Karaoke Forums

I have blogged my dealings with Chartbuster here -

http://afairrotation.wordpress.com

To sum it up -
30 Days since I paid in full for:
Two (2) Chartbuster 12000+ Drives (Received)

That purchase was to include:
Two (2) Certificates for Big Mama Recording Studios (Received)
Chartbuster Certified KJ Certificate (NOT Received)
Listing in the Chartbuster site as a certified KJ (Just checked - still not there)
200 Random CD+G's

I received the CD+G's today and am actually super stoked about those because there 50+ discs in that bunch (I am not big on country any longer) that I did not have and a bunch of songs that are not included on the 12000+ drives.

So at this point I am waiting on the Chartbuster Certificate and a listing on their Certified KJ site.

I called them yesterday and I was promised (again) that they would have it all taken care of next week.

-Chris

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-Chris

Great read Chris. thanks for posting your experiences.

Although i missed the 2011 year-end deal on Chartbusters 12,000 song drive, i see today on their website that it's now a "Super Tax-Refund Sale".

$3499.99 for 12,000 songs (28 cents per song) vs. regular price of $9,999.00. Plus 85 free discs with order and of course the certification.

Btw, what did you end up using to rename your files? Did it take long? I'm also in the market for a new laptop. Any recommendations? I despise HP at this point..too many problems in the past.

Cheers! -John

Thanks for the kind words. There have only been 250 hits or so and only a couple comments but it is nice to know I am not posting for no reason at all.



For the Chartbuster 12000 I didn't even attempt to match the songs to discs and rename. I dumped it all to a single folder on my hosting setup then I zipped everything up with MP3+GToolz, cleaned up a few files that had some odd formatting. Otherwise, I left pretty much alone. I figure this way I just track my discs separate from the 12000+ files.

One thing to note, if you do order the 12000+ drive (and let me know because they gave me a discount code that will save you another 5% on top of their deal), you get those extra physical discs. Be sure to check those because you may be able to add a BUNCH of discs to your collection from that. I don't have a lot of requests for Country so I ended up with ~50 discs out of the random discs they sent that I did not already have. And there are a lot of tracks on the CD+G's that are not part of the 12000+ drive.



I am spoiled. I use Lenovo laptops exclusively. I have a Lenovo T61p with 8 gigs of RAM as my hosting machine. Lenovo is rock solid but you are going to pay handsomely for it.

I am sure there will be as many opinions on hosting laptops as there are registered users on these forums but I would look for dual-core (minimum) and 4gigs of RAM. If you don't want to fumble with an external drive for karaoke, swap out the CD/DVD player in the laptop for an ultra-bay and hard drive so it is all nice and tidy. Anything beyond that is overkill IMO.

Personally, I am moving to rack mount PC's in 1u or 2u rack cases. I dropped one in my main system last night but had a separate issue that prevented me from running the show with that machine last night. Will troubleshoot today and be on the rackmount next weekend.

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris, those 12,000 songs... are they unique songs? Or are there duplicates? Just wondering...

I don't know what Chris uses, but I use KJ File Manager from Latshaw. It worked Awesome!

=)

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

I am very meticulous with cataloging what physical discs I have vs digital media. I opted out of renaming the 12000+ drive files because I didn't want those files to ever get mixed in with what I have the discs for.

As noted, I just zipped them up, cleaned up a few anomolous files names, and dropped them all into a single directory on my show machine.

Here is a sample of how it looks (Note the sequential disc ID numbering)-



As for how many dupes there are -- Here are the complete stats for ONE of the drives (note - the drives were identical. Chartbuster QC is a little flaky)

12151 Usable tracks

There are many tracks that are duped by different bands. Most of which are different emough versions that I could see them being requested independently. However, they did place duplicates from the same artist on the drive -

Adele - Fool that I am (2)
Adele - Daydreamer (2)
Alabama - Christmas in Dixie (2)
Alabama - Old Flame (2)
Reba McEntire - On My Own (2)

Just to name a few. I am not going to bother sifting through the whole drive and count them out because I think overall it was a great deal even if there are dupes and the "+" falls off the 12000.

I should also point out that there are 101 songs by George Strait and not a single dupe.
Surprisingly enough there is also only one version of "Friends in Low Places" on the drive (one too many IMO!)

-Chris

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-Chris

I got the CB 6000 in November. I had two duplicates, and three bad tracks. They did give me 6005 songs so I guess were even. That 12,000+ you got Chris, just how many are in the package, the CB 6000 vol. 2 has 6127 songs...

Chris I saw your post about a good database. I use MTU Hoster, it has a pure database. It's great, I put those 6000 in my system in less than a hour with new file names. All I did is make a starting disc number, in my case it was 600. Then I put in a batch file mode and let her go. It numbered them 1-99 on 61 disk numbers (600 to 660), such as 626-86 in my songbook. The search engine is fast so I had no need to do anything other then check for spelling errors and change genre's to my liking...Check it out, I've had Hoster now for 5 months and I love the ease of using it at gigs. Fast searches are great. I mean real fast, like "bing" info is there, and beautiful song books also...

Jon

You Got MTU Hoster to work without it crashing every 3 to 5 songs? I had a hard time with it, That's why i decided not to buy it.

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

@pyledriver - The 12000+ Hard drive (one of them anyway) had 12151 total tacks after zipping things up. I don't have an efficient way to test them all to see if they work so I will just have to wait until they get requested.

