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Wanted to ask those that have purchased the Gem Series and also have a large CB library; how many duplicates are there between these 2 collections?

Reason I ask, I am contemplating getting back into the business and I am at this point thinking of just going with the CB KJams system which has 12,000+ titles. Would it be worth the extra expense to add the 6,000 title Gem series as well?

I know that SC is better for rock/pop tracks, but is it really worth $4500?


Thanks,

Bruce

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Short Answer: Yes, it's Worth it.

Long Answer:
Between the Gem Series and the Chartbuster Digital 6000, there are about 1500 titles that are duplicated. Although in those duplicates there are several Where one version is Significantly better than the other. I bought both and have not had any regrets. =)

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

That's a 25% overlap and a $2700 premium for the Gem series. That's pretty hard to swallow when comparing the 6000 song collection. The CB Digital Media collection is actually 12,000+ songs and still $1000 cheaper than the Gem series. Is there a way I could compare the titles in both collections to see what is in the Gem series that I just can't live without?

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

You are never going to emiminate buying duplicates at one point or another - unless you buy each track indiviually, and even then I have accidently bought something I already had or something I didn't have then it came out later on another disc that gets released.

The GEM is a great set IMO, better than the Foundation & Bricks as you get much more.

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Well I've been kicking around the same issue. How do I get the most without all the costs. I have the CB 6000, do I get the other 6000 or the Gem. I can't see paying for all the Country I already have in CB, and WONT pay that price for all the Traditional, Standards, Childrens and Christmas. A KJ needs Sound Choice and they know it. Why they don't offer better packages is beyond me. They bury needed songs in their Foundations and Bricks, forcing you to buy all those unneeded songs. No wonder people went to stealing their product...Anyway I'm leaning to buy the other CB 6000+ and 3000 SC tracks, To best avoid the above mentioned Genres I'm getting the the Emeralds 1 & 2, and Saphires 2, 3, 4, and 6. Thats 2400 songs plus 40 Spot light CD's...So I overlayed the CB 12000 with the 2400 SC tracks, mind you there's no Traditional, Standards, Childrens or Christmas. I had 769 duplicates. So that's 31.2%...Still A very high price to pay. If I look at it as paying for CB duplicates, not SC, it's $192.25 out the window...

Jon

Hey Lonnie, I realize I can't avoid dupes, unless I only buy from one manu. And I realize the Gem series is a great deal - compared to what I paid for original discs back in the day. I was having a hard time justifying paying such a premium for SC in relation to what CB is offering.

Jon, now THAT sounds more like a plan I could get behind! Like you, I don't want to pay for a bunch of traditional/kids songs that will never get used.

Now - What's the best plan for adding new music going forward? SC hasn't released a disc in what, 2 years? And now CB seems to have dropped the ball on new releases, so what's the best way to get them?

Thanks again guys.

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Well, All-Star has been a great help in filling alot of cracks, although they are a little slow with new releases. The price was great and the sound good... I picked up on E-bay, dare I say, a 29 CD Rock set of SGB (not burns), for $29.00 (over 430 songs) to fill in some gaps until I get my SC. Their getting me by for right now, and will fill some gaps later. Good thing most of the Genre sung at our Gigs is Country and Spanish...

Jon

Here's an example of screwed up marketing by SC. Say I buy the above example from them, and now I'm looking for Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love". Well I either have to buy the 3000 song Diamond, or the 120 song Brick 5...Hum, who thunk that one up, the "lets screw him over division". Theres dozens of songs I found that are that way... If they did marketing packages like Sunfly they would do a hell of alot more business. Are you guys at SC hearing this? I have been tempted to buy all Sunfly instead, because of this kind of crap...

Jon

I have been waiting for this debate to come up again.

I am not going to address the duplication between vendors since that is their problem. They want to most popular tracks so they can garner sales. It's business.

As for the total cost of the compilations: I say keep it high. The maunfacturers have to make money *AND* the barrier to entry needs to be high enough to prevent over-saturation.

The reason why there are so many karaoke shows and the price we can charge is so low can be directly attributable to the very low cost of entry into this business. For less than $1000 a host can put together a laptop, some speakers and a pirated drive (or download) all the music they need.

If the manufacturers drop the price of their collections so low that ANYONE can afford them, then they won't be doing the industry any favors. The price needs to be high enough to prevent over-saturation and low enough to be compelling enough for the SERIOUS KJ to be able to afford it and get their investment back - OVER TIME.

