Karaoke Forums

Yes it's that once a year time again, where I put aside my angst towards this site for a day and post something (It's been over a year since my last post I think)

10 months ago things went sour at 7 Bamboo. I started looking for new work, found it.

It was a bittersweet ending. My team has worked years on akdj/qup. 7b was the only venue running it as intended. It was a setback for sure. There's a saying, "You don't know how much you love something until it's gone" One of my patrons I always fancied would make a phenomenal salesman had enough. He missed the system enough to do a call to action, and suggested a month ago that we would try selling it. So one weekend we went around town until we found a venue.

Our pitch was simple. Let us run this thing the way we want, no cost to them. They liked it.

So why am I putting "I got a new venue" in legalities?

As folks know, I'm an avid anti-pirate/fair use kind of guy. I designed a system that interfaced the tricerasoft store for content. This is going to be a "Blank" install. No songs on this jukebox when it's delivered. We'll be hooking it up to the internet, and customers will buy songs for the jukebox.

This is a huge paradigm shift from not just how karaoke is run, but its content delivery as well, which is why the subject belongs here in legalities.

There won't be a smidgen of KIAA content on this box. Not unless those folks want to stop this silly war and come play. The venue I'm installing at has 8 locations, and they're already asking me, "How fast can you build these systems?"

Slep, I'm still pissed at you if you read this. When I didn't have a day jobby job, when I was slaving away at 7b broke as hell, I tried to get you to come to the table. Same thing goes for stellar, same thing goes for CB. You guys are the Republicans of the karaoke world, holding back EVERYTHING.

Now you're going to see how irrelevant you are. We're moving on without you.

Folks, if you truly want to change things, you have to man up and do it. Personally, I don't come here much. I'm sick of the fracturing of the karaoke community due to all this nonsense about "Karaoke Legalities" in the first place.

I'll update things from time to time to let folks know how things are going.

Joe are you psychic? Toger's back!!! sort of.

Since Joe's late to the party,

Joe I think the KIAA folks are a bunch of idiots. They're all Republicans, and like our Republican idiots in congress holding back the budget (thanks, my wife's on sequester now) the KIAA group of dum dums are holding back karaoke.

Some have called my complaining about their lack of openess in their online stores to be "sour grapes" No.. that's not it at all. Every company that has created an open marketplace for goods and content thrives. Amazon, ebay, and tricerasoft to name a few. It gives the consumer choice in play

The KIAA group wants to sell you the content, and the player. Plain and simple as that. They don't want anyone else getting a cut of that. Rather than stick with what they were good at (Jamming in the studio, making good cuts of music) they're going down the same tried (and failed) path the music industry did in the 90's.

I have no doubt at some point, we'll see karaoke CDG's with backdoors installed on them (ala sony rootkit debacle years ago) Even if we never see it, I'm sure they all think that's a GREAT idea.

When you treat your customers like crap, and they don't buy your crap anymore, when you treat folks that would support you like crap, and they don't sell your crap anymore, guess who the only one left holding the crap?

I'm just waiting for the day when the rest of you wake up. Some have, some are still in la la land.

I have been telling folks on the forums for almost 2 years now that downloading via stores is the future of karaoke. I even proposed that a new KJ could simply get a gig and start with zero tracks and just download as requested. I am still considering it for a new gig I am trying to land in a few weeks.

I haven't purchased any "new" music on disc in over a year now since I let me PHM autoship expire. Every "new" track has been purchased through an online store. I still buy old music on CD+G because there is old stuff that isn't available for download and I can get such great deals on it. But I don't spend nearly as much time doing that any longer.

Toqer - Good luck with the new venture and new gigs.

-Chris

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-Chris

Toqer, I wish you the VERY best of luck in this venture!! You are a true revolutionary, and a fellow anti-Republican!! I applaud you. I, myself, fully support the online stores like Tricerasoft, and ASK. I think it is the most cost effective and easy way to build a collection. I like building my collection based on requests. Makes it more fun. Not to mention my customers appreciate it when I tell them that I don't have the song yet, but I will in a few minutes. Sometimes they even stay and watch, and I get to show them the process.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I missed you!!!!!
Welcome back, and don't wait 1 year to post again!

You can always friend me on facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/robert.michael.cortese

Most of my updates for this build are going there. It's been a rough week of day job + nightly building.

I like you Toqer, I just wish we could leave politics out of it. If we got to go there, than ok, I think both parties are full of ....

Toqer, despite the fact that I'm a dyed in the wool Luddite, you have warmed my heart with your perfect description of SC above. Welcome back.

....and forget KIAA. Just a bunch of initials, no substance, a mailbox rented at a prestige address. Just another example of complete mismanagement. This was known a long time ago- no one even thinks of them.

Do what you do, and be successful.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Glad I warmed that heart of your Joe.

The KIAA... Rather than pull the KJ community together, they've split us apart. Screw em.

I install my jukebox tomorrow. Daily I'll be updating folks what songs were purchased for it. I won't give pure financials, but I do plan on listing the number of times a song has been used (so folks can get an idea of how quickly paypack on songs is)

With 8 locations for this company, it won't be long till this system becomes somewhat of a standard for karaoke in the bay area. The KIAA will get no play. I will be proving 2 things.

1. Karaoke can still be a viable business so long as publishers are willing to work with their customers. Customers can be an end user KJ or software providers (like my team)

2. KIAA based content is not a prerequisite for success.

My side of things is not full of....

1. Fair use is fair use. If someone pays for a song, only uses it on a 1:1 basis, then why the beef from the KIAA?

2. All software publishers should have easy API access to content. The KIAA's exclusivity with certain software publishers to their stores is nonsense. I'm building a better mousetrap, but the KIAA wants to be in charge of the mice? Utter, ridiculous nonsense.

Toquer - I respect your views, position and attitude as well as your prowess with putting together some unique hardware and software for running a karaoke show. My only problem is with charging any amount of money on a per singer basis. I know it worked a 7bamboo and may work at the new locations you are starting up, but I don't think it is viable for all communities. It appears to be a pretty hefty investment in time and money to even test market.

-Chris

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-Chris

Right, and that's the third thing I need to prove (should have included it on my list) That this model for running karaoke will work anywhere if the venue owner is open to it.

I know it's hard for some folks to swallow, but it works if you can provide the end user with a better experience than what they get for free.

Example:
Open office is free. It gets the job done somewhat, but it doesn't even come close to what MS office can do. Heck, all of open source is free, and can do most of the things you need it to do if you cobble everything together.

Philosophy time:
One thing I've learned in my early years of doing karaoke is every KJ is a hated person. Maybe not by everyone, but there's at least one person in a crowd that is thinking, "Is he putting his friend up before me? Is he bumping that girl up because she flirted with him?" While those thoughts may or may not be true, it doesn't distract from the fact that all KJ's are subjected to this type of scrutiny nightly.

Just by removing that single element (human run rotations) you give the singer a better experience.

And likewise, there will be singers that want to interact with a human to ask for song suggestion, more reverb, adjust the lights, more cowbell.

Not trying to start an argument (I really do think what you are doing is super cool) just pointing out that full automation is easier for a KJ to sit back and watch the Benjamin's rolling in, but human interaction has been a core tenant of karaoke since day 1. Machines can provide am automatic, consistent experience but aren't very good at specific customer service requests.

-Chris

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-Chris

Sure they are, you just haven't seen software capable of doing those things (yet)

Song suggestions are easy. Look at a users history, and find songs in the same genre, by same artist. Maybe even keep a DB of a singers pitch score (how high/low can they go)

Reverb, etc... Did I ever tell you about my automated mixing? It works wonders. Also we have vocal effect presets in the pipeline.

Announcements maybe? Yup, google text to speech API while still sounding robotic, is getting better.

Fair enough, but I like interacting directly with people so as cool as it is, I won't be replacing my interation with people and friends or skip out on meeting some of the coolest people I know by letting a machine do everything for me.

Unless it makes me $1,000,000 a year......I can be bought.



-Chris

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-Chris

i would be willing for $100,000 i'm not as greedy as Chris

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Hell I'd be happy a 3rd of that to start.

It's an amazing collection of code. Funny to think it all started with me renaming mp3+g tags in winamp, then displaying the playlist with the wwwamp plugin. All these crazy experiments over the years, each meeting with either success (crowd likes it/uses it) or failure (constant complaints/isn't used)

There's other parts too where a customer might complain, but they use a feature anyways. If it's something that benefits them and us, despite complaints we'll keep it in. We got a whole stash of experiments we haven't even begun to solidify into code yet. I've cobbled together some amazing audio processing techniques using ASIO, Reaper, and the EMU 1616 with its patchmix software.

I don't want to go into too many details, but we basically got mixing and effects that are responsive to the singer. We looked at the cues that you would normally look at as a KJ, and used those to trigger a proper response. This is all done within 10ms of a singers start of a song. Soon as it hears what's coming down the mic channel, it does magic to the music and the singers voice with the speed and accuracy of a computer.

Computers are amazing tools. You can hum a key into mine, and it will tell me precisely what Mhz your voice is.

I will definitely be watching your process. I am considering multi-state operations in which case I would be less resistant to having an automated system that can be managed/monitored remotely.

I actually brought this up with all of my hosts last night. In it impossible for them to be unbiased because it means they are out of a job. None of them liked the idea. But they probably don't appreciate what goes into making this all work the same way I do. Still, I feel a responsibility to keeping these folks working and growing so I can put even more to work.

-Chris

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-Chris

They may not necessarily be out of a job--Toqer didn't you used to act as a sort of bouncer/trouble shooter each night even though the machine was running the show?