump start until you can save up for better quality.

Yes, good call, I forgot to mention Chartbuster. For around $75-$125 on ebay you can get the Chartbuster Essentials 1-6 set of SCDG discs and then KJAMP has a program that will chamge the format and you can put them onto your computer. The program is like $39. This combined with the Sweet Georgia Brown and All Hits will give you a passable beginning collection. If you're running off of a CD player the SCDG discs won't do you any good unless you have a CAVS CD player.

Problem is if he goes with a collection, not knowing what is in his current library now, he could be just duplicating everything or a majority of what he already has - not really a wise investment IMO.
At the very least before you buy any collection mentioned, go through it's track listing & match it up with what is in your current library and check the duplication factor if it would be worth investing, otherwise I stand by my statement - get what the people that come to your shows are asking for. A large number library is worthless if it isn't what people actually want to sing.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Isn't that what I just said?

A LOT of popular songs at good quality? SuperCore- 38 discs for undr $300 retail, and maybe under $200 on line.

Most of the collection is nothing but winners- very little unsung fluff...

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" Disc based and loving it..."

if you can find it on ebay big hitz carries alot of the newer music

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

If you want to be taken seriously as a KJ in a competitve market, you need to buy quality stuff. Quality FAR OUTWEIGHS quantity in this argument. I don't agree with rushing out there, but if your particular situation makes it more of a necessity, then I would at the VERY LEAST try and find the Supercore Set, the SGB set, the Nutech "Karaoke Hits" set, and the Backstage set, Nikkodo SAVP set and Dangerous set if you can find them. Those 6 sets would be about $500. You'd have some doubles and triples, but as far as bang for the buck on a starter rig (along with your DK's), you've got a fairly decent sized collection. You should get the Sound Choice Foundations and Bricks as soon as you can afford them.

Actually the RoxBox ripper works with CAVS disks as well. I picked up both the DKM set and another in CAVS format on eBay and ripped them just fine to zipped MP3+G. The only suggestion I have in this process is to somehow make it so the files will get renamed to maybe KJPro naming. SCDG's are named based on a file on the disk so the renaming is limited to the info contained there. When you get into the thousands of tracks this becomes an issue. Overall, however, I will take the RoxBox CAVS ripper any day!

That's because the DKM, Chartbuster, etc CAVS discs are SCDG discs. They are one in the same.

As previously stated- Not knowing what you already have it's hard to answer the best bang for your buck. Download a list of the various PACKS and COLLECTIONS mentioned. Figure out the number of duplicates titles to what you already have and then figure out the COST PER song of each "pack" and you have the answer.

Until you know your business , I would suggest you offer the ability to play customer CDGS in your show. This will allow the "purists" to bring their own collections and save you from dissapointing some customers. A good percentage of your singers won't care and could not tell the difference between SOUNDCHOICE and SWEET GEORGIA BROWN. ...starting out this is the way to go. Then you can add to and upgrade tracks as you see fit.

I agree with Jam, have the ability to play customers discs. They learned on THEIR version, so that's the best for them. It (may) also give you some idea of what to buy, for another venue. Or, at least the one singer will be happy that they get to sing their own song. Sometimes it's not worth buying certain tracks, because no one else will sing it.

Rosario

Thx Friends. Very good info here. I do have the capability to play the CD's and DVD's so I have that covers. I'm doing searchs now and I'm comparing sing lists and such.

Another question...

What's the best place to get quailty "pick your own songs"; either download or have them send you a disc (?).

I like the idea of getting "the" songs you want and not getting repeats after you're up to 3k songs or so. Thx again.

Mark

selectatrack.com is where I get many of my custom discs these days.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Me too...Great success with them. I have told the singers who frequent my shows that want their own discs to go with Selectatrack - the many that have are very pleased.

Thx very much Loman and Karen.

BTW, I was reading the SC legal stuff... Is SC and Chartbusters owned by the same people, or are they two completely different companies? For some reason I got the idea that their conected in some way.

Mark