Karaoke Forums

Sorry, I'm done!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Personally, this was a must for me.

Absolutely set an LLC. Too many things can happen! Lights can fall on singers or they can fall off the stage. I have a bar that has such poor electrical wiring that I smell smoke on occasion. (If the bar goes up in flames and I am plugged in to those sockets, I have wondered if I could somehow be on the hook....) With that being said, you should be able to incorparate in the great State of Michigan for less than $200 if you are savvy. I could tell you what form it is to file with the state, but its buried. From there, you request a tax ID number with the IRS and file a DBA with your county clerk if your business name that you are operating under is different than your legal name.

This is the best insurance policy money can buy when starting a new business!

Next, $10,000 is actually much more than you want to spend on a karaoke system. I would totally scour Craigslist (especially in Grand Rapids!) for used equipment. As I write this, I am surrounded by a new light system I picked up for a mere $70 from a GR CL posting.

Even the music - do not buy the GEM series right off the bat. TRUST ME! You don't own it, you are leasing it, and you have to make payments every couple years to renew the license. There are also questions about the legality of the GEM series in the U.S. - AND, since Sound Choice hasn't put out karaoke music regularly for about the past 5 years or more, their library is getting staler with every passing day.

Go on to Ebay and buy the Chartbuster Super CDG (SCDG) Essentials 1-6. There have been legal issues about these products, but I no longer believe that these are not licensed by Chartbuster. The reason in a nutshell: they are going around suing KJs for piracy based primarily on the fact that the KJ displayed their copyrighted logo at their show. NOT BECAUSE THEY PLAYED THE MUSIC!

According to some, CB claims that they never authorized this release. I also read that they claimed that Ebayers put these SCDGs up for sale only on the weekends, and then took them off before CB opened Monday morning. Yet, the BIGGEST karaoke retailers on Ebay offer them - and they are offered for 30 days at a time. So, I tend to believe that if the biggest Ebayers were selling them without any sort of action from CB, I'd say that CB knows that they are legitamate. One major Ebay karaoke retailer told me that CB and the manufacturer of the actual disks don't want anything to do with them, and that they can't get anymore. So, BUY THESE SCDGs ASAP!

I would then look for CBs 100 Song Box Sets on Ebay and buy 2003 on - only the Pop & Country sets. The urban set is a waste of money to me - the most popular Top 40 songs usually end up on the Pop disks.

If you really wanted to go further, buy SCs Foundation 2 and 1 (in that order). I said this last week, and I'll say it again. Don't buy the Bricks. Carefully look at the songs on the Brick sets and you'll see that there really aren't a lot of songs that will get used. And, those that are, you may find that you have duplicates available from the CB sets.

Also, buy the Sweet Georgia Brown set and the Music Maestro Country Club 1-3. I don't care what anyone says about MM - they have some of the best renditions of country songs from the 80s and early 90s. And, they are CHEAP!

From there, take a look at some of the rock disks from SC.

You won't have the biggest library of music, but you just spent $1600 maybe and you have a very adequate library for a beginner.

If you feel as if you need to have every hit of 1940-70, you might find yourself chasing your tail.

There you go. If you spend more than $3,000 total on a starter system, I'd say you are CRAZY! Just be smart about the equipment you buy - buy used whenever possible and don't go buying a system for a huge venue until you have to.

In 1997 I got into the business with $3500 worth of PA equipment (passive - amp, speakers, board, mics, mic stands) and about $2500 worth of new CDGs and about $500 worth of used ones from a local dealer. I hand entered all of my song into Word and created a nice book and eventually went to Music Book Deluxe - great, easy to use, and reasonable price. MTU Hoster makes it even easier, with a function that creates an rtf file of your songs that you can drop into Excel or whatever other data program you might have.

The investment goes up from there. $10G is a great starting point, and the advice here is great. Disregard the prattle about legalities - one mention of things like thigs and you get a Pavlovian reaction from some - they just can't help argue about it.

Fact is, if you occasionally offer a singer a DVD of their performance FOR THEIR OWN USE, it is highly unlikely you are going to have a problem. However, don't go advertising all over the place that you are making DVDs for singers....that will get you into hot water for sure. I have a Tascam burner in my rack and occasionally someone will bring me a blank with their song, ask me to record them for their own practice purposes, and I do it. I don't advertise that I will record you, however. Discretion is required, that's all. If ti comes down to the discussion again, it is educational material which puts it all into that great looming gray area again.

