Karaoke Forums

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/jun/1 ... d=Facebook

Wow. Chartbuster is really sticking it to the legitimate KJs now.

We've been subjected to pirates who enter our markets and drive down the price of karaoke. We've joined in the fight against these pirates. Now, CB is making it easier for any Joe Blow to get into the business. With their MediaPro hard drive and now the subscription service, CB can put anyone into business for a fraction of what it cost me (and every other legitimate KJ).

What I see happening, other than increased legal competition, is more bars going to DYI karaoke where they put together their own sound system and run their own karaoke. Why? Because the savvy ones are going to realize that they don't have to spend many thousands of dollars to do their own karaoke. Less than $1,000 in sound equipment will get them started.

Overall, the money that we get for karaoke is going to go down in the coming years. Get ready for it because its coming.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

For $99 a month for commercial use, is this only a "streaming" internet style or is this the CompuHost HD to "unlock" songs?

It appears to be different than the CompuHost HD deal in which you "unlock" songs with credits but get to keep them. "Streaming" would not allow one to keep the track.

If it is internet based streaming content, there could be a lot of problems. You don't see DJ's using internet jukeboxes, do you?

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"Just Say NO, To Justin Bieber & His Beatle Haircut"

I wouldn't use it. Internet is too unreliable to rely on for a good show. Nice to start singing a song & oops stops for buffering. Plus like said, you don't actually get the songs - so say you had access to a song, the publisher pulls the license, so CB must remove the song that you used to have access to. Nah not worth it.
Love the HDMedia idea not the streaming. Not going to worry about competition using it against me either.

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

DJs don't use internet jukeboxes because its not set up for that.

You are right. They can't keep the song. But who cares.

Back to the savvy bar owner: he realizes that he can pay $99 for music per month. Buy $1,000 worth of sound equipment. Pay an employee $10/hr to run it. And, he can run karaoke as many nights as he wants for $10/hr.

This, versus paying me (or you) to come in at $150 per show.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

Let them go for it. They will soon realize it's a lot harder than just getting music, PA & some twit that don't know squat about it. I have watched bars do this for years. Most give it up shortly after or rehire companies that know what they are doing. Very few (comparitively) actually succeed running their own karaoke.

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

You forget the cost of the laptop. It has to be a Mac. It's only offered through KJams.

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

I'm with Lonnie. I'm not worried about this kind of competition. Also if a song is pulled for whatever reason, then a patron returns not to find it, they would probably pretty upset. Just another problem.

Now buying the HD deal & hiring a $10 an hour KJ, I could see as prudent but the venue would eventually start spending thousands at $1.99 a song which could easily come to the $1,200 annual subscription fee for the streaming deal in one year unless there were more than 600 individual song requests in 1 year.

I would still have to bring to any show that did this my SC full length version of War Pigs though!

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"Just Say NO, To Justin Bieber & His Beatle Haircut"

According to CB's site, it is also offered through Windows (at the bottom)

http://www.chartbusterkaraoke.com/kjams-pr

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

The program may be offered for Windows (although it even states on KJams own site that not all functions work on the Windows software & is a testing version), doesn't mean it works with Windows. They specifically state MAC use. And the link they give for the free player is for MAC only. And they even have this disclaimer on their site for the software in general.
Keep in mind this is DEVELOPMENT software, NOT "Release", not "Beta", not even "Alpha", but one stage BEFORE that. (click here for an explanation) That means there ARE bugs (ie: you will likely experience "Asserts" and even crashes), and there ARE performance problems (noteably searching can be s-l-o-w), and not all features are even present! You have been warned.

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

Just saw that a KJ can subscribe for $20 a month.

Should one risk running the streaming S/W along with running whatever mp3+g S/W one uses at the same time? More problems?

So now a new KJ Company can start up with the 12,000 CB library for only $240 a year by "renting" the karaoke content? Is it worth the risk of internet & server reliability?

Me thinks you get what you pay for!

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"Just Say NO, To Justin Bieber & His Beatle Haircut"

Also wondering if you can load several songs into a playlist and what the in between time would be - does it have to stream the entire song first or will it begin play immediately. Often times i'll run an outro of a song & when the next singer gets up fade into the new song for time saving purpose. I don't think this would be a very fast show.

