Karaoke Forums

With the exception of Sunfly karaoke USA website, I thought anything not licensed in the USA and Canada was off limits.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Karaoke Version and Zoom discs through Amazon. Sunfly as you mentioned. Then the US offerings..
Am I missing anyone?

That's what Karaoke-Version said too, but then when you contact your neighborhood licensing department, they tell you different. (Bottom line If both parties agree then it's a go)

SBI, ZOOM, MR.Entertainer, are the only sticky ones.

Oh, I reached out to Karaoke Version and they would do custom bulk sets too. The Karaoke.net offer there is quite a deal. It would be an even better deal if they included additional lifetime 1.00 for new tracks if you did their entire catalog..

They all do the "Bulk" deal, just some companies have people representing them and they are not the "Top guy" so it's hard to grab those deals.

I pretty much keep an eye out for coupon codes giving the 30% off but limit to 10-20 song limits.

In the professional world of karaoke. Each of these companies can simply offer a "Yearly Pro KJ LICENSE" as their product and by doing this it will make their company more solid opening the doors to music holders. There are over 44 million tracks in the music industry and no KJ can afford that, but with a yearly license in place. Music industries will open their doors and offer more tracks and the karaoke industry would explode into even more popularity.

Right now there is probably 30,000 tracks in karaoke... big difference as compared to 44 million.
Remember.. it's never about owning the product it's more like "Paying for the right's to use the product and that's a big difference in the Music industry to open doors.

Sorry to use Microsoft as an example. But they don't sell any products either. They are in the business to sell "Licenses" and each of those licenses have rules and guidelines to follow.

a) Device license > One device tied to one license allowing many users to access. (Similar to a karaoke venue hiring kj's to work shifts)

b) User license > One user tied to the license (Similar to a mobile karaoke company where the KJ provides services under his/her license.

There is also a BSA department that goes around and ensures the licenses are being used properly and each device or user is Compliant.

If karaoke companies followed this type of business plan... EVERYBODY WINS!!!!!

Wow this post has gotten a lot of hits for the short time it has been on this forum. As I remember when Jim said his farewell cousinvinnie appeared on the horizon. The timing seemed strange now I am beginning to believe that it is not a mere act of chance. I'm wondering if the cousin is a relationship of Kurt and Jim, or maybe them with a new pen name? It was nice to see the part about the karaoke player being used, since I'm one of the few hosts that has a great deal of experience with that delivery system. I still use one in my show today, when I perform. By seeing the number of responses from vinnie and the depth of information he seems to have concerning PEP, it is hard for me to believe he is not in some way connected. Just an observation folks, I could be wrong.

Dude? Stop hitting yourself... Stop hitting yourself... and now a word from our sponsors

LoneR, I don’t think there’s a relation between Vinnie, Kurt, or Jim. But Vinnie is connected to someone we knew dearly.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

Sorry . . . The only winners in RTNO(Rent to Never Own) scams are the companies. The customer is always last.

"Access" to 120,000 songs means nothing when you will only play maybe 2000 of them . . . EVER. 118000 dog turds will never magically turn into diamonds.

You are really paying 72 cents per song per year FOREVER(2000 titles you actually play divided by (120 dollars a month x 12 months)) . . . AND . . . when you quit you have built up exactly ZERO equity.

At 3 dollars a track to purchase . . . that 1440 dollars would buy you 480 diamonds a year with Zero turds.

In just over 4 years you would OWN your 2000 diamonds with nary a turd in sight.

I would rather OWN the tracks I DECIDE to PURCHASE and have residual VALUE in my collection at the end of the day.

Anybody who thinks "subscription" is great must also LOVE their cable company.

If it's advertised as a "service" you can be certain that no matter what the price . . . It doesn't include lube.

Sometimes, I feel your pain dsm2000.

I would be really surprised if Sound Choice got back in the game. Whether or not you think they licensed their tracks properly or not, the current atmosphere is really not conducive to American companies creating content for karaoke. I'm not saying that it can't be done because obviously Jan Stevens is doing a good job of acquiring licenses. Karaoke Version on the other hand seems to be doing a good job of it as well and from some of the music that I've heard, they are really doing a nice job with that as well. Also being European they do have a slight edge in the licensing arena but I don't believe it to be an enormous edge. Nevertheless the consumer market has diminished considerably at least as far as I can tell so I don't know how much saturation is in the boutique markets at present, but my gut feeling is that it would be more of gamble than a risk.

