Karaoke Forums

Kind of a newbie question sorry, but I didn't see any other post that covered it.

I have been singing karaoke for a few years, but I just recently started buying my own discs and some our awful synths that sound like crap IMO.  Are there any manufacturers that are consistantly good quality?  By good quality I mean good composition, professional sounding, real (or at least sounds real) instruments.

I personaly find "Top-Tunes" to be awful, at least for Sinatra.  I have found that "Legend SeRIES" to be the best I have found.  "Sound Choice" seems adequate.  "SunFly" is great for musicals, but I don't know about other genres.

So what's the pulse of the karaoke nation?  What manufacturers to you steer clear of?  Also, are there any website that you can preview samples of tracks?

Thanks for your replies!

B-HAX

My opinion: Sound Choice for the US market type music and SunFly or Zoom for the European market.

IN my experiences, SoundChoice is pretty head and shoulders above the rest as far as consistency of really good tracks. Most of the other brands seem to be hit or miss with most of their music. I really like the Chartbuster country tracks. Most of the Legends series is very good. The PowerHits rap and R&B tracks sound much better than most other R&B and rap. Sweet Georgia Brown seems to take special care with classic rock tracks for some reason. Music Maestro has great oldies tracks...

All of the other major manufacturers have their good ones and REAL bad ones...

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C Mc
KJ, FL

In my opinion, Topher hit the nail on the head.  Go to soundchoice.com, get Foundations I and II, then get the Bricks.  From there, they have somethng now called the Mortar.  It's a nice way to build your library, and it's cheaper than buying individual Spotlight Series discs.  Each CD has about 15 songs on it.  Sound Choice guarentees all of their CDs no matter what.  Occasionally, they'll have a clunker that makes you scratch your head and wonder what they were listening to, but overall, they are the leader in the karaoke market.  As far as the other brands, I agree with Topher.

Now I'm going to throw a monkey wrench into the lovely SC fans...

For a core, if you can find it, pioneer cdgs are the best! Some people prefer the DK series... and there's STILL a lot of songs on the Millineum set that you can't get anywhere! While I have the foundation and personally love it, I've not gotten many of the bricks.

SC has started to sell off the foundation and brick sets disc by disc... STARTED to... okay, let me say that again.... THEY HAVE STARTED TO do this! ! The collectability and rarity of the foundations and bricks is starting to crumble... on top of the fact that recently they've begun to put some songs on spotlights that were ONLY available on bricks or foundation discs.

Now IF SC were to keep the Foundations and bricks alone, yes I'd Recommend them. MY advice is once you have a solid core, find out from your singers what songs are WORTH getting and investing in.

I recommend getting the "best of " year discs from either Pop or Top Hits Monthly... if you can't get the whole years worth of discs. For stuff as old  as 1995, I wouldn't bother with the whole disc series. It's pretty easy to look at those discs and see what is still somewhat popular and what doesn't get sang!

Lots of European brands or ways of getting songs is rapidly becoming a status quo way of getting some songs... as their copyright restrictions aren't as stringent as the US ones are. Zoom is good.  Sunfly is okay... mostly hit and miss. I personally prefer Sing To The World for my overseas purchases!

Like he said, if you can find it...however, you can easily find Sound Choice...most KJs use them for a reason...

For the foundation of our system we use the SoundChoice Foundation and bricks.  SoundChoice provides a great array of all genres and we really like the arrangements..  Additionally, we use ChartBuster for our country, they have great arrangements and seem to release songs that later become hits on the radio; at least around here.  We have selectively added Top Hits Monthly for some pop & rock.

Of course we have many of the other brands, with varying degrees of success.  Some of the cheaper discs can really be great or would best be used as a mobile.

Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

Have any of you tried the all star karaoke discs? I found them at wal mart and think for personal use, they are a good value. Ussually about 14 bucks for 2 discs (30 songs) Just a thought for home karaoke folks.............Thanks           Timbo

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what if I am the one whos normal and the rest of the world is all messed up?

Not quite.... If the disc is discontinued they will not replace it. Also, if a song or two get discontinued, they sometimes will just substitute that for another song that wasn't originally on the disc. If you need to replace that disc, you might be out of luck (if you're looking to replace it because the song you might need to have the disc replaced for is no longer available on that disc).

