Karaoke Forums

First, no need to put on your Depends. Not a debate or P***ing contest. I'm asking because I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER:

How many songs can a PC host cue up, and how do you control the interval? Do you set up a specific timer or do you-like a disc host - just hit play when the singer is ready?

A disc host, in an extreme case, will work two triple trays allowing a 6 song queue. Personally, I normally use just two singles (a two track queue) though in large venues I use a triple and a single for a quad.
I am fully aware that PCs can do better, but am wondering how far in advance you go, and how intervals are handled timing -not filler -wise.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Can't speak for other programs (though I imagine it's pretty much the same). With CompuHost, if every singer turns in a song when they sign up then that's how many songs are in the queue (30 singers = 30 or more songs in the queue). Singers can turn in multiple songs and when it's their turn the songs in their queue also show up. Hit play and the song at the top of the queue plays. What's nice is that quite often a singer who has turned in multiple songs will ask if they can sing one of their other songs first. All it takes is a click to highlight the requested song, one click to bump it to the top of the queue and then hit play, all in less time than it takes to eject a disc.

While I have the option of a remote timer I personally prefer to start manually, though I have had to use it a couple of times. When that happens I tell the next singer that if I'm not back in time, they'll have x number of seconds from when the current song ends till their song starts to get up on the stage and ready to sing. Fortunately, so far I've managed to get back before the timer has kicked in.

i usually have 40 to 50 songs cued up and hit play when it is time to start
every song that a singer has put in (like when they give you a slip) goes right in to the rotation in their spot (singers get one song per round). how many CAN i have...infinite.
interval...just like you, i hit play when the time is right. the biggest difference is when you are up finding the third singers disc i am out schmoozing with the crowd because his track was loaded and hour plus ago.
not ripping on you Joe, just why i went PC.

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

Inifnite! I don't actually take any more than I would would a real disc, but I can have everyone that turn in their song cued up the second they turn their song in and in the cue. And that could go as long as I can enter the songs! If I set it to auto mode, I wouldn't even need to be up at the player to hit play, just be out in the audience with a wireless mic & call the next singer - except I like to adjust for every singer so I am up at the board at every song anyway.
Best thing about computer vs disc is the last minute changes that seem to happen quite a bit (at least at my shows so they can change up the pace or stay in line with the current upbeat flow or bring it down for a slow dance). matter of seconds vs looking up the song, looking up the disc, loading the disc & hit play which can take anywhere from 30-1:30 depending on the host & show.
I think the most I ever had cued up and ready to go at one time was 78 on a New Years Eve. It was pretty much the entire rotation for the night.
I used multiple players when I was disc based & as long as there were no last minute changes, a disc based host can run just as fast as a PC host. Just a lot more time needed on the disc host than a PC host is needed. Especially with last minute on stage changes.

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

My singers show up more than an hour before official start. I start entering names and songs immediately and almost always have at least 15-20 songs and singers in cue 1/2 hour before start. There have been many times that I have 40 songs in cue, silence trimmed, and ready to go at the push of a button. Try that with a cd player. To top that I run all music through Breakaway Audio processor which normalizes every song so you don't get the surprise volume burst.

I use Breakaway as well on all my karaoke music - there is no comparison with discs in that respect, all the music is processed to be normalized on the fly (the multiband eq is very good too), where when I was disc based I had separate compressor/limiters on each player to help keep the volumes in line & I still had to adjust the processors or mixer to blend the volumes to stay in the same levels.

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

I still play customer cd's and I have a compressor/limiter inline for that reason. My A/B switch sits right on top of it.

i will also play discs, those go through my software so the dynamics are handled without external compressors neede. i know other software besides Siglos can play on the fly as well....
also...any disc based tracks (not that those happen much) are also pre loaded and ready to go.

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

What they said. No known upper limit to how many songs I can queue, but certainly more than would ever be sung in a typical karaoke night.