I wouldn't get back into producing content for karaoke under the current copyright laws, or actually under the current interpretations of the copyright laws. Also at my age I no longer have that level of drive to run a company with many employees and the constant legal issues. I do miss the music part but the last 10 years or so I never stepped inside of the studios much except on a rare occasion if we had a last minute cancellation of a session with a musician and I could cover the track myself which didn't happen very often.

One thing for sure is that if I ever were to throw my hat in the ring again, it would be an entirely different model than that which was built on the disc format. I would probably release music as singles on a weekly basis. One of the things that I would like to see but I don't think would catch on is to release different arrangements of a song, i.e. a pop version, an acoustic version, maybe a reggae version, a dance mix, etc. So if you were to buy a song you would get up to 5 or more different arrangements of that song. It would be fun to see how a singer might be able to sing an entirely different arrangement of a song than what most people are accustomed to hearing.

I totally agree. I want to "own" the music I'm paying for. So, at the end of the day, when I retire, I have something of value that I can either keep or sell and make some money. The other way, you have nothing. You've spend hundreds of dollars "renting" with nothing to show for it. What you're spending in one year on a subscription, will be enough money to purchase enough tracks to run a successful show. And they're yours to keep.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Subscriptions is just a cheezy "Consumer" way of selling karaoke product. No one needs to own anything, they just use the product offering with the knowledge that when it's gone, it's gone. just like playing a song on the jukebox.

Consumers are in it for the enjoyment and not "ownership" and the market is huge because no one get's hurt.

Professional "Commercial" users are in the same boat. We think we own something even though we purchased something but in reality we still own nothing.

So we go out and buy a CD (We don't own the music but because we bought that CD means we can play it as many times as we like. Yes Let me say this one more time. Because we own the CD means we don't have to pay again to listen to the content "on that CD"

If the world went by that concept of "Owning a song" then we would see many versions and lyrics under the same tracks. Because of this is the reasons we have "rules"

I can start up my own "Sound Choice" type of company and not produce any music content but instead produce a "License to play music" a piece of paper or a sticker and sell one to every DJ/KJ... and millions of KJ/DJ's will pay me $500.00/year (Priced based on and average professional amount of what he/she would spend on new content per year).

This whole idea that SC aka PEP is going to restart itself is just an illusion. I don't see how anyone could take this idea as being in any way serious. Even Jim has thrown in the towel, at least for now. I didn't worry about SC when I was active in the industry, and now that I am semi-retired I even think less about them.

Sound Choice/Pep is just a single company...
Sybersound is a good company for North Americans...
Recisio is also another company...

There are many companies to choose from in today's world...

They all are similar to a "Jukebox" Company. None of them "Own the music either" they just own "Rights and Permissions"

We as professional KJ's/DJ's are just "service providers"... yes... "WE GET PAID TO PUSH PLAY" some of us take it a step further and include interactive services.

In today's day and age we use a "jukebox" style device for our music resources "Offline" or "Online" same thing only one requires internet.

It doesn't matter what company we choose to get the "Content"
so if one company is not yet available, there are 3 or 4 others that are.

If Pep/Sound Choice chooses to get back in the game... no problem! see you when your back. I will keep some room open in my jukebox for when you return.

Just keep in mind: it is "Your Choice" to deal with any company. I choose the ones who answer my emails, support my business structure, companies that work with me to succeed in my business, not just those that are in it for the profit.


It's too bad that companies like Music Maestro and others gave up so easy without a fight.

Kudos to Sound Choice for never giving up because they too believed in the loyalty of their customers.

That is incorrect. Karaoke companies aren't anything like jukebox companies. Jukebox companies don't own either the musical compositions or the sound recordings. Karaoke companies on the other hand either own or license the sound recordings, so in that sense they do own the music.

Sorry to bust your bubble my friend. But they own (@$%&#!).

They ask for permission to re-produce the lyrics into a graphic and then market it like it's their own stuff.

Hey business is business I guess. Everyone needs to make money. As a musician I would say, if they want to make something theirs... then they should create an original piece of music and go from there. Everything otherwise is just "Permissions"

Bastiat... you look sexy and smart in your pic, but don't fall into embarrassment where someone will put you on their knee and spank your bottom.

Then basically every artist who remakes a song that gets put on the radio basically isn't entitled to get paid for their recording. They're just licencing the songs they remake. Then why the hell should they even bother with the remake. Karaoke manufacturers are just as deserving of making money off of their recordings as well. With the exception of a few manufacturers, every Karaoke song out there are recreations and not the original recordings. Even though some have come very close to the original recording, none of them are exact duplicates of the songs.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Karaoke back in the day was fun... remember attending a karaoke show where the kj played the background track and we would hold the lyrics part in hand

Never attended one of those. It was LaserKaraoke when I got introduced to it.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.