Karaoke Forums

I am investing some money in a new karaoke hosting program and I was wondering what would be the best program to use and economical too.


thanks t

1) What do you currently use
2) Will you DJ also with this program?
3) Do you need some sort of ROTATION Mgt or LIST  or singer QUE?
4) Do you already have your library in a digiital format MP3+G? etc

There is no best, just what fits your needs.  My needs are completely met with MTU Hoster.

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

Exactly -----What are you NEEDS ?

My needs are simple.  
Great sound, smaller files - preferred the kma sound over mp3 after careful comparisons - there is a difference and the kma's aren't even locked anymore, you can batch convert them into mp3gs if one wanted (not an issue for me).  
Wanted simple/easy search criterias, can search by title/artist/disc number (main ones I need) but can also sort by manu/genre/duet/multiplex/a couple others that I don't use - no going through the Windows explorer to drop/drag.  
The ability to move songs up/down within a current playlist or delete a song easily.
A good key changer - also have the ability to add songs with the key change selected upon add in so a host doesn't forget when the song starts  :shock: (oops).  
Being able to skip a song if I were running in auto mode (although I don't see the need for auto play).
Basically a simple player to replace my players - didn't need any fancy add ons like the cheesy sound effects, visuals or rotation programs.  It has the option to display the next singers & songs on screen, but I do not use it.  
Didn't need filler music capability as I have my dj computer set up for that.

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

Lonnie
My questions was directed to DR Fred - In order to make suggestions
he should list HIS needs.

Actually I didnt ask the question (with regards to the above statement by Jamkaraoke).

My needs appear to be met by compuhost.
But I am reading as much as possible on the subject.
My needs are:

I currently have about 4500 songs I ripped as wav + cdg from bought cds.

I decided to go with .wav +cdg vs mp3 because harddrive space is cheap and .wav is "lossless" non compressed sound, where you are getting whatever info you had on the CD (soundwise). Sure I could have gone with MP3, and then I would have to worry about bitrates (192?) but even then there is some "loss" even if undetectable. With a .wav file I knew I would have no "regrets" about my sound quality from this step after spending the 100+ hours ripping all of the CDs (only 60 out of about 350 left to go, for now).

As for other features I want:
1. Easy song/artist searching especially from fragmentary, mispelled etc artist/song titles. Compuhost seems to get this done well.

2. Keep track of rotation (and record the playlist).

3. Run some non Karaoke songs from a separate playlist as a filler/dance break (without switching programs).

4. Key changes, tempo changes (probably wont use too often but good to have).

5. Two screen mode, (with the lyrics on the management scren as well). Will be running 2 monitors with lyrics in addition to my laptop which will be for me to see the lyrics and manage the show.

Any other "needs" that I may encounter later, I just have not really considered yet.

I am sure I have forgotten some details, but I am attempting to start up my show with as good a setup as possible. Often the ease of use of the program is one less worry allowing me to pay attention more to the sound quality etc. A difficult interface will get old fast.

I already have del MP3 karaoke and siglos karaoke player. It seems that siglos karaoke does an ok job, but as my file list grows finding the songs is getting difficult.

I figured out how to make microsoft excel hyperlink all of my songs from an excel file to play into siglos karaoke, but it seems that compuhost will do this a bit more seamlessly and the control of the music seems a bit better (equilizer, key change, tempo etc) with compuhost.

I have played around with the demo of compuhost, and I am about to buy it.

As for economical, that is not my major concern. I have dumped so many thousands of dollars into buying my songs that the 50 or 100 dollar difference in the price of one software to another is minor. If it helps me put on a better show, it is worth it far more than another 40 or 50 songs in my songbook.

I will kj with the software, so I need a rotation , list que also, maybe some graphics, something simple to use, I already have 8,000 mp3+g.zip loaded on an external drive. So what do I use, I tried sax and dottys. But I was wondering if there are any more versitile options out there and what are some of the ones you guys are using.

thanks t

I am using JustKaraoke which reminds me of an upgraded version of sax And dotty's.  I like it as you load the songs under names and the names are set in a rotation for you in a first come first served format and you don't have to retype the name everytime they bring in a request.

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

man, I couldn't afford the hard drives nor the pc to run totally non-compression! ! I've got over 17,000 tracks!

Actually I think Dr. Fred is riding the .wav of the future (ooohhhh that was bad.)  Even your 17,000 songs could be stored on a hard drive of just over a terabyte if I got all my zeros in the right place.  How far away are affordable drives of that size?

_________________
Okay, who took my pants?

I am running at about 45 gb per 1,000 songs.

Hard drives have fallen in price recently a 1000 GB external drive is now reasonable.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 7112455081

For example here is one external drive of 1TB that is now 299.99 at best buy. Sure it is not "free" but for that much capacity it is really cheap.

One advantage of .wav files is that you can actually get away with a SLOWER computer as you dont have to spend processor time converting MP3s or Unzipping.

Just a year ago that same drive probably would have been 2-3 times as expensive. I figure by the time I get up to 17 k songs, the cost of the drive should have fallen another $100. With legally bought songs I dont see how you can average much better than $.50 a song and probably a lot worse, so the drive cost is minimal compared to your other investment.

Ripping that many songs again. Well a major major pain.

Your 17,000 songs should run about 700-800 gb if they were .wav +.cdg files. Probably too much for a 750 but with a 1TB you have room for another 4-5k songs.

Another way to look at it 17,000 songs is about 1200 cds.

That translates to 10 binders of 128 cds.

At
27.99 per cd binder, the cost of data stoarage  by exernal hard drive is about the same as CD binders.
(and a whole lot easier on the back when carying them).

It is hard not to go to hard-drives. They end up costing about the same!!!

(a 1TB hard drive can handle about 13 binders worth! or about 21,000 songs as .wav+.cdg )

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 0290206271

sure, that would about cover it... course that doesn't account for my videos, my mix mp3s, etc.

Dr Fred - I apologize - I must've had one subject on my mind while posting another