Karaoke Forums

I've been talking about it since I got here; updating my karaoke program; and getting that done has been a huge focus the past month or two. I settled in on the most efficient engine that I tested, and I tested many solutions. This engine doesn't just handle the graphic conversions to the screen but it also handles the audio and the reproduction capabilities have really raised my eye brows. I had purchased a one time personal use license when I first started rebuilding and now the developer has made even more enhancements. Usually, you have to choose between low or no audio processing or system resources. The more you process the audio yourself, the more memory and CPU are required. This engine gives me both. So, the question at hand is do I purchase another one time personal use license or do I buy a commercial license that includes two years of updates. The developer is offering me a deal where I can buy the commercial license at a price minus the personal use price but its still quite pricey. He has also promised to attempt to include the possibility of playing a CDG disk from the same engine.

Of course I initially planned on just using this for myself but I am now CONSIDERING selling a few seats to a few select people to help cover the commercial license costs. So what I would like to get is feedback on what features are most important AFTER the basics. The basics being, it needs to be able to search songs, track singer's personal playlists, track a nightly rotation, and queue songs for singers on that nightly rotation. That stuff is already there.
Some added features already included:
Audio enhancer programmable per song. It can take those "washed out" sounding tracks and really open them up. You can set this per song. Have a Zoom song that jups out on it's own? Turn off the enhancer for that song. Have a someone else's song that needs a little, bump it up a tad. Have a song you always struggle to get it sounding up to par, bump it up further.
Volume level tracking per song. Set the volume up and down per song and the program remembers it. I am thinking of adding this tracking per singer and song. In that case, a singer that sings louder or softer could have their own setting for the song.
Dual graphics windows that can be turned on or off as needed. One graphic window features a control panel for finite audio settings. The other "TV" window features a singer list. I have it set to three ahead now. Practicing at home? Turn off the TV window. Don't need the control panel while at shows? Turn it off and use the control panel window to practice to. Say you have the control panel window off at the show but a singer wants you to help back them up? Turn on the control panel window in two clicks. I could even make it one click if it helped.
Always on top settings for each of the windows. You can set your main screen
Next singer tracker. Adding singers and adding songs to other singers with distractions can lead to having to search for the next singer in the list. The next singer is always highlighted in green with the on deck singer highlighted in orange.
Add an external\USB track to the singer's queue for the night. I am working on this now. Say you have someone that brings in a USB stick with their own songs on it (I KNOW SOME DON'T ALLOW THIS so there is no reason to debate it here) or you buy and download songs while at the show. You can then add the track directly to the singers queue for the night ahead of time and it's in their list just like tracks already from the database. I plan to use this myself if I download tracks for someone during a party.

Things I am considering to add if I make this available but do not need myself.
A filler music\video list. Cut your filler music\video segments and the program will play them for you when a song ends or by selection. (I don't know what people would prefer). Create and sell ad videos or PowerPoints to be played between songs. The TV graphics screen then becomes a video ad board while you are waiting on a singer to get their butt moving.
Built in Songbook creation. This would be pretty canned. I'd probably offer a choice of two formats.
Exporting to Excel for third party book making. I don't need this at all as I used to build my own books from inside the DB.
Song management screen. As it is now, I manage my DB on the back end, this would not be possible at an end user level. This screen would allow you to add, delete and change and import the song\database information.
It's early and I know it would need more things.. Help me out with ideas..
Again, I don't know if I really want to go down this road and this isn't a "How much?" "Can I buy it?" "I don't want it" topic at this time.

More to come about a program description and beta program in the following post...