As far as the comment about your wife being a great singer - there are definitely ways that this will help you. My husband and I are both singers and we sing at each other's shows. It can help a slow show, or one that is just getting started, if you jump up and nail a popular song. She should also be available to "help" singers who may be too shy - those singers cling to someone who is confident to get them going. However, in a large rotation, she should be dropped, or maybe sing every second rotation. She should also be sensitive to what others are singing - I avoid singing songs that our singers like to sing, just as a courtesy. Your wife probably has a pretty good repertoire, correct? Don't step on the other singers' toes. Others usually have a limited number of songs they sing, and leave those to them.

Keep us up to date on your progress and don't be afraid to ask questions...just your use discretion as to how the answers may apply to your situation.

One more thing, if you go the music route I mentioned, I already burned all these disks and I would be glad to share the files with you if you have the original disks (ABSOLUTELY NO PIRACY!)

It will save you a lot of time. Like, a LOT of time, agony, frustration, anger, more frustration and then some rage, and a whole bunch of sleep.

I only say this to you because you are located in my area, but far enough where you aren't my competition.

On the situation with your wife, be careful with that. Remember in this world of ours, reality is nothing more than our perception of it. Even if you're totally fair in how you treat her in the rotation, it can still cause problems.

For example, when I decided to delve into the Karaoke world I did so with a partner. He was more of the outgoing face guy and I was the one with the technical knowledge to deal with the PA, player and such. His wife and mine would both attend our shows, his wife didn't sing but mine did and a lot of people liked to hear her sing. She's a karaoke junky and loves going to shows and figured she'd treat ours like any other. So I figured I'd treat her like any other singer and that way no one could complain I was playing favorites. Boy was I wrong.

The Partnership fell apart largely due to my partner and his wife (well more his wife than anything) claiming that I was playing favorites with my wife because I didn't bump her down in the rotation when there were other singers signed up. I was very clear with them that I treated her like every other singer, one song per rotation, no bumps up or down, etc. But that didn't matter they still saw it as favoritism and as a result we went our separate ways.

So just be careful with that situation, it can backfire easily even if you do everything right. Sometimes people are just looking for a reason to call foul and they'll take any little opening you give them.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

wow, that was a lot of responses....

anyways, on the llc thing, i looked into it and its cheap, so definetely looking into that
for whoever said to buy a preloaded drive for 200...Not a chance, I'm going to be legal.

I am in the process of contacting some friends who used to kj, to see if I cant pick up some cheap cdg's.

@TroyVnd27, thanks for the tips, ill definitely check out local craigslist, didn't think of that, and do you know any good insurance agents in Michigan that will cover equipment?

and to all, sorry for opening the legal can of worms thing

anybody know any good places to get information on what it takes to be legal as far as DJing goes, I know the rules are different, but unsure how.
ill keep y'all posted to how things are going

DJ rules are pretty much the same idea, if you want to play the song, you have to own a licenced copy.

The difference is that there are lots of places to get licenced digital copies, like iTunes, AmazonMP3, and even WalMart. As a commercial DJ, there are also lots of places where you can get licenced digital and CD copies on a subscription basis, like PromoOnly or eMusic.

I personally buy all my DJ music at AmazonMP3 or WalMart's website. Each file comes with a unique ID number in the metadata that they can trace back to the sale and validate that you bought it or even validate that you illegally shared it with someone!

Good luck!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Excellent start if you already know several bar owners/managers.. that gives you a significant leg up on much of the competition.

I'd advise against using a singing wife or partner. Remember it's a karaoke show, not the 'your wife show'.

$3500.. You can get yourself a nice pair of QSC K12 powered speakers and KSub which is plenty to fill up a room.

Try building your own PC based mixer. It's something I do, few others are starting to experiment with it.