What we do is a business. We have to be willing to take some risks and invest in it. There is no risk if the price is so low that no one gives a second thought to getting their investment back.

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris, you get no argument from me there. I also think that if the point of entry is higher we all will be able to make more money. I was looking at the original problem as if I'm going to pay nearly $8,000 upfront for both collections, how many dupes am I going to get and how best to cut down on that number?

I think after careful consideration that I will go with the Gem series as a foundation and add the CB Media Pro HD. Then I can just add the CB titles as they are requested. If I buy 100 credits at a time, my cost for each track is only $1.50.

I'm still not sure about where to get new music that is legal for commercial use though.

.

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Even that is impossible. Many manus release the same songs within different series - say a compilation pop disc, all female artist disc, all same artist disc - with each disc having that ONE new song everyone is really craving to sing that you end up buying to have it.

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Chris I don't mind the cost. Sunfly is about 1.25 a song and so is SC. What I mind the way SC packages their product. They do a terrible job. If you wan't to buy just one artist most of the time you have to buy many, many different CD's. The example of buring songs in stuff you don't need is a prime (@$%&#!). Another example is SRV's "Pride and Joy", either buy the Diamond or SC8327 with 14 song's I'll never use. Some other choices would be nice. Another complaint is in order to get choice Artists packages you have to buy "Standards"also. I would love to buy every Rock, Pop and Oldies song they have and pay top dollar, Ah', not without buying Country and Standards... Just look up the catalogs for both Sunfly and SC and see for yourself the difference. CB has nice packages, Allstar has al la carte, and the lower grades all have better CD packaging... I think they could sell much much more of their product if they went back to the drawing board for marketing their packages. With all the stuff they have the could put together great packages that would sell like hot cakes...

Jon

I meant if I were to buy JUST the Gem series or JUST the MediaPRO HD. I remember all too well paying for dupes when buying discs.

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

But, $1.25 or $1.50 is a pittance for a track. For SC or CB to do what you're suggesting they would have to charge $5.00 or more per track. Of course they have fallen into the same trap as kj's have in the belief that more song choices equals something better when it really isn't. When SC made the Gem series they were trying to justify the price by touting the number of tracks you could get. And then broke that core of 6000 songs down into smaller packages for whatever reason. What I believe they should have done is said, "Here is our best 3000 songs. No fluff, no filler. Top hits only." and then priced that at $4500. Say that would be the Diamond set. Then take the next 1000 or so songs and make that the Emerald set and price it at around $1000. Then take everything else make it the Sapphire set and price it at around .25 to .35 a track as a way to round out your library. They're cheap because they aren't popular but if a kj feels he needs to say "I have X thousand songs" he can.

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Thing you have to remember is if you are buying the GEM series AND the Media Pro, you are still fine. With the HDMediaPro you are only buying the songs you need (the hard drive is just the carrier, you don't actually have direct access to the songs), so there would be no purposeful duplication as if you already had the song on the GEM series, you wouldn't go buy the unlock on the other series! So you would control the duplication factor in that respect.

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Popular can vary from town to town and club to club. What is hot in one location may be a coaster down the block where something else is hot but a coaster in the other club.
No you don't NEED thousands upon thousands of songs, but a good solid core that includes a little bit of everything is a major tool. Because you NEVER know where or what the crowd will want. Most of our 20 YO singers are doing primarily 80's & 90's songs.

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That's true, I second that. I work 7 nights a week and every venue/crowd is different. Like Lonnie said, one song might be hot in one spot and never used in the other.

I agree Lon, it's venue = genre. It's 83% Hispanic down here and Karaokanta is my life blood. I have just a few that like to sing Rock, Country is the other big draw... I have one Gal who keeps asking for her "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Want To Rock N' Roll)". See heres another example of spending for one song with SC. Either buy the Emerald 2, or that Headbanger 12 pack you showed me for $179...Sucks

Jon

I'm not talking "hot" based on a particular venue, I'm talking "hot" as in it was a charting single. I believe that if you had the Billboard Top 40 songs from each year say 1950 to present you'd have a damn good selection and that's less than 2500 songs. Heck, extend it to 1940 and you still have less than 3000 songs. Top 100 from 1950 to present is barely over 6000 songs and that would be a fantastic collection. Hell, I'd gladly pay $7500 for that!

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Some of the most popular songs sung/wanted in my experience are not necessarily top charting songs.

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