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Help in witch software to upgrade to.
https://mail.karaokescene.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29871		 Page 1 of 4
Author:  Kirks Karaoke [ Wed May 28, 2014 10:05 am ]
Post subject:  Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I've been using Karaoki by PCDJ for two years and I know I'd like a lot more bells a whistles. I'd like to hear from those of you how use Karma and Compuhost on that you don't like about your chose. I don't what Karma users to dis Compuhost and via verse. Just real users please. I like both for different reasons, but I need to chose and stay with it.
Author:  mrmarog [ Wed May 28, 2014 11:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I purchased Karma on May 5, 2009. I had a few issues for the first 3 years, but Bob Latshaw kept trying until he finally got it perfect in January of 2012. I have been running flawlessly for about 29 months now. One of the greatest things about Karma is that all the most commonly used items, that you need all the time, are always visible. It has a very attractive modern appearance that can be changed to suit your needs in thousands of ways and colors.

Those that have purchased Karma are very happy because it does everything very easily and faithfully without ever needing to "reboot". I have zero interest in switching to any other software. I have AutoKDj (winamp based), Sax n Dotty (winamp based), and MTU Hoster. S-N-D is my least favorite, AutoKDj works well but has some things that are too rigid (rotation), and MTU requires too many open screens and is very old fashioned looking and so is Compuhost.

Karma has everything you need to be "great host". You will work like a pro in just a few hours of trying it.
Author:  Kirks Karaoke [ Wed May 28, 2014 11:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
mrmarog wrote:
I purchased Karma on May 5, 2009. I had a few issues for the first 3 years, but Bob Latshaw kept trying until he finally got it perfect in January of 2012. I have been running flawlessly for about 29 months now. One of the greatest things about Karma is that all the most commonly used items, that you need all the time, are always visible. It has a very attractive modern appearance that can be changed to suit your needs in thousands of ways and colors.

Those that have purchased Karma are very happy because it does everything very easily and faithfully without ever needing to "reboot". I have zero interest in switching to any other software. I have AutoKDj (winamp based), Sax n Dotty (winamp based), and MTU Hoster. S-N-D is my least favorite, AutoKDj works well but has some things that are too rigid (rotation), and MTU requires too many open screens and is very old fashioned looking and so is Compuhost.

Karma has everything you need to be "great host". You will work like a pro in just a few hours of trying it.

But what don't you like about it. I know of most all of the good as I've been using the evaluation copy on my test and standby computer for some time. I tested S&D and Host and the learning was too much for me. :oops:
Author:  Bazza [ Wed May 28, 2014 11:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Go here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22248

Download free trials. Test. Evaluate. Find the one that is best for YOU.

Or you could read the many replies to follow where everyone tells you what THEY are using and why it is best for them. :lol:
Author:  Kirks Karaoke [ Wed May 28, 2014 12:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Bazza wrote:
Go here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22248

Download free trials. Test. Evaluate. Find the one that is best for YOU.

Or you could read the many replies to follow where everyone tells you what THEY are using and why it is best for them. :lol:

I guess I need to clarify. I what to find out the things that after show after show that you don't like about the chose users have found. I have been testing both and both will make my show more fun for both myself and my singers, but $80 difference and such. I could put that into more music or the software.
Author:  rumbolt [ Wed May 28, 2014 1:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I have been a user of Compuhost since 08 and I LOVE IT!!! I did trial run Karaoki from PCDJ for a short time and was less than impressed and felt I had take a big step backwards when the DT cloud came out because they did not have Compuhost in place and it was OK. But soon went back to Compuhost and all my host love it too! The program has for me been very stable and any small issues have been quickly addressed and usually they are issues that are only in the background operation of the software and have never affected my shows. Oh by the way did I say I love it!
Author:  chrisavis [ Wed May 28, 2014 1:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I have been using Karma for 5 years now. The first year in Trial at home and the last 4 to run all of our shows. We currently host 23 shows a week at 7 different locations all on Karma.

Like mrmarog, I have been very pleased with Karma. Latshaw is responsive and is continuing to work on new features. i know there is a complete revamp in the works, but i do not have any timeline on when it will be available.

The current versions has been made more touch friendly but I do feel it is still lacking some touch elements that should be required. but since most people are still mousing, it should not be an issue.

Karma does NOT have some of the nice reporting features that CompuHost has and that is the ONE issue I have with it. The reporting would be very valuable to have, but I think the ease of use and stability outweigh the need for reporting.
Author:  Kirks Karaoke [ Wed May 28, 2014 1:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I didn't join the forms till Feb 03, 2013. If I had I would have better info on all the different programs for KJ hosting. I just wish I could spell. I even learned about all the different Makers of music though this thing. That shows how far I have to go!
Author:  GeminiMALE40 [ Wed May 28, 2014 8:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I use Siglos and love it!!!!!
Author:  billwilliams1989 [ Thu May 29, 2014 3:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
i've used a few, agree that siglos is excellent, but i also like pcdj
Author:  frede [ Thu May 29, 2014 6:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Ct Kirk Karaoke wrote:
... don't like about your chose...

