Karaoke Forums

As a DJ, I receive the huge majority of my music through PRIME CUTS, a monthly subscription that gives me over 200 songs of all types, every month for about $52. I have been a subscriber since early 2008 and have never even considered cancellation because I get everything I need from them and good quality, already in MP3 format.

There is certainly more piracy in standard music than in karaoke, I think, so why is karaoke so expensive, in comparison. I remember a couple of years ago helping my KJ partner rip all his karaoke cds to cdg+mp3 and sorry, but most of his stuff was Sound Choice. I was surprised how many of his discs only had 1 or 2 songs that were popular and that many of the discs had duplicate songs that were on several other discs. Not saying Sound Choice is the villain here in this but to prompt conversation about options.

Why can't karaoke tracks be distributed like pro mp3 content? Maybe pirating would be less prevalent if that happened. Who wouldn't pay $50-60 a month to get 100 tracks?

It's mainly because karaoke is an audio-visual product, and as a result the licensing costs more.

If it's just audio, US artists are forced to accept a compulsory maximum rate instead of being allowed to negotiate fees based on the popularity of their work, or even to say "No, you can't use my stuff for that."

Fortunately, sync licensing must be negotiated for any type of audio-visual usage.

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Dave's not here.

I disagree with Moonrider's assessment of the legalities but this is not the right place to discuss that. There is a far smaller market for karaoke tracks. In karaoke the same 200 songs get sung over and over again at each venue. There's really no need for that many songs so I think the provider would go under in a hurry.

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Okay, who took my pants?

I think what need to be asked....
( instead of why it cost so much, or why karaoke manufactures are suing or why are't GOOD songs (rock) being made into CDGs)

The question is WHY AREN'T record companies releasing karaoke track along side the real albums?????

Wouldn't that be a REAL easy revenue stream?
They already have the music, just mute the vocals.
Hire some monkey to sync up the lyrics video.
release the CDG, and make MORE money, or bundle the CDG track in with the album.

(brain fart)....Can't think of her name, but isn't this being done with one country artist already?

just a though

Taylor Swift who likes karaoke as long as it's legit and started her singing in karaoke clubs. I think that's a great idea btw.

But some do, Artist Karaoke Series (Queen) and Walt-Disney uses the original artist track and just remove the lead track
Commercial music are mixed in mulitracks so why not use the original track and just remove the lead singer track

There's a french local artist here that sold its own DVD Karaoke, he used a live performance where you have a track with the vocal (him singing) and one with out him

Gotta agree with you there! It's all of 5 seconds work to mute the main vocal track(s) and print a "backing track" version of the audio. If you're the original artist or songwriter, you can always grant yourself a free sync license for the graphics.

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Dave's not here.

In regard to options in this case: If your friend was using SC's Spotlight Series discs ( the 8*** numbered discs) or GEMS ( re-worked Spotlights) the 2 or 3 popular songs per disc ( or 4-6 for GEMS due to more songs per disc) scenario would be generally accurate. While I don't have a large amount of SC discs, the ones I have bought are mostly their Star and Power Pick series. These are usually about 30% cheaper because they only have about half the total tracks as Spotlights. However, they have more total useable and popular tracks, making them better buys. For instance, the Star series discs are all one artist, and all hits. The Power Picks are all popular hits from different artists.

Other companies put out similar series as well.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Thanks for your input Joe on this subject, good information for me to have.