Karaoke Forums

Ok... I know what some of you are thinking... "I told you so". So far my voyage into Semi-Pro KJ has been costly and has tested my patience.

I had bought a Numark CDN25+G from a place called Cameras and Electronics and the unit wouldn't play CD's on the right side. BTW: Don't buy from these people. The customer service girl told me that she was doing me a favor by accepting the return, because I had the unit for more than 1 week... like only 8 days... Gave me New York attitude. They finally gave an RMA. Then I couldn't wait for the one I was sending up to NY to get the new one, because I have another party this weekend and I offered to buy a new one and get credited once they got the other one... What a hassle... after disconnecting me three times and then waiting on hold for more than 15 minutes... I hung up and ordered somewhere else.

Now... my VocoPro story... Never assume! I ordered a KJ-6000, finally got it and when I got the box at work... I could have sworn that this thing is too small to be mounted in my rack case... So even though it has rack ears... it's only about 12" wide, versus the standard 19". I go to VocoPro's website and all their rackmounted mixers are 19" wide, except this one, which doesn't list the width. The photo copy quality instruction manual gives the instructions to mount the mixer... duh... where on the air?
Any idea how I can adapt it? I've been searching the net and no luch for a top mount adapter. I guess something could be fabricated. I also e-mailed Voco Pro, but I'm not holding my breath. This sucker may just go on EBay sooner than later...

Sorry for the rant... but I figured... you guys would understand or at least fall of your chair laughing at my genius!

Later,

_________________
Frank
Pelican in Flight KJ/DJ
Miami, Florida

pelicaninflight, have a look at this

ADJUSTABLE DJ MIXER RACK MOUNT KIT
http://www.pssl.com/bitemdetail.tpl?eqi ... data=11646

I would never dance on a person's grave m'man... if you've made mistakes, at the very least, you're learning from the experience.

So even then, you're in the positive... and you can give people honest feedback on these things.

I understand all too well.

I asked and ignored the advice here...
Recommended:
Mackie DFX12
Mackie SRM450 (or equiv)
JVC/RSQ player

I bought:
Fender PD-250
2 (yes, 2) cheap eBay DVD players that 'claim' to do karaoke
Soundcraft Compact 10 mixer

PD-250 are my monitors now
Soundcraft Compact 10 is my home mixer and will likely end up on eBay or some other use
Both the eBay DVD players were crap - and I ended up getting a $40 memorex player from Radio Shack so I could do a show and then an RSQ 333 later.

So many things bought and wasted.... I made poor choices and I'm paying for it. We learn from our mistakes and at least we know of a vendor to avoid now....

As for the mixer you can always mount a plate, cut a hole to mount the smaller mixer within in.

I too just Got Screwed....I own a NANDY UHF wireless mic and love it....I got on EBAY and ordered two NANDY wireless VHF mic's (brand new) without realizing that VHF sucks due to picking up every frequency in the air and making all kinds of noise. one mice dont even work.....

as the kind of guy I am I chalk it up to experience and bite the $170.00 ...

The lesson Ive learned is to post here in this fourm first on my buying intentions then go with my own decisions on the experience of others on this forum......

I have read many post's that have help me in my decisions..

By the way fender passport P-150 speakers do make ok monitors
Im Happy with My Peavey pr12's as main's
and my CAVS 202 player till I replace all 388 songs that came on one disk.

it is a daily ritual for me to read these forum's make it one of your's

Here also, I should have researched here first before I bought my system... Used and still paying it off.

Mine is..
VocoPro 6200 mixer Will replace with Mackie CFX16 With in 2 months.

dkkaraoke 5 tray carosel player. Going to become house player when I get another player, a RSQ222 single tray

RSQ333 bought new 2 months ago will stay with system. Recomended by this forum.

Pevey 30 band eq, Will keep in systme for now. Use for feedback control.

Vocopro 600 watt amp. Works but second thing on replace list. Will upgrade to a Crown 2000 amp. Recomended by local KJ and friend.


2 Sound Tech 12" speakers. Want a set of eon's, but right now bar just installed speakers just for karaoke so I don't have to use mine their now. So those are on the bottom of my list for now.


So the top notch system a Kj who is going out of business sold me will end up being my house system. Oh expensive house system. I'm to embarrased to say what I paid the the system

Well... peoples... If my wife catches me... she'll hang me... I'm so... disappointed with the VocoPro KJ-6000 that even before using it once... I've decided that I'm selling it... I'll have to use it this weekend for the party that I have programmed, but then it's going on EBay... Why?

Cheap, cheap, cheap! The levers, the buttons, its lightweight... not lightweight good... lightweight cheap. The finally sentence the VJ-6000... I e-mailed VocoPro to ask how to mount the unit on a rack... since it does come with rack tabs, but only measures 12"? Their answer... "We have no kit to rack mount the unit"... talk about tech support...

Today I picked up a used Mackie 1202 in good condition on EBay for $149.00... including the rack ears. Like in life... in Karaoke... live and learn... I understand from their reputation... that even a used Mackie is better than a new something else.

So now I'm awaiting my replacement Numark CDN25+G, I also bought an Alesis 3630 compressor, since at the last party the singers had me twitching my mixer knobs with their screaming!

So far an expensive proposition... but I'm learning my lesson... slowly but surely... thanks for the advice and support.

_________________
Frank
Pelican in Flight KJ/DJ
Miami, Florida

Once you get the Numark replace let us know what you thing about it. I am interested in it for a second system I am planning on putting together.

