Karaoke Forums

It occurred to me the other night, watching a pretty awful solo act with backing tracks, that you could probably get away with using quality karaoke tracks, reading the lyrics off a personal monitor or laptop, and maybe even add some cred by playing an instrument (i play a bit of guitar).

while I don't intend giving up my weekly karaoke gig, i wonder if anyone has had any experience "moonlighting" as a solo artist using their karaoke gear, and if so if they have a brand prefence in the music?

matt

aussieboyinscotland, here's my story.

A long, long time ago when kids were still seen and never heard, I started playing in a 3 piece school band. Two guitars and a drummer. The sound was horrible but we were the only local act, so by default the hottest band in town!

I started growing up and not too late, I joined a real band, being the guitarist and occasional vocalist (depending on the song). Playing 3 nights a week, and sharing the little money we received, I decided it's not for me. You know, the drummer is always late for practice, the bassist is fooling around with the keyboard players wife, blah, blah, blah...............(the normal band stuff)

One night, after a hard night's gig, I dropped in at the local watering hole, to where I found this one man band playing and entertaining the people. Way cool I though! He makes the same money a band makes, takes less space and doesn't cost the owner as much in free food and drinks! I can do that.

I started with my guitar and a Roland drum machine, upgraded with midi bass pedals, and one day ran across some karaoke disks That was an eye opener!!!!!!!

I traded in my midi bass pedals, midi files and songbooks, bought a laptop and started with Karaoke tracks. Now I was really the hottest act in my one horse town. Very good backing, playing my dear old '69 Stratocaster or Ovation, mediocre voice, it all worked out fantastic!!!!

Moral of this boring story, YOU CAN'T GO WRONG!!!!!!!!!



Beggars can't be choosers, aussieboyinscotland. Nobody in the USA supplies CDG's with Smokie or Cliff Richard to name a few European populars, so SunFly and Zoom are in my eyes the only disks for European type music.

That's pretty much what I do (although I don't work solo anymore - I work duo - much more fun )

We use some karaoke tracks, and some professionally made backing tracks, all on laptop.

As for which company's tracks to use... you can't say any one in particular, cos sometimes one company will put out a better version than another, and other times vise versa.

Gotta agree with Allstar tho... zoom do some fantastic tracks, sunfly are pretty good for the britpop kind of stuff, but you can't say that as a sweeping statement, cos you'll sometimes get a great track from another company... you really have to check out whats about.

Hi Matt,

Go for it.

I know many many Karaoke Hosts who also have solo/duo singing as part of their business activities.

<With my STTW hat on> we have as many (if not more) gigging singers buy and use our tracks as we have Karaoke hosts.

One thing you might want to consider is whether you want tracks with a "definite stop" or with a "fade out". This issue has cropped up (and was argued at length) in our own forum with the majority of gigging singers seeming to favour the "definite stop" tracks.

Personally (I karaoke co-host and also gig as a solo/duo singer), I don't really have a problem with either track style but as gigging singers raised it, I just thought I'd mention it. I understand many other gigging singers find it easier to move between songs at a gig if there is a definite stop on the tracks.

Anyway, good luck with it, if you decide to go ahead.

Lisa