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

So what's wrong with that? I'm in a band. In my area that means we compete with bands willing to offer their services for free, or even PAY the venue to let them play. We charge $500 for a bar gig, and $1000 for corporate/organizational events. We've got more requests for bookings than we can fill.

The dives that can't afford you aren't worth going after anyway. Remind 'em that you get what you pay for.

BTW . . . Macy's has towels on sale.

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Dave's not here.

If this was the most cost effective and profitable way to provide customers with entertainment, every bar would have the internet jukebox and never hire a live DJ - don't see that happening in my area and we have some pretty savvy bar owners. Champps has tried it here with their DJ booth, complete with music and karaoke cds. The booth sits empty with all the equipment and on Friday night they have a live KJ in there using a Bose L1 and the place is packed. The rest of the nights, it's a ghost town.

There's nothing like a live KJ to make people feel comfortable about singing. It's that thing that nobody wants to be the first. They need the KJ to get it going and keep it going and keep them coming back.

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KNOW THYSELF

As to the subject of this thread we are talking about something that isn't even really past the concept stage.

For me this program would not even get a consideration (the streaming idea doesn't appeal to me at all)

As others have stated I have seen "bar" operated systems and for the most part they are dead before they ever get started.

Ok, since I am one of the few KJ's here that use a Mac, and also use Kjams I will bring you all up to speed here.

Yes, this is a brand new technology for them (Chartbuster & streaming). Yes, as I type this there are still bugs! I have been in contact with Dave from Kjams & Chartbuster directly since its release. Chartbuster is currently fixing the issues at hand. Kjams has released a couple of updated versions to clean up their end. So far, it's not 100% up and running.

Questions were asked on songs stopping mid way do to buffering. This is not the case, the songs cache 100% before you play them. Once done, you can stream it and I honestly can say it is Charbuster quality.

So far in my experience from the time I click the song (add to singer) it's merely 5-10 seconds before it's completely ready. Takes longer for that for a singer to come up, get the mic and be ready. Of course this will vary depending on your connection etc. BUT even if you are using a wireless card, the song, once loaded is 100% ready.

In the current version now, you cannot "load" up more than one singer with these songs. That update is coming though. So, if you are using the streaming Chartbuster site, you load them one at a time. But as stated, cache time is not an issue in my experience.

Trust me, I too have thousands invested in my legal library! Having said that, If it's going this direction (and it is) I am glad they have made it legal for us to grab ahold of it and offer it to our customers.

I have already started promoting this, and have been working on a separate set of song books that include this new selection (for the nights I do not have net connection I bring out my current books)

I do not rely solely on my song selection for getting hired. We strive to provide the best professional service in our area. This means the best equipment we can afford, keeping things fresh and always thinking outside the box, bringing exciting personalities to KJ etc. We have a pretty good following that travels around where we go. (we are mobile and do not play each week same location).
I am not worried about competition gaining access to these songs nor taking away my business.

Insert opinions here

come on guy quit yer witching....the mediapro hd makes it cheaper and easier for longtime kj's to keep current....if you use Comopuhost the cost per new usable release is lower than ever...with glitchy internet it will be many years before streaming will work properly and I'd love for someone to tell me how paying +20. per month for 1200 song makes any sense...think about it .....most of us already own the greatest majority(plz send me the info about legality for commercial use as I cant find it)......off my soapbox now

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Kjathena,
The legalities are on their website. I actually posted all of this info here in another thread. If you can't find it let me know, I will copy and paste. And at $20.00/month we get to stream all of the most current songs they offer, not to mention the ones I do not have in my library. I will take it. As far as glitchy internet, where are you from....Canada?

Athena,

The $20 a month is for the entire CB library for commercial KJ/DJ

http://www.chartbusterkaraoke.com/kjams ... ccess.html

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"Just Say NO, To Justin Bieber & His Beatle Haircut"

Yup. Saw them try it years ago with those big red CAVS karaoke jukeboxes. Throw in a dollar and sing. Right.

Starting gathering dust pretty quickly. Not just from having no one energizing the place, but other things too. For instance,how long do you think people want to hear one diva sing all night? Heck, don't want to hear 5 hours of a professional! Of course, they can always fight over it- and do.

Only place you see them these days is very occasionally in Asian karaoke rooms.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."