Karaoke Forums

Just curious, who here uses a kiosk and which one?

I use c.staley's kiosk and it's fantastic. It isn't dependent on any other program, like the one for compuhost is.
Here's the benefits I've found for using it so far. I copied and pasted this from another thread to save time.



Last night, in fact, I had the opposite happen. A guy walked in during the last song and started up the usual begging to please be put in, just one more, etc.
I told him that I was already going 15 minutes overtime and I wasn't going any further. His response was "well the bar doesn't close until later"
My thought on this is so? I am finished at 1:00. (I didn't say that, though). And what is with these people that think you should just keep working without getting paid? THEY wouldn't throw in an extra half hour or so at THEIR work for free. Why is it expected that we do?
But I digress.
Then I had an idea.
I pointed to the kiosk which was on the "no more requests" screen. He looked at and then walked away, leaving me alone!
LOVE IT!!!

I used to use the Karaoke Songfinder, and it's not a bad Kiosk at all. But since I use CompuHost I switched over to their Kiosk, just easier that way for me. And it offers the browse singer's history, which comes in handy for my regulars. It also offers my regulars to connect from their smart phones and enter the request directly from them.
I would never go without a Kiosk anymore. It's saves tons of money that I usually would spend for reprinting books, the Kiosk is always up to date. Setup time is a minute; so all in all I'm very happy with that system.

I really do love to hear success stories like this.... because it proves what Exweedfarmer and I have said for years... Once you use a kiosk, you don't want to go back to books - ever.

Now, I we could convince KJ's that there really will be no "long line of angry singers waiting for one drunk guy to finish browsing" or that they would "need at least 3 kiosks set up for my regular hugely busy, wildly popular shows."

Sevarin: Have you encountered either of these situations?

Our next gen kiosks will run on $150 android tablets.

Very few I can remember. I just added a second screen, that should take care of it. Probably also because of the smart phone connection possibility.

So far, I've had a wait list of about 2 minutes and roughly 3 people in line at a time. Generally, if they see a bit of a line up, they will wait till it's gone to come up. No one gets angry or impatient. It's easy enough for them to look from their seats to see if it's free to use. Those that wait in line clearly don't mind doing so when they could easily wait in their seats.
And like I said, so far any line up waits have been extremely minimal, not even worth mentioning, really.
I've had ONE person complain to me about using it (technophobe) and that was BEFORE he used it. I encouraged him and told him it was really easy. All he had to do was touch the screen and follow the directions. It walks you right through it. He went over, and in the span of about 30 seconds, he was done and his song was in, with NO help from me or anyone else at all.
I have an older gentleman who is 73 this year and really is technologically challenged (he has major difficulties with his bare bones cell phone) and he had ZERO issues walking up and throwing in a song without any help at all.
I have another technologically challenged person who can't wait to use the system and bugged me about getting it up and running again every night after my old kiosk comp went down.
They really do embrace it and the ONLY issue I had was as stated above. Someone wanted to play roulette. I have yet to have anyone ask for a book to browse.
The money I will be saving from book printing will be huge!
It usually costs me close to $100 per book to print and as soon as I buy new discs, they are outdated. For the cost of a little over a book and a half, I never HAVE to print books again and the song list is ALWAYS current, though I will print one artist and title book for reference purposes. But I don't HAVE to print if I don't want to.
I was always putting off a new printing since I'm always buying discs and wanting to include the new ones in the next printing. Now it's a non issue.

My worry would be theft on that one.
That, and being in Canada, I have yet to find one that is that low in price.

On those rare occasions when I take a gig I still use good ol' Sacks-O-Nuts.
"Where are you books man?"
"Books??? We don't need no stinking books..."

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Okay, who took my pants?

I use CompuHost's Karaoke Kiosk. It's awesome, like the rest of their products. It works beautifully. Love using a Kiosk.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

What's the down side of these?

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

Very little downside as far as I can see. Even before I had issues with my system, I think it might have been an unstable adhoc connection, I was given compliments for the kiosk from the two that entered their songs before the show began. I am gonna try a router as my next step.

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

None except as I have noted above ( karaoke kamikaze - used with a book)

Seriously considering this. I could still bring a book or two (no more updating though) just as a reference for those who don't know what they want to sing and just want to browse. That way they don't hold up the kiosk. Is this wireless? I have enough cables and cords to deal with. I'd like to just wheel in, turn it on and be done with it.

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

I used adhoc before, but it was too flaky. I just bought a little wireless router for $29 at Walmart and it works just fine.

You can have it wired if you want, but I use a wireless router. That was I can put my Kiosk anywhere withing range.
I highly advise going the kiosk route. I have yet to see any real disadvantage of it.
If anyone else can think of one, please do let me know.
BTW, c.staley's kiosk is called Songfinder. Works amazingly well and is made to use as little memory and resources as possible. I have seen no spike in my comp resources at all for the use of it.

I was going to post some of my own screen shots for you guys here, but it seems c.staley has done a much better job than I ever could.
http://songfinder.dkusa.com/

Chip's Kiosk is great. Just keep in mind that it is a 16-bit application and won't run on 64-bit Windows OS. One of the reasons I switched to Invicion's Kiosk.

The down sides I've found are:
1. Kiosks are pretty useless for outdoor gigs.
2. More stuff to pack around if you use books too.
3. Greater susceptibility to Murphy's law.

I have only had one kiosk die on me since I started using them and that was due to a direct water balloon attack.

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Okay, who took my pants?

well, Murphy WAS an optimist
i am liking the idea, does anyone just use 1?
at $170.00 per program key, plus an old comp for whatever i can get it for, and a touchscreen, it adds up quickly to do more than one (not a knock at all on Chips software price, it looks well worth the price to me) but 1 alone is at least 2 years worth of book printing all at once let alone 2.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Picked up a wireless router today for $30 at target. test ran (including while playing a song) and it worked.


wonder if hooked up to my show computer if it will allow me to use the smartphone function. One way to test it is to try it and try linking up to it via my home computer.

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