Karaoke Forums

I would like to gather an average of what KJ's think their income is how it relates to one manufacturer - Sound Choice.

Say for instance you make @$150 for a nights work, how much of that do you think SC made you? Of course after taking into consideration the initial cost's. So you should consider that if you own the 100 basic Foundations and Brick Packs you spent @$1300.00 and every year it takes you to recover the initial cost's you are allowed to add interest to the up start cost until it's paid off. Of course you cannot run a karaoke show with just those songs or you'll be at home instead of working soon. But if that's all you have of that brand how much of your income is related directly to SC?

I personally try to make sure that $10 from every show go into buying new discs to stay current so $40-$150 per month just keeps you current depending on if you are behind in your up to date music. So it cost's you $10 per gig just to keep up to date, now you made $140. Out of that how much did SC make you?

Wait a minute, you have Equipment and Vehicle to consider, Laptop, Mixer, Speakers, Microphones, quality cables, Transportation cost's (fuel and wear and tear), Printing slips, pencils, Misc, etc. I estimate that $35-$75 per gig is what it cost me to provide all of these things. In the 4 gigs I did last week I spent $100 on fuel alone. You must also account for wear and tear and future replacement is inevitable.

A good PA needs to be replaced every 3-5 years at the very least, cheaper stuff more frequently than that. Some speakers lose their initial quality sound in less than one year. My basic Pa without a Sub woofer cost me @$5500 and that includes 2 mains and a floor monitor(I have more but it's not needed for Karaoke so I will stick to basic setup).

So if I base everything on 3 gigs a week at $150 per day you get $23,400yr subtract staying up to date discs of at-least $100 per month including the new PHM, SS(Singers Solution) and SBI downloads that you don't get on the two previously mentioned. Minus -$1200=$22,200 minus $100 per week in fuel your down to $17000. Take away $1833 per year for equipment and another $500 for interest is $2333 per year total, you now have $14,677 left divided by 156 shows = $94.01 I never deducted for start-up cost of discs, the SC discs cost @1300 for 1500 songs, if you don't have 10k songs you don't have a job so that's another $5000 for CB 450 1-10 and the PHM library plus assorted discs that compliment your area. You should revover this expense over a projected 10 year span of time so deduct $500 per year = $14,177 or $90.87 per gig.

Out of that how much money did Sound Choice make you last night?

I believe that 90% of the show is the host so 10% is the cost to be able to perform @35% is the cost of doing business so $9.09 is what music made you but if you have 10k songs and 1500 are SC that's 15% of $9.09.

@40% is the total cost of being a Karaoke host if you collect $150 per gig. The percentage lowers drastically if you make $200 or $250.

$1.36 per gig is my return on SC discs. If my math is correct (based on 100 SC discs) I will start making money on SC discs after I have performed 955 shows SIX years or 73 Months after which I will make money on my SC discs. This is an average based upon 3 gigs per week and no vacation or being sick. I actually have over 300 SC discs so it will take me 2865 gigs or 18.3 years to break even on the discs I have. After which time I will make $1.36 per gig profit.

Please use the Poll to vote!

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If you don't have anything nice to say, say it sarcastically!
The Truth often gets in the way of a good story.
Record companies should make every song in a karaoke version and kill the dispute!

I have a little under 1300 discs and about 400 of those are SC. I use the SC whenever possible, but I very rarely have anyone ask me for SC. Literally maybe 6-8 times A YEAR.

I appreciate the extra quality SC brings to the table for most of their recordings, but I don't think that affects my business all that much. I haven't bought a SC disc in a couple years, and buy primarily All-Star Karaoke downloads, and have not had any ill-comments or change in business.

I appreciate quality, and I'm sure my SC collection has helped bring some new singers back to my show, but it is a very small part of my success, and very very hard to quantify. Your math above takes quite a few leaps in logic. It's speculative at best. Either way, I think the impact is pretty minimal.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I had made many guesses as far as what the actual value of the songs were to a performance, I believe I over estimated the amount so the naysayers would not have reason to gripe.

