Karaoke Forums

That time of the year... updating songbooks. Only 619 new entries this year, so it shouldn't be that bad.... fix the errors I missed from previous printings. Hopefully, I'll be done by Friday.

Trying to get all the entries with last name first, and all song titles named consistently, so I can eliminate dupes. Double columned, this year's book, with dupes removed, is 191 pages.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

koyote you might want to consider first name first, sounds like the phone book companies are considering this as well.

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

I have an Excel file using VBA I created that removes duplicates automatically. It also gives you the option of arranging your music in "Artist - All Song Titles By This Artist" to save space, paper & toner.

20,000 songs takes about 20 minutes to complete. Not as good as the commercial software, but at least its free.

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

I update my main database with every new song/disc purchase. This way when i'm ready to print my full books, I just hit print. All dups and spelling errors are done already.

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

Nah.... that would drive me crazy. Especially since 90% of the book is already done last name first. Think of the number of artists named David, and then thing of the number of artists with the last name of Coe. It just is faster for searching purposes to do it this way. I will have it on the cover in big bold writing that artists are listed by LAST name.

Yes, I know that this will confuse the drunks, but I can't help that. Once they get how its done, they'll be onboard.

I do get the, "You don't have any songs by artist 'x'." I'm like, "Did you look under last name first?" I get the "oh...." and they go away and come back later with their request. The Artists are in BOLD, and then the songs are indented, so it is easy to search through the books. I don't use song slips, disk numbers or manus, so in the end, if they already know what they want, they can just ask.

The books are really just there for people to get ideas. I also don't mind if they come up and ask me to search by artist. Once the noobs find out how easy it is to submit a song for my show, its not really an issue.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I submit that yours, or any commercial software won't remove dupes that are not spelled the same. That's the issue with dupes. Not every manu spells every song in the same format... and even I, when naming my files from Tricerasoft make mistakes. For example, "The Song" verses, "Song, The" will appear to be two different entries to a auto dupe removal program. My songbook program, already removes duplicates, as long as the songs all have the same format and spelling.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

We do as Lonman does and try to integrate as they come in. When I add the new additions to the main book I change their font color to make them easy to spot as far as checking for dupes and deciding which versions to list. I also try to code them at that time as far as duet, holiday, kid book, x-rated, etc. It still takes a long time to sort it all out at printing time and even with proof-reading and spell check there are still always mistakes.

Mine actually does do this. It counts characters and if "X %" of the characters are the same, it prompts you to verify that the song title is the same. It also does something that is important to me... it counts characters for artist, too. And, if "Y %" are the same, it will prompt you to verify that the song is a duet and it will list the song under both artists (only two artists though).

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

Also free to members of this forum is a "Rotation Manager & Scrolling Marquee".

I am just a new/amateur programmer with projects I have completed for my own personal use that I am willing to share. I am not selling anything!

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

That's generous of you! How do we find them?

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Swing Time Karaoke

What's the problem? Excel is an all singing (No pun intended) all dancing bit of software and can sort on any column. Easypeasy ! You have got the list in Excel of course......?

Excel (and all Office products) are enabled to run code, or "Macros". The language is Microsoft's own Visual Basic, which today has become one of the most popular languages.

For some tasks (like sorting), you can use a simple sort, right from the Excel toolbar. But, what if you wanted to automatically remove duplicates? Or, what if you wanted to go to a particular website (say KJPro to browse their database) and find the songs for a particular disk you just bought? All of that, and just about anything imaginable is possible with the right code.

It is an entirely different dimension of Office that I did not know existed until about a year ago.

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

Ok, well then, the next logical question is, are you willing to share?

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Like many others, I input the music as soon as we get it. If there is a question of a title of a song, I will go to the Artist's home page or similar credible source for the proper name of a song.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

This is what I have been looking for... The vast majority of my files have been re-named using the KFR plugin for Music Book Deluxe.

I want a file renamer. I understand that this is a script that cleans up a list of text entries in a spreadsheet. Is there a way to apply the filter to actual files and then have either the dupes listed for manual edit or actually use the application to do the renaming? I already have utilities the will re-name files withing the archive to whatever the archive name is.

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Never the same show twice!

Yes, absolutely that can be done. I am going to work on that as soon as I turn this Excel VBA songbook file into a separate application.

If anyone wants that Excel file, just PM me.

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

TroyVnd27,
Sounds as if you have gone to a lot of work...thanks for being willing to share. We have unfortunately had to switch from Excel as we have too many individual entries (we now use Lotus Approach as it has a much higher number of entries available). I really liked Excel much better

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

Athena,

I think you may be misinformed about Excel and it's limitations. There's over 65,000 rows per worksheet in Excel and over 1 million rows available if you convert to a Pivot Table.

So, if you kept each library separate in separate worksheets (same file, just different worksheet), you could totally be still using Excel without using Pivot Tables, if you have over 65K songs per library.

As I mentioned, I have been dabbling in programming. I would totally be willing to see if I could make your life easier, simply for the experience. If you are a gambler, I'd bet on me making that happen, if I were you!

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

Excel 2007 Supports 1,000,000+ Rows and more than 16,000+ Columns (no pivot table required). More than anyone would ever need for karaoke song DB management. And that isn't even the current version. Office 15 is around the corner too.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel ... 73849.aspx

-Chris

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-Chris

we do have an older version...65000 rows was the limit guess it may be time for an upgrade.(we are not on the cutting edge of technology) We do prefer to keep our databases in one spreadsheet and not use pivotals. TroyVin27, what a kind offer...will have to see if I can talk DH into letting me send you a copy...I would prefer a lighter load

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