You've been singing at Karaoke for a few years now and you think that Sound Choice is just "adequate" and Legends to be the best??? I don't mean to bash on you, and I realize that this is just your opinion, but I think you need to reassess things a bit or expand on what type of music you sing.

As several have said here, I agree that Sound Choice is one of the best manufacturers out there. One area that I feel Sound Choice is lacking in quality is on Broadway music. I just don't feel they do that genre justice. I also agree with Knightshow about Pioneer (although some of Pioneer's stuff you have to turn the music volume up) and DK (on quite a few of their selections) being pretty up there, but they are mostly discontinued discs that are getting harder and harder to find.

Personally, I find Legends to be hit and miss (by about maybe 75 pecent being good).


As for Sunfly, they also are somewhat soft/muted on their music (more than Pioneer). IMO, they're saving grace is that they are a UK brand, and are able to put out some stuff that you just can't find from the American manufacturers (due to copyright legalities). If you're looking for Musicals/Broadway Show Tunes, I would highly recomment Pocket Songs and Just Tracks (same company as Pocket Songs). They usually do excellent work with that.    

I'll agree with you on Top Tunes.... they're just a passable brand, but nothing really spectacular.

Zoom is another company you might want to check out. Although they are a non-American based company, and most of their releases are geared towards the UK's tastes in music, they have been catering to the American market as well, and the stuff they have put out is top notch.

For today's hits, I would go with Pop Hits Monthly and or Top Hits Monthly. They usually keep up with and do good work with that. Sound Choice is also very good for Today's hits, but are usually a month or so behind PHM and THM.

To listen to sound clips of some of the CDGs, you might want to check out www.karaoke.com They have a lot of little samples.

I've heard them & personally don't care for them...  Home use or not; just my opinion tho...


Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

Cueball,



Indeed that is my opinion.  SC is certainly prolific in their titles, and I am sure that is great for KJ's because you get a lot of songs.  But this is a personal collection.  I like the genres I sing, and I don't see why I should change for Sound Choice's sake.  On the other hand, my praise of the Legends discs may have been premature as I have heard some of their other tracks recently that weren't very good. In fact I have noticed that some of their songs are carbon copies of Sunfly's releases, are they the same company?  But I love my Legends Series Pink Floyd disc, it rocks!

My biggest beef's are helper notes in the arrangements.  I don't need or want them.  And on the jazzy, sinatra and broadway numbers, tinny sounding synths.  I want big band or at least really good quality synth.  I haven't investigated Pocket Songs/Just Tracks, so I appreciate those recommendations.  

I just recently discovered Zoom when searching for a version of "Bat out of Hell" and I was very impressed, I'll have to check out some of their other offerings.  And I will also look into the Pioneer discs.  If there would be one company I would expect not to go cheap it would be Pioneer.  I just haven't seen them in too many karaoke shows.

I'll check out karaoke.com.  It would be really cool if the KJPro website and others allowed users to rate the quality of the tracks.  I hate going into shows and seeing six versions of a song and then having to randomly choose one only to have it turn on to be crap.  But I have been learning a lot lately so now I can have a better chooser now that I know what all those silly letters mean.

ttyl

B-HAX

**EDIT: I will give some praise to SC, I do love their Rocky Horror Picture Show disc, it is a great compilation.  And the arrangements are spectacular on that particular disc.

sunfly and legends are INDEED the same company!

As you can tell, people's opinions vary about the quality of brands.
Personally, Sound Choice does have great sounding music, but they also occasionally have background singers that throw my singers off.
I started getting Chartbuster for the country, which is good, but I have also been happy with their old rock (50's, 60's, 70's)  
I've also had good luck with the handful of All Star Karaoke that I've got. ( I originally got them for personal use, but they make nice filler for my shows)
I also like Star Disk for country (they were a great buy for the money until recently when their prices started going up)
I also have an Eagles version of Zoom Platt which I'm thrilled with.
I have more bad than good Legends disks.

But, as has been said before, there are good and bad with just about every company.