Karaoke Forums

We use an app in addition to books. Our rotation is displayed at the end of each song automatically on the bar monitor and singers screen via our program. They can see exactly where they are and also who is singing what. We also have the option of endless show screens to display if we wish

I haven't decided which way I'm going to go. Especially in the beginning I am going to be updating my collection constantly. As I make money I am going to be updating, so any book I make will be obsolete every week.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

The chip rack idea is fantastic.

My Roxbox player WILL display the queue but only after I get a powered HDMI splitter. Which is just what I need; more crap to plug in.

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

Front pages of my song book;


Terry O’ke! 2012! Like a Boss!
Thursday: The Boiler Room @ Congress Hall 9-12
Friday: Rio Station 9-12

Kiddy O’ke!
Thursday: The Boiler Room @ Congress Hall 5:30-8
Sunday: The Boiler Room @ Congress Hall 7-9:30

The Deal: Terry O’ke is now digital! What does this mean to you? No more scratchy, skippy CD’s. What does it mean to me? Same thing. Plus, since I can now instantly enter you into the singer queue, fewer of those silly little song slips, which saves some trees, which makes this the greenest karaoke evah! But most importantly, fewer of those silly song slips and CD numbers and everyone putting their name where it says “Song Title” and the song title where it says “Name.” And fewer of you putting “Bruce Springsteen” where it says “Name” when your name is actually Frank or Joe. It’s really, really not that complicated people. Let’s get it together.
So, flip through this ridiculously massive song book or, for faster service, just come up and ask me if I have a song and I can tell you right away that, no, I don’t have that black market Chinese imprint of that super-obscure Michael Bolton b-side from his 1978 6-song demo from his early Connecticut days, but I probably do have “When a Man Loves a Woman.” And so on.
However, if you insist on flipping through this binder, page-by-page, song-by-song, please keep in mind that the average Terry O’ke show is 3.5 hours in length, and if you spend 3.45 hours reading this book until you go blind, you do NOT have the right to get mad at me if I don’t have time for your song at the end of the night.
I also recommend getting your name in the queue ASAP. Slots fill up quick, and if you’re here at 9pm but don’t sign up til 11pm you probably won’t get a turn til 1am. And folks, “queue” is a fancy word for “line.” And yes, it’s pronounced “Q”, like the weapons guy from James Bond, not “Kay-ooh-ay”, who is an African prince who’s sending you emails and needs help in financing his diamond mine or some such.
Also, since I am the awesomest karaoke host in the history of ever, I am always adding new music to my list and this book will be ever-growing. However, awesome as I may be, I am also pretty lazy, so I might not always add every song to the book. In this case, as in any case, please feel free to ask if I have a particular song. If I don’t, I will do my level best to find it, buy it and download it.

Terry O’ke Recommends: If this is your first time, try a song you’re VERY familiar with. Sure, we’ve all heard Maragritaville enough times to make us vomit in terror, but if that’s what will get you on-stage, then by all means, Jimmy your Buffet and give it a go, consarn it! We’d all love to hear you!
To you long-timers (Terry O’ke Nation!) why not try one song a week outside of your comfort zone? You never know how many great songs are out there waiting for you til you try. Wusses. Plus, this being Year 8 of Terry O’ke, I’m sick to death of your usual crap.

And ALWAYS tip your bartenders and wait staff. They rely on your generosity to survive, so toss them a buck, will ya? It is NOT required to tip the karaoke host. It is recommended, but not required.

Karaoke Courtesy: If you are one of the aforementioned who have heard Margaritaville 10,000 times, don’t sweat it; You’re at a karaoke bar! It’s what people do! Get over yourself! Just grin and bear it. Unless it’s Don MacLean or Meat Loaf, it’ll be over in 4 minutes and you can bask in the glow of your newfound karaoke Zen. Booing or heckling will not be tolerated, nor is it very nice.

Karaoke Protocol: Newbies and O’ke-heads alike, whether it’s your first time or your 100th, there are a FEW rules. 1st: Be nice, drink a lot and sing. 2nd: If one of my regulars “owns” on a song you want to do, I WILL give them a short grace period to claim it. If I don’t look out for my regulars, who will? You? The government? I don’t think so! 3rd: Always fill out a song slip. Yelling, “Hey Terry! Put me in for some Lionel Richie!” though charming, rarely works, because the host has very few working brain cells left and I’ll… what’s the word… forget! That’s it. So find yourself a genuine, certified, bona fide Terry O’ke song slip and WRITE. IT. DOWN.

Other Stuff-Oke: Terry-Oke! is, above all else, a democracy, which means; no matter how long I’ve known you or how much pull you have in a given bar/ restaurant/ nuclear facility, you still have to wait your turn. Others wait patiently all night for the rotation to come around. Giving cuts does a disservice to them. And if you tell me, “Terry, I HAVE to sing next, my ride is leaving/ my mother is sick/ the bar’s on fire!” Then you better DAMN well leave after your song, otherwise I’ll know you’re a lying, no good, varmint and you will be summarily banned for the rest of the night. NEXT!
The list closes 30-60 minutes before quitting time, so get in early and often to secure a spot. 1:45AM is NOT that time. If it takes you this long to work up the courage (get drunk enough), then come in 3 hours earlier next week. I am a slave to the clock. And my wife.
Please DO NOT put a song in for an unsuspecting friend. Though you may get a few moments enjoyment from embarrassing your buddy, to the rest of us it’s a colossal waste of time and, frankly, makes you look mean.
All sound and sound equipment is run at the discretion of the host. What does this mean? It means we are not in Madison Square Garden and you are not The Who. If you want to be as loud as The Who circa 1977, then go join a Who cover band and rock at with your socks out. Otherwise, you will tolerate the host’s volume levels or find yourself a new host to bother. But feel free to ask me for all the reverb and echo you want.
Groups songs on busy nights COUNT AS YOUR TURN. So think long and hard about you and your buddies all singing YMCA together as a goof if you REALLY want to sing The Impossible Dream to impress your date. As many of you have learned, the rotation, once full, can take a while to come back around. Of course, all of this can be averted by giving the host $10.
No F-Bombs. As much as I love hearing and using them, PLEASE REFRAIN from dropping them while on the microphone. Doing so will result in a ban for the night.
Enjoy! Let’s have a great night!

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

Do you actually have people that read all that?

Absolutely.

What I posted is a little long as I combined a few different documents from the last 7 years, I generally edit it down to fit on 1 full page. But many of my guests have enjoyed reading it. Oddly enough, most of the people who sit and read the whole thing are non-singers who just pick up and peruse the book. But my singers like it, too.

I'll even name the rules after some of the most egregious offenders, those who are constantly up my @$$ about turning their mics up or wanting to do 2 songs back-to-back. I got into that habit in my early days if a show was a little slow, but like a Welfare check or free health care, once you give it to them it's almost impossible to take it away, so I stopped doing it except for the rarest of occasions (i.e. the crowd starts dancing to a Bee Gees song, so I'll put another one on right after to keep them on the floor).

It's mostly just something that is there if they want it and, in some cases, people will actually abide by them and is saves me having to explain it a bunch of times.

So I tried to make it entertaining and informative. It just expanded over the years as people told me they liked it. I worked for years as a professional writer, so I enjoy the process.

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

I like kiosks. The customers pick the songs, the hosting program drops them into rotation, and all I have to do is click "play" once they get to the stage. I don't use laptops for kiosks because I would have to PAY for a laptop and I can get all the antique desktops I want for free. Also, the user interface on a laptop is not all that friendly. The whole concept of a personal computer seems to be going the way of the Dodo so just don't think of it as a computer, think of it as a karaoke machine.

It's a pain to update books and every time you buy a new song they're out of date. Once you get more than about 5000 songs the books have to be impracticably large or the print impractically small. I'm semi-retired from karaoke but I thought I would thow my two cents worth in.

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Okay, who took my pants?

