Karaoke Forums

I though I'd go to a karaoke night at a place I've not been to for a while as I'd heard the place had been done up and they had re-started the karaoke. I got there early, ooooo posh, got myself a beer and settled in at the bar. 8.30pm start time the dj started to fire his stuff up....but disaster......it wouldn't work. He seemed to thing his amp was dead. The owner offered his to use.....thing is, it was different to the dj's and he struggled to get it working. People were starting to arrive, cables were swapped over, speakers switched on and off...then life, well sort of. Really poor sound came from the speakers, crackly and horrible, well only one speaker actually, the other one was, not dead but very quiet. I gave up waiting after an hour, as I'd had a call from a mate who was elsewhere and it was a much better offer so off I went.
Have you ever been in this situation? Surely he should have switched things on earlier to check? I do!

I always arrived an hour or so ahead of time to check things out. The bar was a block or so from my house so I would have added some additional time if I had further to go if I needed anything.

Well, since it is rare for me to do a show (private or public), I would be S.O.O.L. if that had happened to me. I usually show up at least 1 hour before the time that I am hired to start. Although I do have spare equipment at home (a 2nd Amp/Mixer and a 2nd CDG Player), I can not fit all of that extra equipment in my car, and I would not be able to travel back home to retrieve anything and get back within a timely manner. The duplicate set of equipment is to have for future use, just in case the original equipment breaks down and will be out of commission while being brought to a Service Center for repairs.

This sounds more like a problem with the KJ's ability to troubleshoot than anything. An amp isn't going to break while it's off. It would typically have broken or at least started to show signs of going last time he used it. Then, if he understood the specs of amps and how to properly match them and hook them up, he shouldn't have had problems with the other amp, and if he did, he would have known that prior to hooking them up.

Having a backup is always advised, but most problems can be solved on the fly by knowing exactly how to use and troubleshoot the equipment you are working with. If both amps didn't work, he probably didn't have an issue with the amp in the first place, and this guy just didn't know his equipment.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

In his case it was an AMP that was the issue. In most cases it's mostly Karaoke Computers/Software issues that normally arise. In my experience over the years, I try to use a variety of gear including having a Powered Stage Monitor (in case the system does fail, I can direct main output to just the monitor and use it as the Main) Also as far as Computers/hardware/software, Always have a second "Karaoke Software of choice" ready to use in case of software failure along with a spare laptop/iPad.

That happened with our band PA once. And everything went fine at sound check. When we went in later to fire everything up, 1 of the amps was dead. We had no forewarning as it all checked out earlier. Luckily it was a tri-amped system so we had to do some jury rigging to get everything working with the other two amps, but we limped on the night!

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Backup is a basic necessary element in karaoke show. I use powered speakers & powered monitor. One goes out, 2 more to spare. Two laptops, one for show, the other my filler music playing at all times volume controlled by mix slider but my laptop 2 karaoke hosting program is also open & on the line for quick swap. There were times when my main laptop will freeze-up; I’ll just a/b switch to laptop 2 & the show goes on without skipping a beat.

I know, it was discussed here before – that you can bring your backup laptop pc & should be in the back seat/trunk of your car for emergency use only. Sorry, I can’t have 20 minutes of dead air looking unprofessional.

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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!