Karaoke Forums

Every host has his/her own reasons for using or not using bumper music. In my case, I don't use it for a couple of reasons... (a) Although my "Just Karaoke 2" program will accommodate bumper music, I've gone back to good old Winamp which doesn't. and (b) By eliminating bumper music, I find I can get in more singers' performances, if only two or three over the evening.

Having worked as both a radio DJ and wedding/party DJ, I have no problem filling in the blanks between singers, and can usually find something to say about the song, the singer, or both while waiting for the next performer.

For the above reasons, I don't do dance music breaks either.

Not saying there's any right or wrong... just my preferences, and apparently my clients like it this way.

Do you use bumper music between performers? Why? Why not?

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

No. I don't use it because I personally hate talking over music although the program I use has a talk over button to allow talking over the bumper music should I choose to use the bumper music feature on the program, I have yet to even play with it. Like you I prefer Winamp although I hate do DJ breaks because I feel that it takes away singing time from my singers.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I always use bumper music.
if i talk for 15 seconds or i talk with bumper music for 15 seconds, you do not get any more singers up.
bumper music does not cut out singers or take more time.
i have my bumper music set at 30% of the normal karaoke volume so it is just in the background while i am talking, just like radio DJ's use. it just sounds better than talking over nothing and keeps the music flowing.
plus i always use upbeat filler music so it helps clear the palate after a slow dirge which gives me the option to go 20 seconds instead of 15 to help bring the mood back up before the next singer. it doesn't take long.

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

When was talking about taking away time from my singers, I was referring to the DJ breaks not the bumper music.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

you didn't, Earl did. i was responding to the op based on both responses.
"By eliminating bumper music, I find I can get in more singers' performances, if only two or three over the evening."

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

I played around with the background music feature and the talk over button and I think that it could work for me.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Nope, not a note of bumper music here...

Just Karaoke 2 has the next 15 singers feature, and I've trained singer to take notice of that scroll! Double click the next song while the other song is playing out, and its ready to go as soon as the singer hits the stage. We fill the dead spot with who's singing what and of course gig notes

If you want to hear music, come to pre-show

i do the same thing, i just have upbeat music quietly playing while i do. that's the only difference. why so against having anything playing?

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

Usually I come in an hour early and DJ before the karaoke starts just to double check my system since I'm a mobile KJ when I do a gig. I don't play filler music as a rule no one really seems to care about that. I do something that is rather different from most hosts and some singers have a problem with it. I put names on the board, the way I see it is that block of time belongs to the person whose name is up. Some patrons don't sing but they want me to play a song for them, I have always obliged since it gets people up and dancing. It really doesn't in my opinion take anything away from karaoke since all it is a block of time for that individual. I have a few purists that have a problem with this. One time I had some belly dancers from the neighborhood Greek restaurant give me a disc and dance, no one complained that time.

I always did bumper music. About 45 seconds between each singer. Basically long enough to get the bumper song from my lead in cue point through the first hook/chorus of the bumper song.

My particular venue was only about 25% singers and their friends, so 75% of the audience was not there for the karaoke. The bumper music kept the non-karaoke audience engaged and interested.

I can see skipping the bumper music in a venue that is very focused on the karaoke, but if a big chunk of the audience doesn't particularly care about the karaoke, the bumper music is a great way to keep them entertained as well.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I used background music at 50% volume for 18 years as a host always using upbeat songs or genre-related music to the upcoming karaoke song. This always pumped up the crowds after a ballad-hell song or a slow love song.

Full DJ songs were used on occasion when a line-dance was called for and was pre-announced at the start of the karaoke show.

always disliked the term "bumper-music"...sounds like something a 12 year old would use...but whatever

I use bumper music and I use Karma's filler feature to seamlessly transition between singer-bumper-singer-bumper, etc. I have the filler volume (FV) set at 10% of master volume (MV) because Breakaway tries to bump the filler up to full volume if it isn't set real low.

I have zero problem talking over the filler, and no one misses their call when called. My average singers per hour is around 17 to 19. Being an "Oldies" venue most songs average around 3 minutes.

