Karaoke Forums

I've been KJing for 4 years now, but I've always been renting my equipment from other hosts with spare sets, or using the venue's own equipment. Now it's time for me to get my own.

Currently, I have microphones, a TV, and a stand. My issue is the purchase of speakers, a powered mixer, and a laptop.

I want a system that's a good deal (obviously), but also powerful enough to handle a wide variety of venues, from small rooms to large halls. When I shop for speakers and powered mixers, all of them have specific wattages, etc. Laptops come with all different sizes of hard drives and memory capabilites.

I'd like some advice from the experienced consumers who've bought equipment and tried various brands and wattages, etc. What can I invest in that will give me good sound at a decent price? If you have a good, solid system, describe it. Tell me what you're using.

You've rented system, you should know or have an idea of what you liked/didn't like. Start from there.
Also you have no budget mentioned, are you thinking you can get a great system for $500 or up to $5000? HUGE difference in the quality/reliability of what you can get. The same system designed for a small room, will not work well in large halls or outside, design for a large room & make it where it can be broken up into smaller rooms - speaker satellite/sub combos.

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Not going to advise you on audio equipment, but bear these things in mind when you buy a laptop....

Hosting programs tend to like lots of memory.
Any dual core processor will work just fine.
Don't worry too much about hard disk space - it makes sense to use an external drive for your mp3+g files.
Some brands are more reliable than others. Look at Square Trade's laptop reliability survey from last year. Read this http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/Squa ... y_1109.pdf and then buy an Asus or Toshiba. Avoid HP/Compaq. I personally have a pile of HP laptops that have failed - all different models, and all because the southbridge got dry joints - an expensive fix.
Internal sound cards aren't all that great, so a USB soundcard or mixer could be a consideration.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with most of these recommendations.

The memory doesn't need to be that much. I have both Compuhost and MTU Hoster, and each runs with moderate amounts of memory (3G) such as are found in typical low-cost laptops. And since you typically don't run many other programs at the same time, you only need enough for the hoster.

The processor isn't that important. Again, typical entry-level laptops designed to run Windows 7 (not netbooks) are fine.

(I mean new laptops. If you buy old used ones, all bets are off. I don't recommend it.)

I don't recommend using an external drive. They are 1) slower and 2) introduce extra components and cables that reduce reliability. a 300G hard drive, typical in new laptops, will hold a huge music library.

Any name brand should be fine. Anecdotal reliability evidence is spotty at best. I have had trouble with Dells and Toshibas, myself, and excellent luck with HPs.

I can agree with the external soundcard recommendation, but will tell you that the internal sound card on a modern laptop typically will work well enough to run a pretty darn good show. If you need a place to cut a $100.00 worth of cost, it is a better place to economize than microphones.

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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.

Perhaps I'm slightly living in the past, but to me 3G is a lot of memory, and yes entry level ones come with that much. Programs such as McAfee or Norton Antivirus are processor hogs and need a core just for themselves. Two cores isn't really an issue as most laptops, even entry level ones come with them. Two cores also give a certain amount of future proofing.
As for en external drive, yes it's something more to go wrong, but 2.5" drives especially are very rugged. What happens when some spyware cripples the laptop? Your whole collection is stuck on a drive that you must fix to get access to. If your laptop breaks, you need to remove the drive to get your collection, which for many isn't easy. With an external drive, you don't have to worry so much about the collection that you took ages to rip in the first place. Laptop breaks? Fine, plug your external drive into a backup laptop.
The reliability survey isn't anecdotal. It's from actual warranty claims to Squaretrade of 30,000 laptops and netbooks. I've had good luck with Toshiba & Acer. My Asus netbooks have been rock solid, even after soldering internal USB ports. Have to agree about Dell. The older stuff was great, but had issues with newer stuff.

I have just started with doing karaoke recreationally at home on a laptop. I am using a gateway laptop I bought on sale for around $400 and it works great with Siglos Power Karoake software and a few 1000 songs. Here are a few of my recommendations which should not be hard to find in most current laptops.
*Windows 7 Home Premium with 4 gigs ram.
*HDMI out is nice, but at least make sure the video card can do TV out vai the VGA *connection to connect to TV's
*If you are only doing Karaoke on this 350 gigs of HD space or better will suffice.
*Wireless N which most come with anyway, to do downloads of new songs possibly at the venue if they have wireless.

Just my two cents, but that should work just fine.

Flanman

I don't use a lap top. I have a PC shuttle with dual drives. Tons of space, will never run out. Use a flat screen monitor and cordless mouse, and use MTU Hoster. I keep all my music backed up on an external drive. External drives are very inexpensive now, with 1 terabyte of space for around $100. Use a laptop with music backed up onto one of those drives. Laptop fails, quick to switch to another.

I have active equipment for ease of transport. I have two sets of speakers: SM350s and SM450s, and a 15-inch sub. I seldom use the 450s - too big for most places (although we did provide music for roller derby at a college gymnasium and the 450s and the sub were more than adequate). No big rack to transport. Lots of bang for the buck. 3 Shure SM58s, 12-channel board, small tv, 2 speakers, 1 sub, computer. All fits in a Windstar van with room to spare.

We previously transported a HUGE rack with two amps (passive gear, two HUGE subs, Bag End 15-inch speakers and 12-inch Yamahas). Back breaking. Beautiful sound but I find that my sound is just as clear with the active gear we use now, and a whole lot quicker to set up and tear down.

I will eventually switch to lappy but I bought the PC shuttle with hoster on it (I played with it and learned how to use Hoster before deleting and buying it myself) used from a guy for a lot less than a new lappy off E-bay.

I know you weren't really wondering about much but the computer, but a lot of people don't use active equipment and I find it much more suitable for us, and thought I'd mention it as an option. Small footprint is important when a lot of smaller places are instituting karaoke now.

If you are *only* putting your collection on one drive, be it internal or external, you have a problem. External drives are great for backup, but they are terrible to rely on. You can get a 300G drive for $70, so you can do that easily. Then you improve reliability and decrease setup time by using the internal for the gig. (I maintain a netbook and my external as my fallback strategy).

I was bit by recalls on both Toshiba and Acer. I have had the most trouble with Dell. I have excellent luck with HP. Stats over a year are just that -- everyone has good and bad runs. I buy any and all of them, but tend to favor HP and Toshiba for design reasons.

I run Compuhost on 1G of RAM, no problem. Same with MTU Hoster. Admittedly both are on Windows XP. Compuhost also runs fine on Vista with 2G. The processors? Celeron 1.4GHz and a Core 2 Duo 1.5GHz.

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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.

Jay,

Looking for some advice?

I don't claim to be an expert, but I have put together a bunch of blog posts on what I know, or what I pretend to know. You can start reading the thread at http://john-the-revelator-does-karaoke. ... art-1.html

I completely expect to get a lot of comments in the form of "Hey Revelator, I disagree with ..." Everyone, please feel free to respond with comments either in this forum, as comments on my blog, or directly to me via email. Any and all comments that are at least a little bit polite can only improve the info that I have posted.

John the Revelator

We don't use a laptop, either. We use a pc that is built into our system box, which happens to have a very small footprint. Desktops are cheaper, and you can put whatever size drive you'd like into it and replace it easily if you need to. You just need to make sure you have great ventilation if you do this.[/quote] We also use a flatscreen in the lid of the system.

As far as speakers are concerned, we use a set of JBL Eons. Not quite as expensive as the Mackies (probably not quite as good, but unless you're listening to them side-by-side, you won't notice the difference). I used to use the Mackies, but they would run so hot if I was running them for any more than a couple of hours, I had to clip fans on the back of them.

Good luck.

birdofsong

I suggest you buy powered speakers instead of a powered mixer. If you roll the forum back a couple of years, you would see me posting things like, "in the future, powered speakers will probably have sophisticated DSP built-in that makes them sound great and almost indestructible; and when that time comes, people with powered mixers will wonder why they bought them."

Well, that time is here now; there are several excellent lines of powered speakers that feature good sound, adequate volume for 200-capacity bars, and very low weight, even lighter than most non-powered speakers of just a few years ago.

I suggest the QSC K-series, which makes a lot of people happy. I am keenly interested in the new JBL PRX600-series, which uses the same drivers as speakers I already own (and am very happy with) but has upgraded DSP and more modern power amps than their previous powered speakers.

Expect to pay about $500-$800 per speaker depending on what you get, but they will sound great and last you many years.

If you do "dance music," get a subwoofer or two in the future, and a way to transport them. You can always rent these if you don't need to play that sort of music very often, say for occasional private parties that request it.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

I have to disagree with that. I have 2 external Hard drives. One for a backup, and one that is hooked to my Dell laptop for gigs. I have NEVER had a problem with the external hard drive on my gig laptop. The Dell laptop, and the hard drive have been in use for about 5-6 years, and so far, no problems. And for the first 3 years, b4 the public smoking ban, the laptop was running at least 2 nites a week in a VERY smokey bar.

One data point noted.

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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'm of the same opinion. I have a Dell lappy that I've been running for almost 4 years now and an external drive (WD My Notebook) that I've been running for almost as long. I've dropped the drive on several occasions and have had to glue the casing back together every so often, but it just keeps humming right along. Never had a problem with it, and my lappy has been just as good. Momentary crashes here and there (thank you, Bill Gates!), but it's definitely been reliable.
I do suggest buying a QUALITY KNOWN name brand drive, such as Western Digital. I once went the cheap route and bought an Acomdata drive and it failed me twice within a month after I bought it. Never again! WD My Notebook and drives from that series are the ONLY drives I'll buy now. Very reliable.

OK, so it's anecdotal evidence against the known science that the fewer moving parts, components, and connections you have, the better reliability is. People can now decide.

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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.