Karaoke Forums

Glad that you like what you like, but MY show is based on CUSTOMER popularity, not my personal opinion. Therefore, the CUSTOMERS decide what is popular- hence, the " go to" brand- not me. YOUR and MY opinions are strictly YOURS and MINE- get it? In other words, allow me to introduce to you a novel concept: The CUSTOMERS choose, make, and break- the most POPULAR versions.

Of course, this is the way a customer oriented- customer directed karaoke host does business.

YOUR mileage may vary.....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Seems like I remember a retiring host that had a thread some time back "The Emperor Has No Clothers?" and he was told he was ignorant and didn't have a clue about anything. Seems like after time passes what was once considered ignorant and uninformed becomes more acceptable by the masses. It is comforting to know that given time people will look at the facts and revise their opinions on some matters.

So Joe, do you buy every single brand of a song when it comes out and let your customers choose which one to sing or do you make a decision as to which one you are going to buy based on your own criteria?

Personally I go for obscure songs that are seldom heard on karaoke. Sound Choice have made an impressive number of them, and in my opinion are the best quality for many more well known songs. So a karaoke gig without Sound choice would be a big deal to me. My argument is if you have it already, why ditch it?

This is definitely interesting. I've bit my tongue here, but I do feel that I have to express myself at this point.

Three years ago, Chip and I made a thoughtful decision to drop our Sound Choice discs from our library. We did so because we felt completely rooked. We had invested thousands of dollars in Sound Choice over many years, only to be told that there was not only a distinct possibility that we would be sued for using their product (either in a digital format or "mistakenly" in a disc format), but our venues would also be in danger, as well. To top it all off, anyone who had stolen their library off of the net or other sources would be rewarded by being given a huge discount over the price we had paid for our discs.

We made very strong statements to this effect and were vilified by a great deal of the KJ community on this forum. We had been accused of maligning a company many of you felt were trying to reduce piracy (I do recall your name coming up on more than a few occasions, Chris), and even been accused by many of you of never having purchased our product in the first place. I do have to say that I'm glad that there are more of you that are truly understanding what is going on here -- that Sound Choice's business model was never to help you. It was simply to gain a larger customer base by suing pirates into becoming customers, and giving them the libraries that most of you had made a huge investment in, at a deep, deep discount, thus making them far more competitive than you could possibly be, due to your much higher overhead. I just wish we hadn't been bullied because of our stance. I'm glad, Chris, that this is not happening to you. I read above that you were concerned about getting some of the same treatment we did, when you posed your dilemma. After watching it happen to us, I can understand your concern.

Chris, if you are standing on principles, then do so. Don't sell any more discs to pirates to help make them legal (because that's no better than what SC is doing) and take a stand against Sound Choice and drop their product. Principles don't work on a sliding scale.

In my book, playing any SC tracks at all show support for the company who is just as much responsible for destroying this business as the pirates, themselves.

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Birdofsong

Very well written, Julie.

I just wanted to chime in with one comment: Selling SC disks to a pirate (if one is dropping SC) is not necessarily all that bad. If someone is willing to pay for the disks, my opinion is sell them. To me, that means that 1) SC won't add more material to the market at bargain basement prices, and 2) you won't end up competing against a KJ with the Gem series.

The Gem may be worthless for music from the last 5 years, but it really is a high quality product in terms of reliability, sound quality, and the shear number of most requested songs.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

There's a lot of perspectives on this, but really the only universal one seems to be that if you don't use what you legitimately paid for, you are only martyring yourself. Nothing except your own peace of mind will come from this. Principle or not, you are just crippling yourself.

I don't have a strong feeling for or against Sound Choice ... To be real particular, my previous experience as a part time KJ was back with the days of Pioneer Laserdiscs, and there was zero piracy of that media. Just a lot of heavy lifting

I moved on to other musical endeavors while CD+G media was just becoming popular, and missed the whole computerized explosion. So all of these legal issues and wrangling with SC are foreign to me as I never experienced them first hand. The only experiences I had with Sound Choice were at shows I would attend and the various CD+G spotlights or Star Series I would purchase for myself.

But now that I have been dragged back into the karaoke market, I had no issues seeking out packages like the GEM series to provide a solid base on which to build a legitimate collection upon.

It's probably not untrue that Sound Choice does have a great collection for lease (not for sale I guess) and the quality is hard to beat. That being said, what does it matter who they lease it to if you already spent your money on 10,000+ Sound Choice songs before the GEM series was developed? Use what you paid for. At least your discs won't be charging you additional fees down the road.

If I were to pull Sound Choice, I would have no intention of just keeping the discs in my basement. I would toss them up on eBay and make a pretty penny from them. More than enough to buy up music from other vendors to fill in the collection.

-Chris

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-Chris

Don't get your panties in a wad Joe.

I was simply saying that your blanket statement that the entire "TRI-STATE AREA" knows and asks for brands by name is false. Your club, sure. Everyone in all three states? No way. I work here too ya know and can count on one hand how many patrons of the tri-state area have asked for a particular brand. Therefor, I pick the version that sounds the best...hence SC.

I get that, Chris, and we did sell a bunch when we stopped running multiple (LEGAL) systems, but nobody has ever accused you of never owning the product, as they have us. We have to protect ourselves by at least keeping a couple of original sets in order to make sure we are covered.

It sucks to have to think like this, but we have felt threatened, and we need to make sure we are safe.