I trim long intros and fade long outros. No one complains and most love it because they know that I am doing everything possible to get everyone that wants to sing a chance to sing. My average length of filler play is less than 15 seconds

Have always used bumper music - just long enough to get one singer off stage and the next one on. Never full songs. Unless you consider 'bumper' music as full songs and not just snippets to transition between singers, it would not change how many singers I can get up in a night - it would be the same amount of singers if I used it or not. And like Paradigm - I agree it sounds better talking over some underlying music like you'd hear on almost any radio ad.
Also often times something will be playing that sparks a urge from someone to sing it so they request it to sing, where as if it wasn't playing in the background they may not have even thought about singing it. Not set up for any specific genre or anything, I have around 8000 songs loaded in my dj program set on auto play/random shuffle so anything from Cab Calloway to Megadeth to Shania Twain to Led Zeppelin to Little Richard to Debbie Gibson to ..... etc can pop up at anytime, just like karaoke in most places where most genres can be covered.

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

I just hate dead air, so always a few seconds of bumper while getting up the next singer. I keep it running on my backup computer and just bring up the fader as much or as little as I want about 3 seconds after the current song ends, and fade it out about 3 seconds before the first note of the next song, while talking over it as much or little as needed. It's purely 2nd nature at this point, and I like it coming from a separate laptop on its own channel. I go against the grain though and use slower music the more boisterous the room gets.

I use Karma as well but, (and I know it is probably just me and the way I want things to be) I don’t like the way Karma places both bumper music and karaoke music in the same playlist panel. The reasoning behind that is the bumper music playlist is always at the top of the playlist panel and karaoke songs go to the bottom of the playlist panel as added (bumper music is always added first if you want it from the get-go)
I want to be able to look at the playlist without constantly scrolling down to see what song will be sung by the next singer in the rotation.
I know there is a separate rotation panel but it requires one to open up the singer history/queued window to see which song will be sung next.
I use Winamp as my bumper music player along with a script program I wrote to handle the transition and fade in/fade outs. Within the script program I have set up hotkeys combining the Karma and Winamp hotkeys and the 2 combined hot keys are then assigned to keys on the keyboard-such as Home, End.
I then set up my Satachi remote with those 2 hotkeys and 4 others I use (covered in a different thread started by mrmarog).
1.) fade out bumper and start next karaoke
2.) fade out karaoke and fade in bumper
3.) restart from top (karaoke)
4.) mic duck
5.) volume up (for minor music volume adjustments)
6.) volume down (for minor music volume adjustments)

So if not at the board I can make the above 6 things happen and if at the board those 6 and more
Using Karmas and Winamp built in hotkeys.
All this assures that the playlist in Karma is showing only karaoke songs.
My script file has been fine-tuned and works flawlessly.

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

I have a dj program that has a playlist that run continuously.... on a separate channel....

I might bring it up between songs if needed just to avoid that awkward "dead air" atmosphere...

The nice part about doing it this way is that you can make playlists for different clubs; one that is more couintry-sounding or with a sprinkle of oldies or lots of pop or rock... depending on the clientele at the club.

agreed, i do the same with Siglos.
i have a different login for each venue with the screens and music saved for each so no matter what venue i go into, i can just log in that one and get the appropriate fill in music playing.

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

I don't have to do anything but load a hundred songs at the top of the cue and forget it. No sliders to turn up or down, no second laptops, no ancillary programs running in the background.

I can also clear the filler list and change the songs to a different set of songs with a click or two. Why all the extra stuff?

Have to agree about Karma's bumper music playlist. Very inconvenient. It also sucks that you can't import m3u playlists into Karma. Karma's kpl format is proprietary, as far as I can tell, and there's no smooth way I've found to convert m3u playlists to Karma's format.

Oh, I've asked Mr. Bob about making the program compatible with m3u playlists, too. Can't remember his snarky reply, but it was basically, 'no'.

Just one more thing to dislike about Karma.

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DJ Don

Does "because the customer support is much nicer" count?

(tee hee)