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If you don't have anything nice to say, say it sarcastically!
The Truth often gets in the way of a good story.
Record companies should make every song in a karaoke version and kill the dispute!

Just a quick point on your methodology:

Your methodology assumes that every disc in your collection is equally valuable to your show. You might view it that way, but it seems unlikely. A disc full of songs that never get played has close to zero value (even taking into account the fallacious assumption that you need 10,000 tracks to get any job; I've seen lots of successful KJs who have fewer).

Several years ago, we had an operator tell us that over a three-year period he only played something like 2500 songs (not counting repeats), and only 1500 were played more than twice. I forget the actual numbers, but they were in those ranges. The reality is that in the course of a three-hour show you'll play no more than about 50 songs, and even if you have a nightly no-repeat rule, chances are there will be a lot of overlap from week to week.

Anyway, might I suggest a different methodology? Keep track of the songs you actually play. Then, when you're apportioning the $9.09 you contend is the profit attributable to music, you can assign a share of the profit to the music you actually played and no share to the music you didn't play. After all, if you didn't play a song, you didn't really have to have it, right?

The reason why I suggest this is we often encounter defendants who, for one reason or another, exist in a space in which they can't afford to settle and can't afford to quit. At times, we have suggested a settlement in which those defendants agree that they will not play SC tracks any more, at all. They can play any other brand they like, just not SC.

I don't believe I've ever had a defendant take that option. When you combine that with the fact that most of the shows we attend (as part of our investigation process) feature 60% to 100% SC tracks, even when the KJ has a hard drive with literally everything on it, it suggests that the value SC adds to shows is much higher than your methodology would indicate.

Of course, I have no idea whether your shows feature disproportionate SC play. Your rotation might well include only the same proportion of SC songs as you have in your collection.

Thank you for your input, I had thought about many different ways to compute it but I thought that I got as close as I could with this formula. I encourage anyone to come up with a viable formula that can work.

I could have broke it down a bit more but, I didn't want to pay attention to whether the discs were used, but the fact that it needs to be paid for just to have it in my collection. Available for people to pick.

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If you don't have anything nice to say, say it sarcastically!
The Truth often gets in the way of a good story.
Record companies should make every song in a karaoke version and kill the dispute!

We have not done a show for the last 15 years that it hasnt been at least 40 percent sound choice. Shows are at least 200 so there it is

I made a point of boycotting SC product at least as far as my end of the show was concerned. The core of my library has always been DK and they were in my experience the most requested brand. So I would have to say zero was what I made as far as SC was concerned on any job.

I was doing a 7 night a week show at a resort back in 2010 when lawsuits were being filed by Sound Choice. Although my business partner had all the SC discs for the tracks on our hard drive, the GM at the resort told us to stop using SC until they stopped suing people just because they were playing from a computer.

We ran that show for about 5 months, 7 nights a week, and we were packed as usual. Although we did have a few older singers that asked for SC, it wasn't an issue overall, together we still had over 15,000 tracks including duplication.

If I were to go back to that venue today and start running the show again, I could do it without SC and still have the same income.

I think it is an extremely subjective thing to try to quantify mathematically

Except for my pirate type singers (home hard drives or used to going to shows with every SC ever made) I don't see much brand awareness. But I do see that customer satisfaction is based on if the version sounds good. I will get complaints that the guitars weren't correct or something was left out. I can get confusion if duets aren't presented in a clear way. Rarely are those complaints about SC songs.

I have had at least two band singers "won over" to the dreaded karaoke by good SC versions of songs. In both cases they went from looking down on karaoke to saying my show was "different" and through the years have been good supporters, even recommending me to venues where their bands play. Some of it has to do with the sound system, some of it has to do with not being a drunken druggie but the "aha" moments came when not only was that Blues song on karaoke, they felt like they were singing to the original. I'm not sure what monetary percentage to assign to that but those singer's support did result in me getting some long term shows.

I think it was posted just to provide another platform to beat up Sound Choice.

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-Chris

So far I don't think it is working very well.