The one thing I don't like about CompuHost is the light backgrounds, hard on the eyes. I'll bet money the programer has brown eyes since they're not as sensitive to bright high contrast lighting.
Author:  TopherM [ Thu May 29, 2014 6:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
You can change the background in CompuHost. You aren't stuck with the default!
Author:  frede [ Thu May 29, 2014 10:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
TopherM wrote:
You can change the background in CompuHost. You aren't stuck with the default!
Yes you can, and if you disable theme support you can make the background black. Unfortunately the background is less than 20% of the screen real estate, the rest of the screen you can't change and is made up of light gray boxes with lighter gray buttons and white text boxes. It's ugly and not a good design for working in dark venues, just check out DJ programs and their color schemes. But it's stable and allows me to put on a good show. Remember this thread is about what you "don't like" and if that's the worst, I can live with it.
Author:  Kirks Karaoke [ Thu May 29, 2014 11:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
frede wrote:
TopherM wrote:
You can change the background in CompuHost. You aren't stuck with the default!
Yes you can, and if you disable theme support you can make the background black. Unfortunately the background is less than 20% of the screen real estate, the rest of the screen you can't change and is made up of light gray boxes with lighter gray buttons and white text boxes. It's ugly and not a good design for working in dark venues, just check out DJ programs and their color schemes. But it's stable and allows me to put on a good show. Remember this thread is about what you "don't like" and if that's the worst, I can live with it.

In my testing of CompuHost I've not found that a problem. I'm more thinking about the little things that bug you that can't be or haven't been fixed.
Author:  Vince Prince [ Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:00 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Hmmm... what is it I don't like about Karma? That's a hard one for me since I love this program so much. Very few things I don't like about it, but I'll try:

I don't like that if I put (say for example) 3 songs in a singer's cue and the singer comes up and tells me he/she wants to singer their 3rd song first, I can't switch the order of the songs. I can play their 3rd song first by just clicking on it from their songlist, but I can't easily change the order. I have to delete the first 2 songs and then re-add them after the 3rd song. It's a tiny nit pick thing that's not a deal breaker at all.

Sometimes the Karma screen will minimize itself after I enter a singer's name into the cue. I then have to maximize the screen again to finish entering their song. Again, no big deal really. Just another nit pick thing.

What else? That's it. Nothing. I really can't think of anything else. This program is perfect for my needs and I hope they never ever change or try to improve anything with it ever, but I know that is impossible. People and companies are always wanting to change things, just for change sake. Bob's probably at home working on a list of changes right now as I type this. Lol! It's inevitable. sigh...
Author:  Vince Prince [ Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Wait... I just remembered one more.

To my knowledge, you can't delete the singer's history. You go to MENU > SINGERS then select a singer's name and press DELETE and it deletes them from the history.

Then when you close down and re-open Karma, voila... the name magically reappears.

A few others and I have pointed this out to Bob a few times, but he never acknowledged the problem. I don't know if he fixed it in a later release or not. I am using version 2013.1.19.

He may have fixed it by now, but I haven't found out because I don't want to update my version. I did the update once to the new version that has the touch screen features and it looked bad on my computer. So I switched back to my older version and everything was perfect again.
Author:  Lonman [ Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
I know you didn't ask about Hoster, but thought I'd put my hat in the ring. Nothing much I don't like about it. It does much of all the others do - plus a lot the other users of the other programs WANT theirs to do. Very easy to work - so what if it 'looks' outdated on the host side - it's functional & singers typically don't see nor care about the host display. The programmers are very open to new ideas and don't shoot them down stating kj's don't need this and refuse to consider it!
Author:  RLC [ Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Vince Prince wrote:
I don't like that if I put (say for example) 3 songs in a singer's cue and the singer comes up and tells me he/she wants to singer their 3rd song first, I can't switch the order of the songs. I can play their 3rd song first by just clicking on it from their songlist, but I can't easily change the order. I have to delete the first 2 songs and then re-add them after the 3rd song.

All you do is open up that singers window and drag and drop the song(s) into the order they want if they change their mind.

Vince Prince wrote:
Sometimes the Karma screen will minimize itself after I enter a singer's name into the cue..

I guess I have never experienced this although if my mouse curser happens to wander off the screen (over to the extended screen) the Karma screen an lyrics screen will disappear until you bring the mouse curser back over to the laptop screen - this is very annoying to me.

Vince Prince wrote:
Bob's probably at home working on a list of changes right now as I type this. Lol! It's inevitable. sigh...
Yes , we know this is happening! ;)

Vince Prince wrote:
To my knowledge, you can't delete the singer's history. You go to MENU > SINGERS then select a singer's name and press DELETE and it deletes them from the history.
Then when you close down and re-open Karma, voila... the name magically reappears.

By doing what you say you are doing the singers history will be deleted but yes, the singers name will still reappear because you are only deleting the singers history, not the singer.
If you wish to delete the singer completely open up the singers window and select "Remove from rotation"
Vince Prince wrote:
I did the update once to the new version that has the touch screen features and it looked bad on my computer. So I switched back to my older version and everything was perfect again.
Can you elaborate on this. In every version update the main screen looks the same as it always has, the only difference being in the 2014 releases there is the "Full Screen" toggle which can switch between maximum screen (with your task bar and he red X close screen still showing) and full screen-which ever you prefer.
Author:  chrisavis [ Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Vince Prince wrote:
Sometimes the Karma screen will minimize itself after I enter a singer's name into the cue..


I too have not had this happen EXCEPT when I accidentally hover my mouse over another open app that is in the quick launch bar of Windows. you can resolve this by setting karma to Full Screen mode from the main Karma menu.


Vince Prince wrote:
I did the update once to the new version that has the touch screen features and it looked bad on my computer. So I switched back to my older version and everything was perfect again.


Yes, please elaborate. Karma has changed very little cosmetically in the past 4 years.
Author:  Brian A [ Tue Jun 03, 2014 12:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help in witch software to upgrade to.
Karma all the way for me, love it - all 98% of it.

And to make it 100% - the remaining 2% I will hold in abeyance until Bob simplify & come up with a user-friendly codecs for mp4 files. I already tried Summer’s link on how to; but I’d have to admit it’s a little complex for me; no offense, Summer - it’s just me & my not so proficient tech background. :)
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