As someone who doesn't have time to go to karaoke very often, I always have a hard time coming up with a song, no matter what method of song request the KJ uses. I'll spend 30 minutes flipping through a book and still have no idea what I want to sing. I started thinking about how to make song-choosing easier for the poor schmucks like me whose heads explode when they're presented with too many options without putting extra burden on the already-busy KJ.

To that end, a buddy of mine and I built http://www.SongThrong.com, which presents the singer with a short, simple, smartphone-friendly quiz, and suggests a song based on their selections. Right now our database is sitting at ~2200 songs, most if not all of which are sure to be in every KJ's repertoire.

We'd love to hear feedback from anyone who has the time. We developed it mainly for ourselves, and are trying to figure out if it could do well in a wider market than just our friends.

I just had a thought about the problem of keeping books up-to-date. Maybe some of you do this already, but how about adding a dated update page to the front of the book whenever you buy more songs? It would let your singers browse the newest songs in the order they were added, and it would decrease the frequency of reprinting the song books. I figure you won't have to do a full reprint but once every year or two, depending on how frequently you update your song list.

SongThrong, neat idea.

i have had this idea in my head for a while,.....
go to denny's, villiage inn, etc and even if you don't eat pie (insert dwayne johnson joke here) you cant help but grab that standee with the pies on it and look. why not put those out on tables with a page of easy first time songs for the ones who will never grab a book (margaritaville, tequila), but may be convinced with it sitting there. add another page of say level 2 songs (the dance, before he cheats), a page of great rarely done ones (Who can it be now, baker street, edge of 17, ball of confusion) and a page of challenging songs for experienced singers (The Fever, the chain) and a page of new hot stuff they may not know is out (bad things, drink on it)

just to keep it on every table and in their face to maybe get either new ones singing by putting that songs out there or giving the singers suggestions (like they dont ask for suggestions every night anyway) of something new.

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

@SongThrong, I too have created something similar, except mine is in book form, and also is made up of 2200 hand chosen songs. I called the list "FFF, Fun Fast & Familiar". When someone does not know what to sing, I just hand them that list, and they can quickly find something. It works really well. Your idea definately fine tunes my idea. Great job!

Kiosk for 2 yrs now.....never looking back! Some new ppl ask were are our books, we point out the kiosks....walk them thru it, they are amazed and love it. We also invite ppl to just ask us for songs too. 2 ways of interacting. No more sticky out dated expensive books!

(using AutoKJ with wireless system and touch screen kiosks from a building supply store, remade them of course to look good) next kiosk will be a touchscreen POS system, been working on them for a roller rink we are bought and are restoring/rebuilding, get the right POS pc, totally self contained system, 85 bucks for a 15 in touch screen pc pos, not to shabby

SongThrong: Great idea!

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Okay, who took my pants?

Where do you live that you have to explain the definition of "Queue"?! West Virginia?

yes we do add new additions to the front of our books as we add new songs. Because we add songs often and only reprint our "impractical" books every 18 months or so. We will also be putting our books (all 3 systems) on our website and using one of the smart phone apps I do hope to decrease the number(and cost) of books by half this year. I hope to cut down to 10 books per system.

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

have not used a book since 2001
my singers love Kiosk
thats all i have to say on this

holy $hit balls, you run 20 books per system? how many singers are you dealing with?

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

New Jersey.

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

Our usual singers crowd runs around 30 singers plus those who just listen. We try to have a book on each table and at least 6 spread on a normal(for here) sized bar. In small rooms all 20 may not get spread but normally they are all out. 14 by title and 6 by artist. Having the books online for each system (color coded) and the apps it will be fantastic to cut down to 10 per system as it will save lots of $$$ and cut down on "book stuffing" time...I do really dislike book time (also our books are 5in D rings and that is with dupes removed)

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

wow, just seems a lot ot me, i am currently running 4 books and 2 weeks ago had a 47 singer night with no issues. in that situation 20 just seemed like a lot.
not knocking you at all, just different.

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

I used to run 15 combined books - both artist & title, until they started running into 3-3 1/2" binders. Then split them up into 10 title/10 artist. Noticing the artist books went out more frequently than the title books. Now I do maybe 6-8 artist & 4-5 title.

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