Sorry you can't use Walmart downloads for commercial use....
http://mp3.walmart.com/store/eula.gsp


and same for Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/ ... =200154280



Just BUY the discs and rip them yourself. That way you ALWAYS have an original, and if you computer gets stolen/broken you have a way to get your music back.

to clarify an earlier question I had about song book editing. I was asking for opinions on what songs to put in the book, not info about the songs. I bring that up because of a couple situations ive run into. The first one was at a country bar, the KJ stated that he had two books, one with all country music in it (because that was what the bar owner wanted sung) and one with the rest of his stuff. So I know some people have edited lists, with songs they have not in their books. The other situation was at my local Dive bar, where they do karaoke (bar owners equipment, KJ'd by a regular who has trouble plugging in speakers) and was told that the song I wanted to sing, that was in the book, had been lost, even though I was standing there looking at that very disc in the open book right in front of her. I found that to be shady. It was a heavier song, and I can see the bar owner not wanting it sung, but if that is the case just take 5 minutes and draw a line through it in their song books. Anyways, sorry bout the rant, but was just at that bar last night... but on the bright side I am pretty sure once my company is up and running I can take over there. the owner is sick of having to buy new equipment and cd's so I may just offer to buy his library. He pays 100 a night with his equipment, im sure I could get the same price with mine.

Here we go again. "Own" or "License"...it makes NO difference. You have USE of the songs for as long as you like either way, but one costs a LOT less. And yes, you do have to make a payment every couple years to extend the license. $33 a year in fact, which will most likely be waived (google "Peppercorn Clause"). Decades from now, after paying $33 a year I will still have the GEM discs and when you tally it all up I will have paid less than half for the privilege than the guy who bought the same tracks.

The bottom line is that the total cost of the use of GEM music is drastically lower than purchasing hard discs simply to say "I own these". Business leases & product licensing is something that happens every day and nothing to fear, especially when it saves you 50%. The contractor down the street leasing that Bulldozer can use it for as long as he needs it and in the long run costs him far less than buying one.

The GEM series, as "stale" as it may be, is still the best way for a newbie to instantly get a 6000 non- duplicated song starter library of the best-of-breed tracks in existence, for the lowest price. Period.

As for legality, this is all speculation. The discs are pressed in the UK, but fully licensed. The rest falls under the bars ASCAP/BMI license. If it is legality you fear, you have much more to worry about using gray market SGB, pirated Chartbuster SCDG's (they all are) or Dangerous discs then the legit GEM series.

If you want to trust someone, trust ME. I actually have them and love them.

"The GEM series, as "stale" as it may be, is still the best way for a newbie to instantly get a 6000 non- duplicated song starter library of the best-of-breed tracks in existence, for the lowest price. Period."

I disagree. I know all about leasing in business - Capital Lease vs. Operating Lease and the tax consequences of leasing vs. owning. One major consequence is I don't think that he will be able to Section 179 lease payments.

There is no doubt that the Gem series is GREAT. I wish I owned it. But, I did the math and spent hours researching the cost of the Gem series and compared it to the cost of other options, and it wasn't even close. With that being said, I am also not the KJ who feels that I "must have" Sound Choice songs and that everything else is inferior. I listed to people in here splitting hairs over which version of songs are the best. Yes, some are bad, but the vast majority are just fine for the vast majority of karaoke singers. I find that singers that DO complain about a song base their complaint on the fact that they got used to another version at another bar. My version can be spot on, but its not what they are used to, so it MUST be wrong (never mind the fact that they also sing off key).

I think that any newbie that goes out and buys the Gem series is foolish because they don't even know if they will succeed. They don't even know if they will like the biz. That is like going out and buying (or LEASING) the BIGGEST and BEST Bulldozer for your brand new excavating biz instead of doing the prudent thing and buying for value until you can gauge the profits of your biz.

I like the GEM series because it's easy. No worry about "Does my CD drive support subcodes?" or ripping at 1x. I copy, import into my hosting software, done.

I even found this utility that would just copy all contents of a CD into a folder based on the CD's volume name. Took me a few hours with 3 drives running.

The only thing that can come close to that easy and quick is Tricerasoft downloads.

Perhaps, but it is still a valid business expense. Remember it's technically a licensing agreement, not a lease or rental. You cannot choose to make monthly "lease" payments according to the contract. You CAN finance through Sound Choice if you choose, but the GEM license cost is all up front.



Well, you can can say the same thing about Mercedes v/s Chevy or JBL v/s Kustom. If price is your only qualifier, then yes they are more expensive. Just like automobiles or speakers however, all karaoke songs are not created equal.



Well then they aren't for you. I AM one of those people. Sound Choice IS the gold standard in my not so humble opinion, and I wanted the best tracks for my business. For the guy who only does the dive bar for $75 every Friday on cheap equipment making his singers face the bars TV, it probably doesn't matter. As a singer myself taking a high-end karaoke party marketing approach, it matters. I appreciate quality and the SC songs do sound MUCH better and people do notice.



Would the newbie Steak House owner buy the cheapest beef he could find until he sees how the profits will go? Would that contractor go buy a Garden Tractor from Sears to save money? Would you also suggest the new KJ buy the cheapest sound system they can find until they guage their profits? I doubt it.

The steak your serve (music) is just as important as the sound system in my opinion. I do not subscribe to the "Hey, its just drunk karaoke so they wont know the difference" way of thinking. Most people DO notice quality and DO notice when things sound like crap, just as they notice if the liquor is all rot-gut and the bathrooms smell like p1ss. Now if your clientele are just rowdy drunken frat boys doing karaoke as a joke on dollar Old Milwaukee night, they probably won't notice. Mine however are not and are there to sing/perform, have fun and really do care about what they sound like.



Good point Toqer. The fact that they are 320kbps copies of the masters and ready to go has merit as well.

BAZZA: "Perhaps, but it is still a valid business expense. Remember it's technically a licensing agreement, not a lease or rental. You cannot choose to make monthly "lease" payments according to the contract. You CAN finance through Sound Choice if you choose, but the GEM license cost is all up front. "

TROY: But, that doesn't mean that you can deduct it all in the first year. This is an intangible asset and must be amortized over the asset's useful life. This is mandatory because it does not qualify for a section 179 deduction. I have not seen this specific issue addressed by the IRS, but my guess is that they will make you amortize it over at least 5 years.

http://www.section179.org/property_that ... n_179.html

As a financial expert, I would never advise a client to buy this series up front. For every KJ that "makes it", there are at least 2 who don't. And, the fact that legal KJs must compete with pirates in this age of rampant piracy makes my advice to hold off even more prudent.

With that being said, I admit that I should do some more research as to buying a smaller Gem series versus buying The Foundations. I am adding another system in the next month or so, and I will be doing this comparison soon. My advice not buy the Gem series applied to the 6,000 song set.

Another thing he needs to consider is what kind of show he plans on running. If I were him, I would totally book my first show before I decided what music to buy. This would also enable him to get a better idea as to what equipment he should buy. He doesn't have to actually book the show, just talk to some of the owners he knows and see if they are really serious about doing karaoke or switching service providers.

Another very important thing he needs to consider is that summertime in Michigan means that people are going to be spending a lot more time outdoors. This tendency has been around a lot longer than I have been doing karaoke. Its even worse since the smoking ban was enacted. A lot of bars drop entertainment for the summer around here, and look for even more to do so when summer comes around. Going "all in" on a new business, spending money on the best music available is again - probably not the smartest thing to do right on the threshold of summer.

I have grown my business tremendously in the last few years. I started out with a powered mixer and a set of Peavey PR15's. When I started booking more shows, I went out and bought a Bose L1 Model 1. I still run those PR15s at one show. I have no complaints about these speakers. Just goes to prove that you don't need to spend top dollar to get quality.

I know exactly what you mean about summer entertainment, and the smoking ban. It sucks a big fat donkey (self censor is awesome) I'm not super worried about the initial investment, as the capital is coming from an estate, we are getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-30k, depending on tax liability. I fully intend on keeping my "day job" until/if I get enough regular work to make this my sole source of funds. I looked into sound choice's gem series, and I don't think it would be right for me. I think I would rather buy/burn the discs on things, I've found a couple decent sets on ebay (people selling off their equipment and library as a package) and I know enough musicians that I could probably recoup my costs by reselling the equipment if I want to go that route. The most surprising thing has been having a couple people ask if I would DJ for them. I didn't tell them I was doing this, really I've only mentioned it to a few freinds. But I've had like 8 offers for private gigs already. It's kinda overwelming. One of them is in a couple weeks, but I had to turn it down, as I wont really be up and running til summer. I did find them another DJ. I am getting more and more exited about the prospects as I go.

California has had the smoking ban for almost 20 years now. It won't affect your business that much, people will just get used to smoking outdoors or in specified areas.

I know, but in the mean time this law just passed last year, so we are still in the shake out stage. In addition to it being a bs law in the first place


still no thoughts on song book editing from anyone?