I do mostly "oldies" shows (50's,60's,70's music) and there is a huge selection of quality choices for those years. However, SC has quite a few "unique to SC only" songs for those years so I have to use SC for those. As has been pointed out numerous times Elvis/Oldies has it's go to, country has it's go to and rock had it's go , etc. It has been 5 plus years since SC put anything new out and you folks that cater to the youngins will leave SC in the dust pretty soon.

In a way it's sad, kinda like thinkin' 'bout the good ol' days.

I do agree, The majority do not know that there are even different brands, they expect it to be the original band minus the singer. If I ask what version they want, 99 out of 100 singers say "the original", every time.

Chrisavis,
This is in no way an attempt to beat up SC, they are doing a good enough job of that on their own. I thought it would be nice to see how varied individual use of certain karaoke brands were and focused on SC because they claim to be the Pioneer Leader in Karaoke so I figured start from the top. Some people don't use certain brands but i thought most people had at least some Foundation sets since they include such a great ensemble of reusable songs.

I don't care about the haters, I love my SC content, I prefer them for most of the songs that I sing. I also paid for every song I use so I don't need to be a hater. I don't like the fact that rumors are afoot that SC has swindled the Record companies and the public. I'd like to get to the bottom of that! If they haven't then I'm happy that I did not pad the pockets of a swindler. Plain and simple.

This topic is to estimate how much the songs make up a performance for one particular brand, the most expensive one. Pocket songs doesn't count to me. I am not a Broadway singer.

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If you don't have anything nice to say, say it sarcastically!
The Truth often gets in the way of a good story.
Record companies should make every song in a karaoke version and kill the dispute!

I obviously don't use SC as my go to for current music. That would be Karaoke Version and ZOOM/SBI/Sunfly. But most of the music performed at my shows is from the 80's and 90's which is a sweet spot for Sound Choice. I get more use out of my Sound Choice product than any other. Of course I could drop Sound Choice and use Chartbuster. Or drop both and use Pop Hits Monthly. Or drop all of those and use any number of other brands. But I like the quality and consistency of Sound Choice so it is here to stay.

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-Chris

I have no problem not using much Sound Choice. I still have my 38 SC discs, most of them bought for my own use, before I bought my equipment. They are band specific discs like Journey (which happens to me my most used SC disc), Creed, Nickelback, Black Sabbath/Ozzy, Def leppard, etc, and Headbangers. So, they were actually never meant for a show. I originally bought them as my personal preference of songs to sing.

I have MUCH less than 10,00 songs. I have a ton of DK, that I bought on two SCDGs. That is my base of songs. That is my go to brand for older music. SBI is my go to for Country. I can download them as I need them, nice and easy. I always make sure I have credits on Tricerasoft.

Zoom is my go to for newer pop and rock, and lately it has been my go to to replace Sound Choice songs, so i can use LESS SC product, or to replace songs that are on discs that are getting tired. As I have mentioned before, most of the Zoom songs I have been getting BLOW SC out of the water. My customers are happy, I am happy, and all is well. So, when it comes to what percentage I make off of SC, it is beyond minimal.

And as for Chartbuster, I only have one single disc. I bought it because I like Dave Matthews. I am the ONLY one who has ever sung of it.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Much like other brands sc has a number of label unique songs. I own about 40.sc discs all artist or genre specific (ie Blues).....yet others have tunes/genres specific that sc never offered (ie Swing). As to sonic/production quallity...to my mind Pioneer Lasers topped them all..and had numerous cuts that others never approached (ie Moondance, Summertime). And there are a number of labels that are equal to or exceed sc production levels. So while in many cases, sc is superior, it is not the end all be all.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

My singers always request SC but hardly ever request any other manufactures. I always play sc first. People come to my shows because I have a sound choice. They by far are the best.

Have you listened to any other brands?? SBI, and Zoom are blowing SC out of the water. Zoom is starting to make some of the older stuff that SC made, the versions they are coming out with make the old SC stuff look like SGB.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Big Easy, you have way too much time on your hands. Are you a KJ?

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