Karaoke Forums

Chris - you helped me quite a lot from your posts i.e., pc trouble shoots, at one instance almost spending big bucks for repairs were it not for your advice that I followed to a tee. The karma tip was another huge useful info I can use. With much appreciation - Thanks again!!!

‘Can’t wait for Karaosoft 2014!

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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!

I do this at almost every show. Been doing this since I first got Karma. One of the reasons I switched to Karma in the first place.

I tell you the reports are handy, SO glad Hoster put it in theirs! I use it every month to track whats being sung, more popular genres, whether new songs are being sung or not, how often, who sings what, even exact times and dates if I want, plus more, etc. I wouldn't want a program that didn't have stats anymore (as most others do).

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

Hmm, I wonder if this has anything to do with the reason the new Karma doesn't fit properly on my screen. My laptop has a very wide screen and my resolution is set to 1366x768. When it comes to screen resolution, etc.., I don't know much.

Anyway, if Karma 2014 still won't fit on my working laptop, I have no problems just sticking with Karma 2013 like Bob said. Karma 2013 is all I need anyway. I really don't need any updates.

I think all star Karaoke is like a store in Karma that you can buy,log, and use in something like two mouse clicks or so.

I use Compuhost, I love it. I have never tried to add a song to the database during a show, however I download songs all the time during a show and can play them instantly. Compuhost has a function built in that you can load a song not in the database from a flashdrive, your harddrive or a CDG disc. I just add them to the database later. As far as having them in a special format goes, on the initial import of the database you have to tell Compuhost what format your files are in. If you have multiple folders with different formats it's gonna be a longer process. In that case it would be easiest to import folder by folder. Hopefully each of your sub-folders are formatted the same in this case. Any thing that isn't the format you chose will be brought to your attention by Compuhost so you can pick the proper location for Disc id, artist and song title.

I almost bought Karma and I do like the way the program functions however some of my files lyrics appeared very fuzzy and pixelated mostly the ones from Karaoke-Version but there may have been others. They weren't that way on Just Karaoke 2.0, the program I was using at the time, so I emailed Latshaw about the problem and one other question about how to load songs on the fly. The response I got was very vague and really didn't provide any solution to my questions. So I bought Compuhost.

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KLAM Entertainment..."Come Out Of Your Shell And Sing"

I wish KARMA had reporting features, too. I've made other, what I thought were useful, feature suggestions to Bob. He certainly has his own way of doing things.

But....

As far as wanting a more 'professional looking interface', I do like KARMA'S simplicity. I can't imagine a program that would be able to load a singer into rotation, then load a song for that singer much quicker than KARMA can do it now. From my limited experience with Compuhost, I seem to remember having to go through several steps to load a singer and a song where KARMA can load a singer and a song in in probably 1/4 the time.

I'm very curious as to what KARMA 2014 is going to have in store for us.

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DJ Don

Hoster is pretty easy. You type singer, it brings up their list or you search a song & double click the song. It adds to the list.

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

My favorite feature, by far, of KARMA, is the ability to set the start point of the song, thereby cutting off the 7 second lead-in (title and info screens) of the song (using Sound Choice songs, for example). So, as soon as you hit the start button, the music starts. You can also set the end point, which is wher the music will stop and bumper music will automatically start (if you have it set up that way). Great for keeping the show tight.

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DJ Don

This feature is also available in Compuhost.

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KLAM Entertainment..."Come Out Of Your Shell And Sing"

Ah ok. It's been a couple years since I looked at Compuhost. It must be a recent feature addition. Is it easy to set? In KARMA, it's set the start point with a left mouse click, set the end point with a right mouse click.

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DJ Don

Hoster as well.

But again, I think I read where Karma only sets a set time point, Hoster has an overall start/stop point you can set for all songs, but you can also individualize and save custom start/end points on songs if the general setting doesn't work for that song (never having to mess with it again) - but as I understand, Karma has to do it on the fly with the wave display. I have manus that start the music the second it's shows on the screen, if you have a 7 second start point set, this wouldn't work. And songs that the lyrics actually start before the music starts.

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

You have to set the points on each individual song, for each singer. There SHOULD be a global setting for each song, though. And for songs that the lyrics start before the music, you'd better know that in advance or you're going to cut off the beginning lyrics. But you can fix that instantly by left clicking on the wave display a second or 2 (or however long it needs to go back to pick up the beginning lyrics).

Does Hoster have a fully functional trial version?

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DJ Don

Fully functioning except limits the songs to 60 seconds. It does not have a full demo version to actually run a show with, more to test and play with at home to get familiar with it.

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

I wrote "professional looking performance screen" as in the screen the singers and audience see. CompuHost wins this feature hands down!

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Karaoke that just sounds better!

CompuHost | KJ Media Pro | Karaoke Kiosk | Bose L1 Model II system | B2 bass | ToneMatch audio engine | Shure VHF SM58 wireless mics | Countryman E6 Earset with Shure UHF wireless beltpack

I can duplicate almost exactly what CH shows on their screens if I wanted and more that CH cannot display.

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

as can Siglos. i have individual announcement screens for my regulars that fit their likes or personalities.
the first is for my bartender. i bet you can guess what she is like.

the second is for a regular who raises tarantulas and yells out "it's my toin" when its her turn. i wont go into the joke of why she is called 19/17.

the third is a super redneck who wears a rebel flag on everything

only can add three attachments but you can get the idea.
i adjust the font, position, size in their singer settings so it matches the font i used on the backgrounds.
Siglos also removes dead air automatically. i think that is one part i did not like about Hoster and Compuhost, everything is static. the show ending time is based each song is 4 minutes, with Siglos it calculates the real time so a 4 minute song and Taxi (a 7 hour song) get calculated by their real time.

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

I could do the same with Karma, but admittedly it is manual and cumbersome so I don't.

-Chris

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-Chris

I trim EVERY song when using Karma. All SC songs can be trimmed 7 seconds at start and 9 seconds on the end. MM songs have 12-15 seconds on the start, etc. and when you want a show to be fast and efficient you need to remove the silence front and back. With silence removed from the start of the song if someone needs a "restart" it restarts instantly.

As an engineer I learned long ago that if you are only doing something once, just get it done. But if you are going to be doing it more than once you better figure out how to do it better and faster from the very get go.

For me doing it right every time is my only option. If something doesn't go perfect for me I will head straight home and set up ALL of my equipment and work on it until I figure it out. It drives my wife crazy, but she would much rather have me that way than someone who could care less about putting on a good show.

Karma, KJFile Manager, and Song List Generator have made my obsession easier to accomplish and I have sent Bob Latshaw dozens of emails (more than a hundred) and have been credited by him for some of my ideas in the early years. Latshaw is very ALIVE and doing well.

My issue with trimming songs in KARMA is, you have to trim the same song for each singer. You can't do a 'global trim' for each song (trim the song once and it's trimmed for every singer) which, to me, makes more sense. Most songs need to be trimmed only once.

Bob says he doesn't want to add unnecessary features to his program, but there are some features that should be relatively easy to program in that would be useful, like 'global trim'.

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DJ Don