Basic description. This program was developed by me to replace my older program that used WinAmp as the Audio Graphics engine and Access as the data back end. That program was rock solid in XP on several various laptops and was used for many years in a karaoke bar environment by not only me, but several "non-geek" people who had very little computer experience. With XP's end of life being early 2014, it was time to revamp the program. Part of the base issue with the program was WinAmp itself, so a new audio graphics engine was installed. The program is now .NET compatible so, in most (maybe all) cases, a Win 7 or better PC that is up to date is all that is requited. The program is currently developed only for 64 bit operation, but i could change that if I needed to. Essentially, it would be much better to get on board the 64 bit train then to downscale the performance of the program. This version is still Access back-end based as I think it is much more efficient to leverage indexing for performance than to remove the back end all together as some have done. The reset has been leveraging what was rock solid before into a similar solution that is up to date.
Please note that this program is currently designed by me and for me and how I do parties today. I can promise you it is not rock solid today and that is the point of beta programs. My last "beta program" was to let other people help me at shows and note the things that would improve performance. This time, I am asking some of you if you will volunteer to help me out. Of course I will need to limit the functionality and I haven't decided on the best way as of yet. Ideas on that are welcome. I want "KJs" to be able to flow with it as they would at a show but in a limited fashion.
There is six key areas:
Of course the over all song selection list. This is searchable by artist, title and disc today via a radio button selection. I played with doing an over all search, but decided I would rather select one and type less.
Playlist area. This can be a manual playlist, or a playlist associated with a singer. This is where a singer's historical selections can be found. As you search, at the top, this area will also be looked at and information that matches the search box will be highlighted across all fields. Exact matches will be found and selected as the default record. Keep in mind this area does not have to just track historical singer information. I use it to do monthly lists of songs I want to work on.
Rotation Area. This is where singers are added and moved around. As meantioned in the previous post, there is a highlight feature to help you keep track of where you are in the rotation at a quick glance. If a singer isn't ready, move to the next singer and play. Slide the other singer down a spot (if that is how you roll) and they are highlighted. As a singer is selected, the Playlist area and queue area (next to come) are queried. Add a song to a Singer's que for the night and it is automatically added to their playlist (history) if it isn't already there. Made a mistake and added the wrong one, take it out of their history with one click.
Queue area. Add as many songs to the Singer's queue for that night as you want. The queue for that user is shown when the singer is selected. Easily skip to other songs in the queue if the singer decided to skip the top choice.
Player 1\Control Panel. This is a smaller graphics window that can be used to make sure the right song is played, used at home on a single screen, used to set audio enhancement functions like tempo, key changes, audio boost, alpha etc. There is a duration slider to easily move the song back to a starting point for a singer if they, "weren't ready" and you don't want to go all they way back to a total restart. This screen can be turned on or off and tagged to always be on top if needed.
Player 2 External view screen. Used to show the graphics to the singer, show next 3 singers, other possible future uses.

Another options I have is to toggle rotation mode. I had two programs before. One with rotation, one without. Now it's all built into one program. If home practicing, toggle rotation mode off and all the rotation areas and functions are by-passed.

I am not quite ready for beta testing but it's good to get these things out there a head of time. It's really really close. PM me or post here if you want to do me a huge favor and help me out. Opinions on functionality will be very much appreciated, but keep in mind that as of today, this is designed to suit my needs so don't take it personally if I do not apply them. I WILL keep an open mind to all opinions. I am really wanting to address bugs, and issues that forth and tenth eyes can help me find. Time frame is probably a week to two weeks out if I can get some alpha work done and figure out how to limit the program easily and safely.

So, are you looking for Beta testers that are provided with a Beta version to iron out bugs and get the product ready for a wide market, or Beta testers that help you financing the license and receive a full version including updates when it's done?

Happy to beta test.

-Chris

_________________
-Chris

My thoughts have never been toward a wide market.
Scenario one, I\we work the bugs out and I use it for me as I always intended. Remember, I wrote the last version which I guess was along the lines of a sax and dotty. I never even considered making that available to anyone. In this case, I would buy a new personal use license which, as I found out, does not include future upgrades.

Scenario two, I\we work out the bugs and I add features to import\export\manage song libraries and maybe add some other features that a public KJ might need (that I don't today). In this case, I figure I could manage the the commercial license if I sold eight seats at around $50 each. I might would open it up some if the support issues weren't too bad. I'm not looking to make money, really, just cover costs. The time I have in it is.. But it's a labor of love.
I don't even know if other's would even like it so part of this is getting feed back on how people like it in general..

Thanks much..


I have a question for all of you... I currently have all my K-trax in a single folder. I also name them with a serial number instead of some of the newer naming conventions. How is you karaoke tracks folder(s) laid out and could I rely on retrieving the tag information to fill in the database on an import? Or would I need to deal with folders for artists\albums then file names for titles? Or is it some of both?

I definitely would like to give it a shot, sounds very promising.