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Birdofsong

We have almost 400 SC discs along with over 1,600 discs of other manufacturers. To pull them would be idiotic.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

You really hope and hope that the manus will protect their product but I am wondering when.
The pirates are laughing--the bars are convinced nothing will happen
Ex Chartbuster salespeople still havent run out of disks to sell on E-bay for a buck a piece
You sometimes wonder if the whole thing is a scam and Im the fool for buying product instead of stealing it.

First, I wish to apologize for the snotty tone of my reply. His post was simply about an opinion and experience, and didn't deserve it. I blame a rough night, but don't use it as an excuse. Again, my apologies to Bazza.

Leaopard, while I don't go out of my way to buy every single brand of every single track, I DO try to find customer favorites. Also, after doing this for decades, I have simply accumulated several different versions of many popular songs. I do not delete them from my book, which lists the mfrs. disc/track numbers. This way customers who practice at home might find their version, if they don't bring their own discs.

I would add the following:

Though I get many requests for many versions ( Usually as listed by genre in other threads), it seems that the rare SC request ( almost ALWAYS given when I ask if they have a preference- possibly in order to sound knowledgeable) is usually phrased something like "the Sound something brand" or "Something Choice"- indicating to me that they are going by a name they may have heard, rather than personal preference.

Again, I have no issues with the quality of their product, which is generally very good. I am speaking the most POPULAR brands per my CUSTOMERS.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I did not want to derail this thread, as it is one of the better ones that I have seen lately, including civility.

Again, my apologies for the snotty tone of my reply- it wasn't deserved.

However my statements are NOT false, any more than yours are. We have simply experienced different types of customers, possibly due to different types of shows.

I have never had a night that I can remember that DIDN'T have at least a few brand requests. I also get singers who like to bring in their own discs, whether I have the same or not.

Does this happen to you?

I suspect that being both a disc based show ( and happy to play customer discs) as well as listing the mfr. numbers ( as well as all the versions that I might have) might be why I have different experiences than you.

I say MIGHT be the reason. I don't know your policy regarding customer use of their own discs ( whether you allow it happily, whether you try to pursuade them to use your version instead- then possibly allow it, or don't allow it at all.) nor whether you list mfr. numbers in your books- or if you still even use books for that matter.

If you don't list, then singers who want familiar versions will either ask to use their own discs, or go to a show that lists them- leaving you rarely hearing those requests?

I also don't know how big an area you have covered.

I certainly admit to only the tiniest sampling of CT. However, through the decades I've had a nice sampling of upstate NY ( I stay away from NYC, but have disc based friends there that share my experiences. Can't speak for PC based shows there.), and pretty much most of NJ- though I now limit myself to a 45 - for bar venues, not events-min max drive and pretty much hang out within a 1/2 hour.

It doesn't count as far as the Tri-State goes, but would toss in 2-3 years of shows in NH and VT just for the heck of it...

On the other hand, newbies, or folks who don't know about the different versions, or Uber-singers who can work with whatever comes out of the speakers-don't care, may not be looking for my type of show in particular, as they don't need to know what version or use their own discs.

In other words, our samplings/experiences could be self- eliminating by the type of shows we do.

Either way, I stand by the statement that I do not create the most popular brands, my customers do.

Of course, if there are a lot of requests for a particular song, but no mfr. preferences given, I DO go by mfr. track record with that particular genre- STILL not by my personal preference for that song.. If it satisfies, it stays. If not.....

Back to the OP, and original subject, the replies I am reading leaving me a bit surprised, yet content to read....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

You don't need to pull your SC tim you are up in Canada where SC can't touch you remember?

UPDATE: It has been a mixed bag of PM responses on my Facebook post. Mostly from semi-regulars and KJ's in the area that are familiar with Sound Choice activities. Most of these people think I should keep Sound Choice. They are experienced folks with brand awareness.

Some of the folks are indifferent. They are also mostly experienced folks, but also new KJ's that never had the large investment in Sound Choice in the first place.

A very small number of folks (2) are passionately supportive of my pulling Sound Choice. The interesting aspect of this is that one of those people saw two of their favorite pirate hosts go away after the lawsuits a couple years back. I can't help but smile at the irony of hating Sound Choice because a pirate host folded. The other one is more pragmatic about things and shares a very similar view to all of this that I have.

I believe I could suffer a short term hit by removing Sound Choice and acclimating singers to different versions of their songs, but I don't feel it is worth the trouble. Besides, it would be hypocritical of me to pull Sound Choice at my show then (@$%&#!) when I go to another karaoke show and they don't have the Sound Choice songs I want to sing.

So for now....Sound Choice stays.

-Chris

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-Chris

I have an above average number of SC discs (around 900+) with some duplicate SC discs, and around 54,000 total tracks. I do not like SC's tactics, but I would never stop using SC. As has been pointed out, they have many songs that are not available from any other manu. Since the bulk of my customers are over 50 new music is almost unnecessary for my shows, making new music is of zero importance to me.

When younger singers come to my shows they still find plenty to sing. Many on this forum have mentioned that the newer to new music is not worth singing or listening to anyway.

If I can figure out how to get rid of pirates and stop lawsuits at the same time I'll share it with you. Till then I'll use my legal library including SC.

to answer the original post, if chris wants to get rid of his soundchoice discs, I would happily buy them with absolutely no reservations, IF i had the money

-james