@pyledriver - I want a database that I can use to find tracks. I also have a project I am about to start and I will need access to accurate karaoke song DB's - particularly for more recent music - for my project to work. I don't need the DB's for renaming tracks, just for lookups in general.

-Chris

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-Chris

Been using it for 5 years now without so much as a hiccup. Sounds like computer settings or something required missing.

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

For the Chartbuster 12000 I didn't even attempt to match the songs to discs and rename. I dumped it all to a single folder on my hosting setup then I zipped everything up with MP3+GToolz, cleaned up a few files that had some odd formatting. Otherwise, I left pretty much alone. I figure this way I just track my discs separate from the 12000+ files.
-Chris[/quote]
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Chris – My transaction with CB was pleasant. I placed my of CB 12K digital tracks Dec 28, and received it Jan 9. (Seagate 320 GB Go Flex). I made a new folder, named it CB Digi, dragged & dropped to my own external. Right click on the folder and auto-zip all 12k tracks using MP3+G Toolz. Believe it or not that took 6 HOURS. I wonder if there's another method to shorten zip-time? Also, how did you assign numbers to be listed in your books? Most track #'s are really long, like: CBC10835-00 or CB002361-01

Also included: Certificate entitlement for eight hours of studio recording/mixing time and 100 cdg Chartbuster discs "random picks" i.e., bluegrass, contemporary christian, artists series 6+6, country hot hits. I haven't had the chance to inspect all but this I can say that there were 3 or 4 count same discs in each category.
Missing was the KJ Certification Purchase Form so I called them to inquire and was told it's in the process and will be mailed to me first week of Feb.

For a little over $3k I paid (w/ coupon) I think is really well worth the price. Being a KJ for over 20 yrs, I have practically all SC songs released, complete DK series, PH, MM, TT, P/Songs, Pioneer, etc. I thought I have at least 40% of CB library until I inspect songs from their Microsoft Excel listing. I found out that I probably only have 25 or 30%. So, the rest of the songs that I don't have & more from the physical CD's I received (some not included in the 12k) will be a great addition to my collection. Not to mention I probably replace crappy versions from MM, TT, MH. Good deal!

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

@Brian A - I have no complaint with how promptly Chartbuster sent my 12000+ drives (I bought two of them). I also received the certificates to the recording studio with the drives. But I had to repeatedly contact them to have my 200 bonus discs sent out. I have also repeatedly contacted them about my certificate and getting posted to the Certified KJ site. As of last week the promise was to have me posted on the site this week and that I would also receive my certificate this week.

I just checked and I am still not on the site and I did not receive the certificate yesterday in mail. As I noted here and on my blog, I am actually giving them until Monday to straighten it out.

Having spent 6 months with Stellar getting that transaction finalized, I am not in the mood nor should I (or anyone else) be subject to poor customer service and slow delivery.

One thing to note - There have only been *6* updates to the Chartbuster Certified karaoke page since October of last year and only *1* in all of December 2011. I find it mildy interesting that there has been so little activity on that page, and that it coincides with lack of shipments from Chartbuster in that same time frame. not to mention the fire sale they had (and still have) going on.

I am not going to speculate on things beyond that it makes me uneasy that things are the way they are with Chartbuster.

As for the zipping of the 12000+ drive - it was simple enough. It took an hour or so to copy everything to my show machine, and another hour or two to zip it up. Then I simply deleted the handfull of MP3's that had no matching CDG file.

I don't print disc ID's in my books so I am not worried about the naming from that perspective. But I do use the Disc ID's within Karma to help me identify the best or requested versions for the singers. in that respect i want to make sure they are named and formatted properly for display within Karma.

-Chris

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-Chris

Thanks Chris. I will give Karma a try. Hopefully you (we) get the promised certification soon. Please post when you get yours. I'll do the same.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

I received an email from Chartbuster yesterday with an update on my Chartbuster Certificates. I was a bit surprised that they sent my certificates to me via email as a PDF file.

It would seem to me that they would send and actual printed certificate with some sort of official seal or stamp.

Is this what other certified Chartbiusters KJ's have received as well?

-Chris

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-Chris

Just got off the phone with Greg Taylor (the sales rep I bought my drives from) at Chartbuster. They are also sending out hard copies of the certificates. The PDFs were a means of getting something to me quickly since I am actively looking for an additional gig.

Their webmaster is at CES so it may be a few more days before I am listed on the Certified KJ site.

I have to say that I have been a bit sensitive and skeptical given what I went through with Stellar, but I am happy with the communication that is taken place.

Even though things aren't 100% wrapped up, I guess it is time to move on to Sound Choice to get the ball rolling there.

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris over at sound choice is a pretty good guy. I Don't think you will have any trouble there. he got my order for the GEM Series taken care of very quickly and efficiently.

But Remember, there is an 8 Page contract you will have to Initial (Each Page) and sign (Last Page) to do this. It's a Bit of a process but worth it. =)

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

I am only signing up for an audit for now. I don't plan on purchasing the GEM series any time soon since I have a large number of SC discs for my one location. If i can line up a second gig here soon then I will go ahead and get a GEM for that show.

-Chris

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-Chris

Cool. I had to buy them all again. I had a fire in '08 Lost ALL of My Discs (Including My Treasured Eagles SC8125) and Some of my Extra Equipment Not to mention some of my Childhood Stuff I had Stored (Baseball Cards, Mad Magazines 1960 to 1998, Etc.)

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website