Karaoke Forums

If only the singer is reading the lyrics, I don't think that's a copyright violation... it's not "public." The singer could easily bring the lyrics from home or read them on his/her phone.

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~Suzanne Lanoue~

Printed or from phone is no issue. I have people that do that all the time for songs I can only get instrumentals for. Grant you the clubs need to be paying their PRO fees still.

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

Live Karaoke bands are a very specialized option. There aren't enough of them out there to create a "Trend" of replacing KJ's/normal Karaoke en mass. Besides the higher cost of hiring a live band, scheduling and availability of players becomes an issue. Also to compile a substantial songbook takes a long time, it's not like just hooking-up a hardrive. Each song has to be learned by the band members. Add in rehearsal and practice time and there's just not that many musicians that would commit to playing in such an organization. Those types of limitations become apparent. Additionally, like a KJ's show or "Brand", it takes a long time to develop and maintain a viable follower base. Bottom line is they are really only a very specialized "Novelty" entertainment option.

But if you are near to somewhere that has a live Karaoke band in whatever form, you HAVE to go try it out....it is really a BLAST and an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE!

Go read my article in this issue of KaraokeScene Magazine online. (Pg 10, 11, 12).

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Let's a s s u m e, for this argument, that the Venue has a Performance License for LIVE PERFORMANCE, from all the leeches...ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me that EVERY singer in a BAND has to know all the lyrics to all the songs they sing in order to sing those songs? Bull. If a Band Member needs the Lyrics to refer to, then, they refer to the Lyrics.

Anyone EVER see a keyboard player with sheet music? GOD forbid there are Lyrics on those sheets.

Same with Singers. The SINGERS are invited up to the stage and become part of the BAND as the BAND plays the SINGERS requested music. And, as such, any SINGER "IN THE BAND" can refer to the Lyrics just as any other member.

So, it wouldn't MATTER if a person "Investigating" was the one Singing.

The problem is the "SING-A-LONG" Lyrics provided to the Audience. Oh wait. There are low-life LEECHES ready to pounce if the audience sees some Lyrics. Not withstanding the FACT that the AUDIENCE could look up the Lyrics on their PHONES...WHERE?...inside the "public" Private Club...OXY-MORON...and would, therefore, be committing the SAME audacious act that the Venue would be perpetrating if the Venue had displayed the Lyrics publicly in the first place (not synced Lyrics). I can hear it now..."Hey everyone look at my phone. I got the Lyrics RIGHT HERE for more than JUST ME TO SEE."

Oh wait, I was at Applebee's the other day and heard a song that I couldn't remember the Lyrics, as I hadn't "MEMORIZED" them...silly me!

So, I pulled out my Phone and looked up the Lyrics and showed my wife. Man! I sure am glad some "Investigator" wasn't there. I mean, LYRICS in front of GOD and everyone in a Public Venue. And, all they had was a JUKE BOX license. I'm glad no one heard us "SING-A-LONG" We didn't have "Performance Rights" at the time. Maybe could have caused Applebee's to get fined.

But, I digress. "Back to the lecture at hand." What you have with a BAND is an audience doing a HUM-A-LONG. But, then again, I like Hummers.

I've done the Live Band Karaoke thing few times. For the most part; I liked it more than I hated it. The band had the bass player scrolling the lyrics while you sing. They didn't always have the correct lyrics or they didn't have the lyrics to the chorus every time you had to sing those lyrics. The Bass player would try to scroll backwards to find the lyrics to the chorus which was ridiculous when they could have just copied and pasted them to the document so he could continue scrolling down. When I brought this problem up to the lead guitar player; he just said that people not seeing the lyrics on time was made it fun for the band. I no longer go there. I go out to have a good time. I don't go out to be the butt of someone else's joke. It would be like the KJ turning of the TV screen in the middle of your song. BTW the band no longer has that gig and I can't imagine why.

They should be doing the singing from lyric sheets instead of an unreliable machine that cant keep time.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

What the hey?!? I just came home from a Live Band Karaoke show to see this strange old thread breaking out.

Just do it if you can. It's a whole ton of fun. But do it with a real band that's actually performing, not some fake-ass hybrid that's running a karaoke track and miming along -- that's just lame. You're better off doing regular karaoke than going along with junk like that.

Lyric sheet, your own memory, or a pdf on an i-pad (what my outfit uses) and have yourself a blast. It's not competition to regular karaoke, it's an entirely different animal, a whole different experience, and for any singer it's well worth trying out. And no legal issues if the venue is paying its PRO licenses, as they must anyway for any music -- ironically just had this discussion minutes ago with the band.

If it's not your cup of tea, that's alright too. But you oughta try it once to make sure you're not missing anything. You still have regular karaoke to sing at either way.

If the band is playing to a click track (and can follow it) then pre-swiped graphics will be fine. Look up the karaoke band Rockaraoke. This is exactly how they do it.

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With Karaoke From Hell, the musicians (bass, guitarists) play from charts on a computer screen. All vocals are done off lyric sheets on music stands.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Of course the beauty of singing with an actual band is the flexibility you don't have with regular karaoke. Singer comes in a measure late after the break, no problem. Singer comes in too early, rarely a problem. Singer loses his or her place, the band vamps until you find yourself.

Of course all that goes out the window if the band has to follow a track or the scrolling graphics from a cdg file. Then if becomes the "worst" of both worlds.

My LBK band lost a nice residency to undercutters, even though it was a well-attended show. I spied out their first show. They were using mp3g files (most likely pirated from all the screen artefacts) and the drummer wore headphones to stay in synch with the track. A customer is doing Sweet Caroline and falls a line behind. The bass player yells angrily, over the mic, at the customer to "keep up!"

Really, I thought, this is what you replaced the good band with? Shaming customers during their songs? In what karaoke universe is that acceptable? Of course an actual live band would have had no problem with the singer falling a line behind on that song.

They got fired in only a couple weeks, and then the venue never had karaoke of any form again.

My buddy Pete brought in a 4 piece band when he had a "Closing Party" for his "Hot Rod" shop.

They sang from an iPad, and did a pretty good job.

In that state of affairs there may be no KJ, no use for one, however relatively there's a massive percent of karaoke singers who can't sing with out the phrases on a display, even supposing it's a song they have got sung loads of times, (if you don't accept as true with it, put off the phrases from the screen at your next display and watch the panic) so not sure how this will work without swipes in time to the tune

1st post! Well ok, if the singer knows what they are getting into then they know they might be reading from a lyric sheet or worse - with nothing. I've done 'blind' karaoke contests in the past where the only one that could see the words were me and the judges.

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

Singing from a song sheet is just like singing from a hymn book in church.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

It's just old school karaoke. This IS how it all started. Words on the screen didn't come to fruition until late 80's (at least for English karaoke) with Pioneer (laser) and DK (cdg) being the 'pioneers' in their perspective formats.

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

Well lets go back to the basics! Let's set up the tent and have a KARAOKE REVIVAL!!

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Well if there is a song you really want to sing but it's only on an instrumental, then you wouldn't sing it if you could just read the lyrics on your phone? I know many that do just that.

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

When will it all END??????? HA!!

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Not sure what you are asking here.
The ones that sing the instrumentals pretty much know the song will be exclusive to them too since not all are willing to do it old school.

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

Electronic gadgetry invading eveything and anything......thats what I meant.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT