Karaoke Forums

First time poster.

I Just purchased a Cav's 202 dvd system to integrate with my home stereo system. Mostly for goofing off with friends, however it may later grow into a serious hobby. I want to take it slow to assure I don't invest too much into something I'll never use again. I'm hearing that stereo speakers will not work well with live mic and mixer board is also needed. Do I need to invest more? My budget is around $600 and I have already blown $220 on the Cavs. What should I do to get the most bang for the buck on such a limited budget. I know this topic wears you all out, thanks for any advice.

Noobie 1

If you are looking for a set of inexpensive speakers for home and or the occasional small party , look at the PeaveY PR10 lite weight speakers.
They cost $140 each and are very nice sounding. I use a set of the 12" for my small type gigs every week and never had a problem or complaint.

Not sure what else you are looking for but for ease of use I would suggest a powered mixer for your amplification and mixing needs. Yamaha, Peavey, Mackie and even Behringer offer decent little units with Bang for your buck power...... throw in a couple of cables and a mic and your all set .....
PEAVEY PR 10 SET OF 2 ...$280
YAMAHA EMX62M AMP/MIXER....$246

Stereo speakers lack the duability that pro audio equipmenty has. Live vocals can fluctuate alot between singers and could ruin the flimsy home stereo speakers, as far as sound what is lacking in a home system is a good mic pre amp and eq for the mic. The mic pre amp in the 202G is not as nice as you will find on a pro audio mixer.
Any of the Equipment mentioned by Jamkaraoke would be fine it would just depend upon your budget. I would try and find a Powered mixer that offers Quality Digital Effects as well. Your budget is tight though and that will limit the choices.

A great, no make that a GREAT mixer for home use is the Bheringer Eurorack MX 802A. It has four single channel inputs with 1/4" and XLR inputs, two stereo inputs, pre/post for FX loop and a wide range of inputs/outputs. I was able to get mine new for $75 and it is tremendous for home use. One downside is it uses knobs for volume control on each channel and the mains instead of sliders, and has no mute buttons. Bang for the buck, hard to beat for $75. I think "list" is around $125. FWIW - I didn't get mine on eBay or through the internet. I'd bet you can get it for even less.

Hope this helps!

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Despite the internet rumor, Karaoke is not Japanese for "drunk buffoon with microphone."  However, "rotation," is Japanese for wait your damn turn!

Hello, <looking for Karaoke playback device>

I made an inquiry regarding a starter home system on another board in here, yet realize this board is more appropriate.
I have a few options. The first being going thru a soundtech amplified 6 channel mixer and into a pair of Fender 15 inch PA speakers <3-way speakers>. The second option is a surround sound JBL speaker setup that can easily handle over 150 watts <yet I'm aware this is frowned upon since home stereo speakers don't offer the proper dispersion for such an application>
I have Shure SM-48, 57, and 58 microphones even audio-technica microphones for PA purposes.
Now all I need is a Karaoke machine. I'm a musician so I don't believe that I need to have lyrics scroll on a TV screen for my own purposes. Sheets with lyrics would be sufficient.
As to whether or not I should just use karaoke CD's in my standard DVD, CD player; get a machine with a harddrive for downloading karaoke music; or whether a decent vocal eliminator exists for my current library ? Not sure.
I'm not a vocalist, yet I'm trying to develope my voice. I also don't want to pay over $1000 for a karaoke device and alot of Karaoke CD's. Naturally like most people, there are some songs I like. It would be ashame to pay a few hundred dollars for a compilation of songs on CD when there might be only a few I like.

For a couple of months, I locked myself in a little room at a local Karaoke club taping my favorite songs off've their large karaoke jukebox.
Currently, that's what I use to sing with. This CAV jukebox had a tape player

Hope this isn't bombarding people with too much. This is currently where I am with this interest. Thanks ahead of time for any input.

Hey Steven! Welcome. I'll start with the good news and then go with the bad news.

First off, if you have the PA speakers and six channel mixer, go through the PA speakers and six channel mixer. For the record, your "starter home" system is better than some of the clubs I've been in! If you have the PA speakers then I'd go thorugh the PA speakers for home use.

You have a couple of choices on playback systems, but with your setup I think it is a no-brainer to go with the JVC RSQ/222 -- it's recommended in Karaoke circles over and over and over again, and the one that many professionals use (4 out of 5 KJ's surveyed recommended and the other had a head wound...)

Now on to the next topic, which is discs. This is the middle news. You're going to be hard pressed to find discs that are loaded exclusively with the songs you like. You can order custom discs off the internet and from Sound Choice providers from $3.50 to $5.00 a track (usually a 10 track minimum). However if you do the math, the costs rolls up fast. At the end of the day you, if you do the math, you'll probably be saving money buying compilations, if you're smart about it that have 10% or 20% of what you're looking for.

Now the bad news - and it's just personal opinion. Having written software and having been a professional writer/photographer in a past life, and having worked with intellectual property rights - it is my deepest hope that once you get your system set up, you'll be getting rid of those practice tapes. I'm not giong to whack a new member over the head with a baseball bat but at the end of the day, you should have a legit collection, even if it is for home use.

_________________
Despite the internet rumor, Karaoke is not Japanese for "drunk buffoon with microphone."  However, "rotation," is Japanese for wait your damn turn!

remember, the Fair Use Act here in America, allows you the right to copy cdgs that you own. it allows you to make custom discs of the cdgs you own.

but not DOWNLOADED stuff.

Thanks for the reply Outdoorplaces. I've seen the JVC RSQ/222 system referred to frequently. Naturally, that makes choices easy.
Your correct about the taping off've the CAV jukeboxes cassette feature being pirating. I wasn't aware of what constituted "pirating" and the sensitivity of the issue until the somewhat recent P2P problems regarding sites such as Kazaa, etc. Growing up, many of us used to exchange albums and tape them. Tape radio content, etc. There's a heightened awareness about this now.

Thanks Knightshow. I assume that a Karaoke club that offers it's members the feature of taping from their collection is condoning illegal activity. I never considered this.

it violates the copyright, but it also is in perspective.

NOBODY is going to use a personal performance like that as anything other than pure entertainment.

What the companies are really worried about is using their music as replacement for musicians and people singing "demos" and trying to get famous on that.

Or direct rippoffs... which if it has your voice on there, sorry, isn't going to happen.

Taping your voice onto a karaoke track isn't a copyright violation - it's a licensing one.

You can use karaoke backing tracks to make demos - for a price. Sound Choice charges $150 per track for you to record your own vocals for the purposes of making a demo. They have a sepereate charge for people that run karaoke booths where you can record and walk away with a tape of yourself.

Copyright says recording yourself w/ the backing track is permitted because it's a derivative work and permitted under USC 17. Licensing says give us money to do it. Remember, you own the media, but not the content - it's licensed to you.

If you remember, there was a person that recorded some songs by other artists on Singer's Showcase where they performed all the music. They were contacted and told they owed licensing fees for those tracks. Everyone using backing tracks from karaoke discs were not contacted because the licensing was paid for by the manufacturer of the disc. While I'm sure there's more to the licensing - including ASCAP/etc fees for public performances/streaming of the songs this at least give you some basics.

what I'm saying, meister, is unauthorized reproductions are against copyright.

This is interesting guys. Yet assuming the concern is over and above personal enjoyment why are the P2P sites such as Grokster, Kazaa, etc. said to be in such violation ? Is the concern actually the transferring of free music ? or is the concern that someone, somewhere along the chain of DL'ing will eventually try to monetarily profit by burning CD's, or using licensed material commercially ? or is this something even more specific to method of transfer ?

Peer2Peer sites are only in violation if they provide a centralized indexing mechanism which would allow them to be aware of the content. This is why Napster was shut down. Napster could look at all the illegal files going through their service and did nothing about it. Even after they were notified about it they still chose to do nothing. THAT's what got Napster shut down. The remaining sites learned a lesson from this and only show 'local' files. Things are a little harder to find but there is no 'central server' to search from (like there was on Napster). These people are saying 'Hey, we only make software to allow sharing. We don't know how they use it because we can't track that information.'

What's all the concern over anyway? Well, let's see what you're really getting when you buy a cd. Do you get a cd? Yes, the physical media and some snazzy packaging. You also get a license for personal use of the content of the media. You don't own the content of the media. The information on the disc is owned by the copyright owner. Under the fair use portion of United States Title 17 you are allowed to move that media to another format that is more convenient to you for personal use. It doesn't cover business use but fair use by a business has never been tried in a court of law and when I talk with disc manufacturers they tend to say that as long as you maintain a 1 to 1 ratio and can prove ownership of original media they won't push the issue.

Ok, back to the media and licensing. The license you get with the media doesn't allow for public playback of the music, or to use it in a performance. The licensing for that is handled by a couple agencies that if music is played publicly are required to pay for a license to play the artists they represent. There are only a couple of these agencies and generally you need a license from 2 or 3 of them - ASCAP, SECAC and BMI are the main licensing agents for public performance.

The concern with P2P is multifacted from the RIAA, MPAA, and similar agencies point of view - If you get media from a P2P site you won't buy records meaning lost revenue for the record companies and artists. While the P2P companies aren't breaking the law, the end users of that software often are breaking the law.

This is because in the past the people that bootlegged cassettes were really stealing money from them and that's the mentality they are used to. With digital music it's easier and it's possible to create copies that are identical to the original - not true of cassettes which suffer degradation as more and more copies are made. It's not so much about the transfer mechanism as the loss of revenue because why pay for something I can get for free?

The really funny thing is that in the record companies eyes if you buy a cd and your wife wants to listen to the cd she should buy her own copy. No making a copy of a disc to keep in the car under fair use for her to use because only you were granted a license and only you fall under fair use.


All in all, copyright infringement causing lost revenue is where the complaints are. If you want to read up on more of this sort of thing and some of the crazy stuff the licensing agencies and record companies do:

ASCAP tells non-profit camp no singing
http://www.s-t.com/daily/08-96/08-23-96/b02li056.htm

How a Sound Choice karaoke disc is born (covers some basic on licensing and types of licenses)
http://www.djzone.net/pg/0101/ka01002.shtml

If you're wondering about artists rights, contracts, personal managers and all the other stuff in the music industry I can't recommend this book enough:
What They'll Never Tell You About The Music Business: The Myths, Secrets, Lies (& a Few Truths)

BTW, I'm not a lawyer, I don't play one on TV. Read for yourself the decisions and make your own choices. Consult a lawyer if you have any questions.

Thanks Karaokemeister. This is a fascinating area.

Okay, you already have the player, not sure why the RSQ222 was recommended when you already have one but I digress, you have the CAVS player and you're locked in there.

Could you make a home stereo system work? Sure, wouldn't be the best in the word but it will work depending on your speaks. I personally have a pair of Mission 767 towers with two 8 1/4", two 6 1/2", plus a tweeter so mine does it pretty well. A home theater system with a sub and tiny monitors would not be so good.

So, if you're looking for speaks good for home karaoke on the cheap I would take a look at a pair of powered studio monitors. Go to one of the big music store websites and search for "studio monitors" and you'll find a large selection. There's this upstart company called Alto that makes one called the M3A with twin 3" woofers, tweeter and 45 watts each for $129/ea, can't beat that with a stick.

So,I've spent another $250 of your money approximately. I've got some left for a mixer which if you want to have any decent fun and do any recording of your stuff is essential. Someone here mentioned Behringer and as a working KJ who had a Behringer start acting flaky very early in its life I can't recommend them. I'd look at the Soundcraft Compact 4 ($129) or, if you can spare another $60 the superb Soundcraft Folio Notepad that is great for a home studio. Sorry, that's how I am, all the best mixers are made in England (yes, I'm a snob).

You didn't mention mics, eBay is great for finding clearance mics from music stores cheaper than even the big online music stores. Again, I'm a snob but this time it's EV -- I'd get a Cobalt 5 or 7 depending on budget and an N/D167a (if you can find one) or N/D267a as outstanding options, I picked up several recently on eBay on the cheap. Someone mentioned a Sure SM58 which is also a great mic, I'm just partial to EV.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

There are several ranges the home user could go. For around $200 Kustom and some others offer 4 channel powered mixers with speakers. Next step around $350-$500 Fender Passport and similiar units. Top of the line Bose L1 system. Add your karaoke player and a Mic to any of these and sing away.