I can also re-order them in the master rotation or for any individual singer on the fly.

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-Chris

Hey Joe,

Part of your confusion may be in the phrase "queue up". On a PC, there is no "queuing" in the traditional sense, meaning you don't have to do anything or push any buttons to prepare a song for playback. Essentially every song you enter is queued instantly as it is entered into the rotation. It is like having a virtual deck for every song handed in. There is no such thing as an "interval" as you don't have to swap songs in and out of decks in order to play them. This way, any song can be played at any time, even out of order. This ability to change your rotation instantly, on the fly, is one of the many huge advantages over a disc-based system.

Karma (and I believe the other well known host software) can be configured to autoplay with a fade interval. This would allow you to "cue" up all your tracks at the beginning of the night and only have to press play once at the very beginning of the night. If you don't manually add filler music between singers, Karma will just play karaoke back-to-back.

I don't do this. I have my filler music on a separate strip and manually fade it in out while clicking play on Karma to start singer song selections.

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-Chris

And don't forget the fill songs.

PC Based - most of the programs allow you to build and save playlists ie hard rock, old country, mix and match etc. Once you build and save a playlist you can put all the songs in the "cue" with one click.

Country bar tonight? open your list of saved playlists. Choose your saved country songs play list and you instantly have all your fill songs for the evening ready to go.

Yep even if you need to skip a singer (if they are in the bathroom i'll drop the singer down 1 and get the next person up) and the disc user didn't have that next singer looked up yet for some reason - now you have to go find that disc, load it and get it going. By the time you actually get it, chances are the other person you were looking for originally may be ready to sing now.

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

With Karma when a person says "that is not the version I want to sing" all you have to do is click on "now playing", just below the clock, and choose another song. With a disc based system that would take a lot of extra work, and. down time

Hoster has that as well. Nice feature.

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

I use Hoster. I typically won't play disc, but if I do I use the DISC button. It loads the song into the playlist then I give the disc back to the singer immediately. This can be done while somebody is singing. Once the song has been played, it is automatically removed from the computer. If you see a Hoster host loading a disc while playing filler music instead of while somebody is singing, and it takes more than a minute, then the host is probably stealing the songs from the disc.

I run my show in AUTO mode. Once one song is done, it automatically goes to the next song in the list without going to filler music. I display the current singer, and the next singer and what they are singing on the bottom of the screen. The singers get trained to when they see there name they are usually there ready to sing when their song starts. If they are not ready by the time the next song starts, I just hit the stop button and filler music starts immediately. When the singer is ready just hit the PLAY button and back in AUTO mode.

I actually prefer a singer give my multiple songs at once. It isn't going to make them sing any faster, but if they want to change the order it is even quicker than the 10 seconds it takes me to search, add, and play a song on demand.

Felix

Thanks for the info folks - it's why I love this joint.

To Paradigm: I'd be stuck up there anyway as I adjust sound for each singer. I do my schmoozing during songs or between rotations ( smoking ban means 1-2 filler songs in between. Not my preference, but the smokers '.)

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Actually, filler queuing is a non- issue either way. A disc host just makes a disc, or even
downloads to a stick if they like using them, as players have USB and card ports these days.
An advangage for the stick ( I don't use them, but...) is that if you leave
them plugged in and set to auto he filler comes on automatically when no disc is playing.

That's why I only asked about the karaoke tracks.....

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

i do that as well, just when i am done i go out to talk to the people instead of having to return the disc from the last singer, get the next singers disc pulled, loaded, and cued up. with PC when they give you their songs you load them all in a matter of seconds and you are done for the night unless they want to change songs on the fly. no more finding the disc for their next song and swapping them out, cueing it up then go, just double click their next song and go.
good job on getting them to wait till between rotations to smoke, mine just go out when they are not going to be up in 10 minutes. love and hate the smoking ban.

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

Do you think it is possible to get a virus this way? Home burned cdg's?