Karaoke Forums

This may be good for some laughs or for a new KJ to learn with.

My first ever Karaoke show was held at a restaurant where they were holding a contest for best singer.  Pretty substantial grand prize of a weekend in a hotel and they covered food costs too.  Well I took the show too early and my lights I had recently purchased didn't make it in.  2 Par 36 lights is not an impressive lighting system .  Luckily the amp came in so at least I had my CD+G player, cheap mixer, a graphic EQ and of course the amp, plus a couple of cheap wireless mics (but no stands.)  I had managed to get my karaoke book at the time to 75 pages (I still think this is a good acheivement considering the cost of CD+Gs) so we had an OK song selection.  I can say we received many complements about being the only KJs in town that had a fair rotation (wow it was my first show too) and the fact that I didn't try to show off, I let the singers have the stage and only did one song myself and my wife did one song that night.  Now for the REALLY bad parts.

1.  Being my first show I was going in with NO experience.  I didn't know you really don't want to judge a karaoke contest by crowd reaction.  Needless to say a girl that didn't have the voice (it was OK but she didn't hit high notes she screamed) brought in her own cheering section and easily got the contest.  I actually saw these people shushing other people when we got it down to the final three for the crowd to applaud!

2.  We DID have one guy walk off and out, saying that our version of New York New York didn't "sound" right.  I don't remember the company that made the CD+G now, but really he was right, it was slightly out of key on the karaoke track.  Since than I only get Sound Choice, Sunfly, or Chartbusters.

3.  We had one poor guy stumble half way through a song than give up.  Felt sorry for the guy.  Truly, if I ever hear Paradise By The Dashboard lights mumbled through again I may crack up!

4.  I agreed to do this show for a cost of $100.  Really good price, but I thought it was fair since I had a good amount of equipment but I was inexperienced.  Too bad I never got paid.  According to the restaurant they only brought in an extra $400 that night.  I told that's not what matters, we still agreed I get paid $100 and you still are getting off with $300 profit.  That's when the owner says "No Contract was made or signed, you have no proof, so you don't get paid."  That's when I learned real quick for one time shows a contract is a MUST, and that many business owners are really nasty people.

Thankfully after my first show I got MUCH better equipment over the years, still building the book, and have a huge light show that puts those two poor par 36 to shame (but I still have those two lights on my rack!)

My worst show was New Years Eve 2004.  Absolutely horrible.  I wore a tux, was the master of ceremonies for the club, which had done a lot of advertising for the festivies that evening.  First problem was the karaoke system had been tampered with by the owners kids.  Mixer played with, stuff unplugged.  It took almost an hour to get things set back up to right, thankfully I came in early.  Then the fuse for the light controller blew - when I went to pull the fuse and replace it, the housing cracked, taking with it anyway to get a fuse to stay put to allow the controller to run.  No lights for the night.  Then I had a horrible ground loop coming off of my lap top that I had never had before.  At this point I started to wonder if a meteor was going to land on me.

Then the final insult so to speak, but I was thankful in a way - the place was DEAD.  D E A D dead.  The liquor control board was in the club I found out after the fact for the night so I didn't even get a shift drink.  New Years Eve and I didn't even have a glass of cheap house champagne - and because I was working, technically spent it alone.

Man, it was just horrible - the only gig that comes even close was an event that I DJ'ed almost 20 years ago and my amp died about five minutes into the gig.  Private sweet sixteen birthday party - I was horrified.

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Despite the internet rumor, Karaoke is not Japanese for "drunk buffoon with microphone."  However, "rotation," is Japanese for wait your damn turn!

When we first started we were running a weekly show at a local bar. It was the fourth show and came in taking 1 hour to setup. Right at start time went over to bartender and asked her to turn the jukebox off. She tell me they just put 5 dollors in and wanted to let it play. I said fine I get paid the same. She turned it off and off to start the show I went. Made the anouncement that we were starting and go ahead and bring your slips up. Sang my first song, no one come yet. I anounce again to birng up slips and offer the first one to sing a beer. Sing my second song, still no one so I continue singing songs for the first hour. Still no one so I go up to the bartender and tell her I'm going to bag it. She says no there will be some coming in latter to sing. I tell her  to go ahead and start the jukebox so I can take a break for a few.

Next thing I see is the owners wife comes up to me and tell me that the show isn't doing that great and she thinks I should just pack it up. I tell her fine and that I don't think this bar is a karaoke bar and that I will take my equip and go. After packing up the owners wife payed me my 1 hours pay. woooooooooo... 1 hour set up, 1 hour play and 1/2 hr tear down = 1 hour right....

Took my pay and went down to the other bar we were doing karaoke at and told her that if she still wanted me on wednesday nights that I open. Have been running the show at that bar twice a week since.

I had done 3-4 shows in a hotel bar with some basic equipment but only had 3-4 singers at each of them.  The next show I did was at a different bar and we had a softball tournament end around the corner from the bar.  We had 4 teams, the buses of people coming in from the employee housing, and a number of other people show up all at once.  I had bought what I thought was a good mixer - but found out that night the Soundcraft Compact 10 mixer is good for recording, but not so good for live music.  No effects, my Fender PD-250 set up as monitors, and was driving the Peavey G2's that belonged to the club off the unbalanced stereo outputs connected up to an adapter to the balanced inputs.

My RSQ 333 didn't come in so I had picked up a Memorex boom box unit earlier that day.  I had a small song selection - Foundations 1/2, SGB 1-66, 15 vcd's, and about a dozen karaoke bay, singing machine, DVD's, etc.

Rotation went from 4-5 people to 30+ people in less than 15 minutes.  All in all the night went off without a hitch, but I still think that $150 for a 7-8 hour show seems pretty low - even with the low end equipment I had for that show.

The owner was happy with the show - I was able to keep the place packed until almost 5am and I shutdown about 5:30am.

It was the show that made me decide to make this a business more formally.  It was a crazy night and very little went wrong but it was my baptism by fire.  It did take me about 30 minutes to figure out how to get my mixer hooked up to the Peavey's but fortunantly I had checked and picked up a pair of balanced<->unbalanced adapaters from Radio Shack and the M-M 3 pin balanced gender benders to make it all work.  Moved to TRS cables later, but that night was tricky....

Since then every show has been MUCH easier...