Karaoke Forums

Having made the leap to digital in the last year, I have gone back and forth on whether or not to keep putting out song books at my shows. You all know what a pain in the @$$ they are to build, maintain, and update.

I feel like flipping through the book is an important part of the karaoke experience, but it also feels a bit ludicrous to put out a 200+ pg. book with 13,000 songs in it that would take a normal human about 6 hours to peruse.

Recently I've begun only putting 1-2 books out on a front table for some of my dyed-in-the-wool regulars to look through. But for the most part 95% of my singers just come up and ask for a song. Once performed, it remains in their history.

Bottom line; I think I'm going to go bookless this year, which also means song slip-less and pencilless. Going to end up saving myself a few hundred bucks over the course of the season.

I have also been encouraging my singers to text me their selections and am in talks to develop a smart phone app that would post all my songs and allow people to pick and send their songs from the app. Probably going to prove too cost prohibitive, but if any of you have the wherewithall to run with the idea, I say go for it. Just make sure I get the app for frre.

Anyway, interested in fellow KJ's thoughts on the modernization (ruination?) of the karaoke show as we know it.

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Terry O'ke--- Fake Music for Real People.

I understand why someone would go book-less, but personally, I interact with the crowd so much that I just don't have time to have a discussion with someone about which songs I have and don't have, especially because I don't use any filler music in between performers. I don't normally see people reading through the entire book, but rather just looking to see if I have a specific song by an artist they've already thought of.

But back on track, yeah, maintaining song books are a pain in the whole (@$%&#!).

You should always have a couple books available - I know I am one who enjoys thumbing through a book to see what the kj has and sometimes seeing something I may not of thought of without actually seeing it.
Storing the songs do make sure they don't try anything new - i've experienced that massively in the last year. Oftentimes the sings now just tell me to pick something for them out of their history.
There are already phone apps that do this where you can list your book on the smart phone & they can send requests via their phone to the host.
You can also consider a kiosk system.

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

we will not go book-less, yes they are a pain in the a** and NOT cheap however, having books out on the tables help us to keep a crowd that sings LOTS of different songs. IMHO it gets a lot less fun when you get regular singers who sing the same regular songs show after show after show


Blessings
Athena

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Kiosk..

quicker, cheaper, easier than books....

And there is a new phone app coming out (no I didn't write it) that promises to be MUCH cheaper than the others and just as effective...,

I have a hard time deciding what to sing and I'm sure many other people do as well. Lots of people like to thumb through books looking for something to sing IMO. I remember doing that many times back in the day. I think books are important to have at shows just for that reason. Not for people who know what they want to sing and just need to look it up.

I can't see a KJ carrying around a half dozen or more laptops for kiosks. Maybe some do, but I just don't see kiosks being something commonplace until bars have them in multiple areas like the gambling and trivia games. Books are expensive and a pain in the a$$, but necessary IMO.

well, you actually can "browse" with a kiosk and no, you don't end up with a "line of angry singers" waiting for it.

I have been digital for 5 years now and have always seen the need to keep books out. I have tried to use 2 laptops as a kiosk. There were always a few that used them but most ppl were simply just to plain lazy to want to figure out the simple program.

The other half that didn't have a problem with not having books are the folks that are just too lazy to look through the books in the first place and they would rather stand in line to just tell their song to me. They won't even take the time to use their phones and look at my on-line songbook.

I have used a great on-line songbook program since Jan '12. www.songbookslive.com. It is only $10.00 per year. It can be used as an awesome phone app or laptop or PC. I love it, especially since so many ppl have their faces buried in their smarthones all night anyways... These Okies are wayyyyy lazy


"When the Sun Goes down, The Stars Come out"

Books are a neccesity. No doubt. You can cut down on your costs, first and foremost, by buying the copying & binding equipment yourself. I spent about $600 on it a couple-few years ago and can print a book for less than $1. - btw, I buy imitation toner cartridges from Ebay. My books last less than 6 months before they are reprinted (I use the same covers & combs unless damaged).

