Karaoke Forums

Which is the problem. Most kj's that steal don't treat this as a business to begin with, but a way to get some beer money in their pockets so they don't care - they buy a preloaded drive and crap equipment & charge a bar $50 to run a show. The kj's that are worth going to see (the ones that will adjust for the singers ) are the ones that typically take the business seriously, and put some real money into it - with both equipment & music - buying legal material. And yes a good kj CAN recoup their investment within a year or two (just like any other business).

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This is too funny. No, you are not.

I have a KJ near me... rather 'old school.' Uses discs, no vocal monitor.

Frequently, I get a few of 'his regulars' coming to my show. Now... this KJ has been in the local area for 20 years, and has quite the following, and before I was a KJ, the talk was 'how good his system was.' Now, given credit... its not bad. He's got a pair of old yamaha 15" clubs, which makes up for the deficiencies of under powered amp and cheap microphones.

Anyway, his singers will complain to me that 'they don't sound as good on my system as they do on his.'

Now this is really annoying me. I mean.. I've got a pair of QSC twelves, shure microphones, an Allen and Heath live sound mixer, an RNC 1773 vocal compressor, and a 400 watt beringer 12" speaker for my monitor. This system is my baby!

I tried all kinds of adjustments, but finally figured it out. My solution? Turn the monitor completely off.

The funny thing is, I've had many of his followers come to my show, and heard the same complaint over and over again, and in every single case, when I turned off the monitor... they were satisfied.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

that's strange

not around here they can't...there is only 1 person here that's doing karaoke more then twice a week and he's making $300.00 for 4 night's.

$30,000 not counting p. a. say $3,000 x 52 he could pay it off in 2 years IF every cent went to payments and not beer...I don't see that happening, down here anyway...

Lon I guess that's my point, around here they are all illegal...and most have over 100,000 tracks...so you can now change that 30,000 figure into 600.00 and that 3,000 into 1,000 at best...around here karaoke is dying fast...

I totally agree with you Lon. Not speculation, but fact! Case in point - *cough *cough PHM.

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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!

Where is "around here"? I'm in Sarasota home of Nik Wallenda the wire walker. You said you used others Niks too....care to share?

I can definitely see this... Those people are used to hearing themselves only in main mix and not in a monitor loop. It can be a radical change if you are not accustomed to it. The monitor mix is probably a little different when they are right there as opposed to mains across the stage/room. When we would set up our monitors for our band, we would often not route vocal effects to the monitors to keep the signal dry for our own benefit... Effects were routed through the mains, but monitors were dry so they would definitely sound different to people expecting effects... Perhaps it's similar...

There you go, a kj playing for beer money - not making it worth their time to take it seriously otherwise they wouldn't be selling themselves short and settling. I can make $300 in 2 nights - but that is a higher end of the scale in my general area.


I only have 14K individual songs and can compete quite healthily with those boasting 100K, and OFTEN hear the line - man you have stuff that those 100K kj's don't. It's not the amount of songs, it's having what people want to sing. Most of those 100K drives are a joke to begin with. Everything duplicated within however manus are on the drive, many contain foreign language songs that take up maybe 1/3 of the drive. Plus many of these kj's do not update their material so rarely anything new. They give karaoke clubs and kj's a bad name because they don't care, don't adjust for singers, rotations may not be in any kind of order, drunk most of the time to the point they don't care about the sound or show even further, etc. No wonder karaoke is dying - it's directly due to these kinds of kj's with the illegal drives.

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i'm on the ms coast, home of Katrina...yourkiddingright

I often hear the same kind of thing. I update my music based on singer requests. I often do this on the fly during a show because I want them to be happy RIGHT NOW as well as next week and the week after.

What I see more often is that the budget KJ's will buy a $200 hard drive and then stop updating. They think they have a 1/4 million tracks and that is all they will every need. in truth, they still need to invest in new/requested music to stay relevant.

I am drawing folks away from other locations that have been in business for 10 years or more because I accommodate my singer requests (and I have decent sound, and I hope I am fair and personable).

Oh.....and I would love to have a singer stage monitor at every venue, but currently only one venue has an acceptable layout to support it. Will be testing a singer monitor in two weeks there.

-Chris

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-Chris

No I'm not. We like to know who we are taking to especially when you say "I've used other Niks". Why change your nik? That is one my biggest pet peeves.

that's strange[/quote]
Not strange at all, I have also had requests for the monitor to be turned off completely or no vocals in the monitors, just music. Same reason, people (inexperienced singers) do not like to hear their own voice. I sometimes recorded in the past and would give people their songs - you'd be surprised at the amount of refusals to TAKE their songs as they did not want to hear themselves. Also had some people quit singing altogether once they heard their recordings, that was when I quit recording for people.

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The first time I ever attempted karaoke there was this horrible noise coming out of the monitor that was totally off key and kept throwing me off. I kept "singing" louder and louder trying to overpower it and finally realized that the horrible noise was me.

Now I have progressed to needing to hear myself. But I would probably be horrified to have a recording. My former partner was the real singer. I only do it out of self defense--if there are too few signed up in the beginning I kick in. I have had success in getting people to sign up by threatening to keep singing until they do.

funny,

That is so ME too.

Not strange at all, I have also had requests for the monitor to be turned off completely or no vocals in the monitors, just music. Same reason, people (inexperienced singers) do not like to hear their own voice. I sometimes recorded in the past and would give people their songs - you'd be surprised at the amount of refusals to TAKE their songs as they did not want to hear themselves. Also had some people quit singing altogether once they heard their recordings, that was when I quit recording for people.[/quote]

NOT being a kj I never run across any of that. I still find it strange yet I believe ya'll..again that's the reason for the EATING CROW thread...I guess I took for granted that all r most singers wanted or needed to hear themselves in order to sing but I guess not...my bad

mrmarog you seem mighty interested in who I am, I was and who I will be... I just gave you 1 nic...

Do those 9 out of ten people keep coming back. Usually, with me I just don't go back.

I'm always amazed at KJ's who can't figure out what their singers are asking for. Sometimes just the attempt to please makes all the difference for the singers experience. I would concur that turning them up in the monitor was probably the proper way to handle it. It's not that difficult to keep everyone happy. especially the customer.

That's just laziness on the part of the host. Weird because I'm a tenor and I don't like mud either.