My folder structure is brand -> disk series -> disk -> files.
For example:
Sound Choice > SC81XX > SC8100, SC8101, SC8102, etc > Files from that disk

If I were going to import the folder to fill in the title, artist, genre, etc, could I get it from tag information? I would like for people to be able to click a button, select a top folder, and be able to fill in the database. If you have Windows 7, you can right click a mp3 and look at the details tab of the properties to see if the tag information is filled out.

I have all my ID3 tags filled out, but I guess you can't expect that from everyone.

That's what I am figuring.. Some may be by folders, I may have to parse file names to get the Artist and Title.. It's all possible, I just need to gather all the parameters..

I can even help out are fill in the tags after everything is set if people want..

Also, I would like feedback on how I should limit it for beta purposes.

Allow only one minute of song play?
Allow only 20 songs into the database?
Limit how long the program works?
Flash beta across the screen?
Limit features like volume tracking boost tracking?
Limit the number of singers in the rotation?

I want people to be able to go through it in a real show flow but I have to limit it do to licensing..

I'd recommend to do file parsing throughout the folder structure. That's pretty much what all the professional programs out there do.

Limitation for Beta versions... I would go with 1.5 minutes of Karaoke song play (Compuhost does it that way) and the big "Non licensed" over the screen. That way people can still play with the program to see if they like it and then purchase the full version. If you want you can limit the amount of performers. All not necessary to get a grip on the program and how it works to make a decision.

I'd happily pitch in with $50 if I like the program.

Another aspect to consider is a remote Kiosk that integrates with the program. I would dearly miss this feature from CompuHost.

I had a kiosk program with my last version so it is totally doable. I even had it built into the main program and all you had to do was launch with a /kiosk switch.

In the previous kiosk version, singers could add themselves and add songs to their queue for the night. At issue is the possibility of adding a song that someone else has added. So my thought was to change it up and make it more of an electronic slip that the KJ can then choose whether it goes in the singers queue or not. Make sense? Does it matter? And, no, I do not have the details worked out. Opinions appreciated.

Take a look at how Compuhost integrated it. That's pretty much perfect for my needs. I wish they would allow more personalisation on the front end though.

I'll try to check it out..

I just looked at Compuhost and, man, that's a busy screen. And you can't even search songs on the main screen? I am sure it works great if that is what you are used to. I'm gonna try to upload a screen shot of my main screen and the Player 1 screen. They are separate in my application.
Upper left section is main song search. Lower left section is Playlist\Singer History. As text is typed the main song area is queried. The history works as a find, meaning the songs in a singers history doesn't shrink, it simply highlights the first song matching the criteria. ALL fields are highlighted in the playlist\history area that match the search criteria.
The upper area on the right is the rotation. Notice the green and orange highlight. That means Chuck is the next singer. Once his song is played, the next singer is selected and is highlighted in green. The on deck singer is orange. The lower right section is the selected singers queue. Songs do not have to be played in order but the first song in the list is "tagged" if another song isn't selected.

Player 1 is for the KJ or home singer. It has all the controls on the main screen. Note that songs can be started, stopped,paused or volume adjusted from either the main window or the player window. You can also scroll back in a song if a singer didn't start on time and you don't want to start over. Note that you can store settings for each song if you like and set defaults in the options area. I am working in this area right now. If you do not have a compressor set for a song, it will go to the default. You can change on the fly and it will reset to the default on the next track, unless the song has it's own settings stored, then it will go to those settings.

I use the file names to determine how they get listed in my books as well as in my karaoke software. I have been using the somewhat standard format of - DiskID - Artist - Title

I DO NOT use ID3 Tags.

Here is how I have my directory structure setup -

I arrange first by manufacturer -



In the case of Sound Choice, Chartbuster, DK and others that have different series of discs, I will also do subs based on series -



Then I create subs for each disc and then of course the individual files -



-Chris

_________________
-Chris

Same. I'll give it a spin. I like the feature set.

My directory structure is identical to Chris. Folder by Manufacture, then ID-Artist-Title (zipped).

Chris, you manually create the folder structure then do an "import new" or the like? Anyone doing Mp4's? I haven't tested that yet. I'll also need to create a sub to handle zips... no biggy..
Again, if this goes forward I will be asking to add support for PLAYING CDGs I won't be ripping or making files.