Also hope you have a great weekend.

I could be wrong, but....

IIRC the 12" racks are designed to fit in a coffin case between two turntables. It the size of most of the 'battle' mixers DJ's typically use.

Live and learn can be an expensive proposition... I understand that completely! I'm considering adding some DJ work towards the end of next year and the additional music and players is getting expensive on my wish list. I don't want to even get into the additional costs that I haven't even considered yet....

You may want to reconsider the Sound Techs. These are about as good as Geminis IMO. You may also want to get something with a 15" over the 12". Check into the Yamaha Club series, they sound pretty decent, not outrageously priced & will take the power of the Crown amp you are considering - the SoundTechs won't & they still won't sound as full.

Aslo, you may want to take a look at the Carvin DCM series for you amp choice (and possibly your speakers).

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

Thanks Lonman,

What speakers I am going to go with is still up in the air. The bar just installed 2 12" and 1 15" Wharfedale set of speakers. So I am going to work on upgrading the equip first.

Not to rub salt into it, but before I bought anything I had many discussions going on this board. Kojak in particular helped me out a lot. My rig (only used at home) is:

Mixer: Carvin 1644 bought new.
Speakers: Carvin 1584's (3-way) on stands bought off Ebay at half price. I am somewhat satisfied with those. The horns are too weak. I measured and they are not upto spec. Still haven't decided what to do.
Amplification: Carvin XC3000 electronic crossover found on Ebay
DCM2000 for the lows
DCM1500 for the mids and highs bought new
PLayer: RSQ tripple tray and laptop computer with external harddrive with all the songs. I have now ripped everything and will in the future mainly use the laptop. I need to get an external soundcard since the output of the internal sound is noisy when a lot of processor activity takes place
Mics: 2 SM58 and one OM-5. The OM5 is much better than the Shures!
TV: 12" panasonic
Music: Sound Choice Foundation 1+2, Brick 1+2, various other SC.

I am also considering getting a dual 18 sub. Having the speakers on stands prevents the bass from coupling to the floor. I would definately get 15" as your main speakers unless you are also getting subs.

Morten

ya know, I sound like a broken record, but why bother with a sound card? Just go usb out to a SoundBlaster MP3 device. Costs around $40! Pure RCA out from that machine into your mixer! Like another player!

knightshow,

I think we are talking about the same thing. At least in my book the piece of equipment you are talking about is an external (USB) soundcard. What I was thinking about is a 10 in/10 out Edirol firewire soundcard. I am just debating whether to spend ~$80 on a Audigy 2 NX or I should just go for a multi-channel pro-audio sound card like the Edirol.

BTW. I read somewhere that firewire is better than USB for sound cards, since the firewire standard is better suited for real time use. For two channel recordings (stereo) up to 48 kHz it probably doesn't matter.

Thanks,

Morten

The firewire standard is more akin to the SCSI standard and USB is akin to serial.

SCSI allows for a much higher throughput at the same theoretical transfer rates because of the addressing and accessing mechanisms. The same applies to Firewire. Even though USB 2.0 has a theoretical higher throughput (480kbps) the actual throughput when multiple devices are used is lower than when using Firewire (400kbps).

Because of this, firewire is indeed more effective for real-time applications like recording, especially when recording multiple channels or recording and playing back at the same time. For playback, when you're not also using other devices, USB will work just fine - especially when the Soundblaster devices are used that are bandwidth friendly. If you wonder what I mean, try plugging in a USB hard drive, a USB camera, and a USB mouse. Start copying a large number of files and try firing up your camera software. You'll see exactly what I mean.

I've been able to tranfer HUGE numbers of files (close to 60GB) while writing a CD to a firewire burner at 24x from another firewire hard drive without any hiccups at all.

Firewire is more effective, but more costly. Just as SCSI is more expensive than IDE/EIDE/SATA but better in critical applications (which is why you don't normally find non-SCSI drives in high availability applications like servers).

Many good point karaokemeister. Just two small corrections the bandwidth of the firewire 400 is 400 Mb/s and for USB2 480 Mb/s. A new generation of firewire also exists: firewire 800 with a max transfer of 800 Mb/s.

Since most laptop drives are kind of dinky (small and not as durable as desktop drives) I prefer to store my music on an external drive. As I wrote on another topic (ripping 101) I bought an internal ATA100 drive and mounted it in an AMS enclosure with a 8 cm fan ensuring long drive life. For $10 extra the enclosure is delivered with both USB2 and firewire interfaces.

So at least my thought is to connect the external drive to a USB2 port on my laptop and the external sound to a firewire port.

Morten

Morten

Lonman,
You'd mentioned in an earlier post "take a look at Carvin". I wasn't aware that there was such an option unless a person lived within close proximity to their California manufacturing facility. My own experiences (altho all favorable) were that Carvin was only a mail order company with a very generous return policy. At least as of a short time ago, a person couldn't do "head-to-head" comparisons with Carvin. They only sold direct to the consumer. I heard great things about their tube amps, and guitars. I had to take a chance, and order them first. I was however, quite pleased with the results. Carvin (at least until recently) didn't supply retailers. What I like about Carvin is their quality, and pricing

Steven,
What did you get from Carvin ???

Steven,

Carvin is still only a mail order company outside CA. What Lonman referred to was probably look at their specs...

I have quite a bit of Carvin and atleast to my experience the company has been great to deal with.

I think the price and quality is great.

I have a pa, electric guitar and soon I will also have a Legacy halfstack.

Morten

double post