Karaoke Forums

I am in the planning stage of moving to all digital KJing.  I have most of my CD+Gs ripped into .zip format.

I am basically looking for the most trouble free program.  I have experiminted with Sax and Dotty.  It looks nice on my PC screen.  Would I be able to take a laptop out, queue up a song and operate the program in the background (without people seeing what I am doing) and have the graphics displayed on the TV (like an extended monitor?

What hardware setup should I use?

If not, does anyone have an opinion on PCKJ or any other programs and in a nutshell, how do they work and what file format do they use.  Thanks.

I can offer some experience with PC/KJ:

I've been using the KJ portion of the pcdj for about 2 months, Have all my library on an external hardrive in zipped files.  From a working stanpoint (knock on wood) I have had no problems to date with the program working as intended.  The program allows for split screens so you can continue to search songs and load singers on the singer que ( which could be larger on screen).  On screen key changer works perfectly as does the search and find programs.  I can't and won't comment on any other programs as I do not have experience with them .  I like the PCDJ/KJ as I also do DJ work and I have them working together and you can fad from karaoke to regular filler or dance songs and so forth.  The PCDJ program also has its own mixer and eq section if you choose to use it and many options on setup etc.
One key thing with the PC KJ is to make sure your files are named correctly to be recognized etc.   My suggestion is to visit their site and boards and you can get some good feel for the product.   If you also do some regular DJ'ing  the PCDJ /KJ  combo is very good.  If you are only going to host karaoke with maybe a little filler or dance tunes from time to time. You might like or prefer some of the otehr programs out there.  Good Luck

It's my understanding that your computer needs to have the "extended desktop" capability.    Go into the display box and look for extended desk top.   Sax & dotty will work with it.   I have it on my laptop.   I haven't gone to it yet, but I'm playing with it.    I'm waiting until I get all of my laser disc collection on the hard drive.

I KJ with a laptop using Sax and Dotty's and I L-O-V-E love it!

They are correct about the extend desktop thing though.  Your laptop should have a separate video output (Mine has an RCA jack, s-video is also common) and in the display settings, you need to extend your desktop onto this second monitor.  Then when you fire up the sax and dotty's, you just drag that window with the lyrics onto the extended desktop, expand it to fill the screen and it looks just like any other karaoke monitor would.  

The program is very stable, and in all the time I've used it I've never had a freeze or a crash (knock wood)

However, I will tell you that you should work with a clean laptop that is used specifically for your karaoke.  I used to have other stuff on there and when those programs would run in the background they would suck the RAM from the sax and sometimes cause the songs to skip a little.  Clearing the machine has fixed it completely.

Having run the laptop for the better part of a year now, I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner!  It makes running a show so much easier than using my JVC triple ever was, and now I can have 100 singers qued up and ready to go instead of just 3!  Plus when you get the usual, "Can I change my song" requests as the singer is walking to the stage it is very easy to do.  

Go for it, you'll love it too!

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Spreading the karaoke gospel

I've heard good things about KJAMP, formerly known as RoxBox. All I can say about is that I've heard good things and some people even prefer it over Sax and Dotty's

This is awesome-- thanks for everyone's input.  I'm just starting to back up all of my discs (as mp3 + cdg for space savings, using Karaoke Builder CD+G Player to test at home) and want to be completely digital by the end of the summer.  I don't think the Karaoke Builder player has queuing, so I will have to check out Sax & Dotty...

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Josie Nutter
Karaoke Hostess at the Skylark Cafe & Club in Seattle ~ Tues

THe sax hoster gives you a 30 day trial I believe which will be more than enough to convince you.  However the trax need to be in .zip format, you can use mp3toolz to convert from .bin

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Spreading the karaoke gospel