Another suggestion - print half of your books by genre. OR, print several "Country" books. Less than half the cost, and at least half of my singers are strictly country - so it totally works.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

I have a friend in NY who was all disc all the time, and he never printed a book. People would just ask him if he has a song and if he did they would sing it. At my buddy's show, down here, we have a couple of books, and everyone comes up to the desk without numbers, no slips, and just asks for songs. Why bother with the cost of doing books if you have customers like that?

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I insist on my singers giving me song slips with songs that they either know (from previous experience) are in my books or have seen in my books. I have a very, very fast paced show, and have trained (yes, trained) my singers to look songs up and hand me slips. With a slip in front of me I can process that info when I have the time. When someone shouts a song at me I have to process it NOW, or risk the possibilty of forgetting their name, their song, or both.

I play dozens of customer cd's every night, have the entire process down to a fine science as far a efficiency is concerned. My point being that with a slip I have a record that I can look back on for info such as key changes, track number,etc. Some people get a little uppity if something goes wrong, but if I can show them that I did exactly what they put on the slip, it calms them right down, and exonerates me. A slip also gives me a record of ownership to the customer cd that I reattach to the cd when I remove from my player.

A song book is necessary for my type of show, and it is a perfect list of everything I own music for, so I can say to a customer "did you you look it up my book to see if I have it?"

Books are great!

kJams already has an iOS app that customers can use their iPhone to access your database on your laptop.

Yep, we use it at our shows. Works great (we also have books for the die hards too)

Happy to have sparked such an interesting conversation.

And I am going to take NONE of your advice.

After some deep though I've decided I'm going to create some song "menus". Laminated sheets that will have the rules of karaoke on one side, and a list of a few dozen songs and/ or artists to spark the oke-addled brains of my singers.

I will have kiddy and grown-up versions. (Btw, if you're NOT doing at least 1 kids show per week you're out of your mind... they are lucrative for all.)

But I agree there needs to be a book component to the show, but with my schedule I simply cannot keep up with maintaining thick binders that are obsolete when they come out of the printer because I added 600 songs after dropping the originals off at Office Depot.

One of the things people take away most from my shows is their enjoyment of the "Rules of Karaoke" I wrote up a few years ago and continue to edit and reuse every season. I'll post them in a separate comment. Feel free to steal them and tailor to your show.

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Terry O'ke--- Fake Music for Real People.

Terryoke1,

I look forward to seeing your "rules" thanks for being willing to share.

Blessings
Athena

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

They're actually on my home computer, I'll have to post them later. But I think you'll dig them. They're of the "You are not Roger Daltrey, you are not in The Who, if you wish to sing as loud as The Who I suggest you join a Who cover band, dress like Roger Daltrey, and sing as loud as you like, otherwise I control the volume, not you" variety.

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Terry O'ke--- Fake Music for Real People.

Kiosk...
Old technology
Too much to lug around
Too much work to setup/maintain.

On-line database with smartphone/app is the way to go!



BTW...I HATE shows without books. Drives me nuts to go up and ask "what songs do you have by artist X". I want to BROWSE the book.

I would say 1/2 my singers use my online list accessed via smart phone, the other 1/2 use my books.

I will ALWAYS have books at my shows

I will definitely look into the app. Can you give me the basics? Does it self-update via some kind of link to your database?

I also think I'm just going to email my book to those that REALLY want it.

I 100% agree that books are a big part of the experience, which is why I'm hesitant to do away with them completely. But 95% of my singers in years past would just come up and ask me anyway, and I grew real tired of constantly saying, "Did you look in the book? If it's not in there I don't have it."

ALL my singers are POSITIVE I have some super-secret list of songs that I don't allow them access too. Now I can just type the artist or song on the laptop and show them.

That said, I also understand it's annoying to not have a frame of reference.

The app seems like the way to go.

And, truth be told, I could probably run my business with 500 songs written on a chalk board. Everybody sings the same crap anyway...

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Terry O'ke--- Fake Music for Real People.

Terrioke,

We use chip racks for rotation(the kind you see in bars or 7-11's) our customers can see where they are in rotation...can give us a handful of song slips at one time and they hold up wonderful
we have 10 of these
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-New-Black-Tri ... 5891af7d2f

and about 20 hanging "sticks" that we have drilled holes in our gig racks to fit.

They last forever too. I know other hosts have come up with some other great ideas as well.

Blessings
Athena

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

That's a very cool idea.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE