Karaoke Forums

I don't know if you read my previous post... but basically I had a house party that went from Karaoke to Salsa party... and even though I had prepared by buying lots of Salsa music to play as background between singers... it turns out that I was amongst "semi-pro" dancers... man these people can dance! So only three people sang Karaoke.  :(

Anyways... the question... Since I'm a Karaoke Gypsy... having to carry all my equipment around... I carry a personal CD player, which plays WMA and MP3 discs... which I use as background music... I leave it on all night and just raise it with my mixer when I need background music. The problem was people kept bringing me Salsa discs to play.. since my selection was limited... and I had to fumble with the little portable player...

Anyone one knows of a rack mounted MP3/WMA disc player of good quality... and please don't include VocoPro in your recommendations... since I got rid of my last one after it failed twice...

I saw a Pioneer DVD player, which plays WMA and MP3 files... but it won't fit in my rack... Just want to hear your feedback, comments...

Thanks,

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Frank
Pelican in Flight KJ/DJ
Miami, Florida

Sorry guys... should have posted this one @ tech... my brain is not here today...
I reported to the moderators... any way of deleting a post myself? Oh well...

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Frank
Pelican in Flight KJ/DJ
Miami, Florida

Not too technical here, IMHO.  Just re-title the post:  "Impressing the ladies with expensive equipment" LOL

Personally I would probably go with a laptop & a program like OTSDJ - which is an awesome dj player, it takes all your music & samples it for perfect automated fade in/fade out - or you can still do it manually is needed.  
Or PCDJ is another decent program & has an optional rackmount controller resembling a dual cd controller.
I know there IS a rack mounted mp3 player, I have seen one, just can't remember where or what it was.

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

Thanks for the feedback Lonman... I should have been more specific about my setup. I'm currently running Hoster on a laptop... with the Karaoke files running from an external HD. I also have my complete music collection in the laptop's HD, which I access with WinAmp, which works really well, because I tweaked it so that there will be no gaps between songs, since I'm not into mixing between songs. I had bought an Echo DJ card, which should allow me to run audio from two different softwares, but have been unable to make it work. My initial idea was to have WinAmp opened and playing in the background going into one channel, which I can raise or lower at will, with the other channel running Hoster, but I've been unable to get the audio card to work like that.

I ended up running most of the party from the laptop through Winamp... but I also had to play some CD's from people, which I know I could do from the CD Rom in the laptop, but I didn't want to run that many things from it at a time.

Thanks,

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Frank
Pelican in Flight KJ/DJ
Miami, Florida

If you would move to PCDJ FX and use PCKJ you do not even need a second sound card to mix but yes it is nice.

What happens is that will give you 3 players 1 karaoke and 2 mp3. as your karaoke song is ending  you set your crossfader in PCDJ to the mp3 player opposite the song you are playing, start the mp3 and slowly fade into your mp3. the Karaoke will stop for you auto. then you can cue the next karaoke singer and fade out the mp3 or fade or beat mix into another mp3.

I have an indigo dj if you need help getting it setup I would be glad to help.

Then I would definately opt for the OTSDJ program.  It is AWESOME for automated - "professional" dj mixes.  It doesn't just have a designated time which one song starts & the old one fades (which most programs do), it anylizes each song for an optimum fade in/fade out point so there is no dead air at all, all mixes are smooth & on cue.  It also has built in compression & limiting & will also normalize all your music as well.  It will even MIX 2 songs from the same cd - good quality cd rom player is recommended - my Plextor works great.  The new version will also do automatic beat matching.
All you do is select your playlist from your hard drive, drag & drop to the playlist & hit play - very simple.  You can change the order, save the playlists, etc....Will interface with your current setup, is dual audio card compatible, leave it continually running in the background for transition music.  The playlist history will repeat automatically once finished.  Check it out, it may suit your needs perfectly - you can download a free demo.  www.otsdj.com

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

AMERICAN AUDIO MCD-110: Rackmount Single CD/MP3 Player With Direct Access Controls

The American Audio MCD-110 CD/MP3 player is an ultra-versatile 2-space unit with a single disc drive and a complement of DJ focused controls. Using MP3 encoded CDs you can have over 100 songs per disc and have easy access to the tracks via the +10/-10 track advance buttons and “track search by frame.” You can monitor all functions with the brilliant LCD display.

$220 from pssl

I only have one recommendation - MP3 Tunes V2.

I use this ALL the time for DJing and my background music.  It handles most of the Winamp DSP plugins (but not the input/output plugins so no karaoke -yet) and allows you to specify how much of each song you want beatmatched and 'mixed'.  You can do it by hand or allow it to do it all automatically.

I recently did a party for the local Fred Astaire dance studio at a venue I work at with this software and it worked flawlessly.

BTW, it also allows for using a second output for monitoring and should work with your sound card without any issues at all.

Best of all, it's FREE.