Karaoke Forums

Hello all,
If money was not an object, what would be the best karaoke system out there for someone who would prefer all the music to be pre-loaded and have the ability to load new music (easily and quickly are the key words here).  A system that you can turn on and off the lead assistance vocals.  A system that has video images playing while singing.  A system that I could load or have pre-loaded Filipino music on it.  A system that the video out is high definition for my wide screen TV.

I guess it would be nice to have a system that could automatically take any VCD or CD+G disc and transfer the songs to the hard drive inside, but I heard systems that do this take a lot of time to convert the songs.  But I also don't want to have to change discs all the time.  I would rather have a system that stores the songs and doesn’t require the discs to be used.  Key questions I have: What type of listings are given to choose the song title?  Does your recommended system do scoring on your singing? Does it have a high definition picture output for on my wide screen TV?

I have a very good home theater system with great speakers, but I have read some that say a home theater system does not handle the singing well and they recommend a PA system.  What do you say about this?  I was considering just purchasing a player and playing it through my home theater receiver and speakers, but does a separate PA system sound so much better for a karaoke system?

After answering all these, the bottom line is if price is not an issue, what is the best karaoke machine or set up for me?  Please keep in mind this is for home use in my living room so I wouldn’t want a bunch of huge equipment.

Thank you all for your time.

if you want a preloaded system to start with, sounds like you've convinced yourself to ONLY get the CAVS jukebox system (JB-199).

good luck with that!

Home theater systems aren't designed for live vocals.  You would want a separate PA, you keep saying money is no object, but PA's themselves can get very expensive or you can get them pretty cheap.  Set a starting budget you don't want to go over for your PA & the music/players, then you can get a better idea of what you might be able to get.  The CAVS jukebox that Matt mentioned is about $1500-2500 alone with a bunch of crappy to ok sounding tracks - depending on what you have it loaded with.

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If the CAVs songs aren't so good for clarity, then what is the best way for quality music?  How about the Acesonic KOD-650 Karaoke-On-Demand Jukebox?  You can have this unit loaded with some music by whoever you buy it from plus you can manually load CD-G and VCD music onto its hard drive?

robdog has a jukebox that's either that one, or similar. He manually loaded all his songs.

That's what I meant about good luck with the CAVS. If you have to have it preloaded, that's the only option out there!

The rest of us that have a digital system have ALL loaded our own with our purchased cdgs.

Well it's basically the same as a CAVS with pretty much the same base set (Sweet Georgia Brown lower scale of quality) pre-load options - that CAVS uses , but it's only $1000 base price & goes higher as you change the options for the music load which can run you up to extra thousands depending on your choices.  
The best way for quality music would be to purchase the discs you would like then manually load them into that unit (or the CAVS).  Or get a good quality 'core' library on disc - then you'd have the most common karaoke songs.
I think you may be getting 'On Demand" confused with something you hook up to the internet to download to play - which isn't legal.  On Demand in this case means that the discs are loaded onto the hard drive for instant access.  There are a couple of legal download sites (CAVS, Tricerasoft, THM/Panarama Records), but they are few & far between.

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Knightshow,
You mentioned, “The rest of us that have a digital system have ALL loaded our own with our purchased cdgs.”  What do you mean by “a digital system”?  Can you give me an example of a good brand and model?  Doesn’t it take a very long time to load them all and how do you view a listing of each song loaded to determine which song you want to play?  Are CDGs better than all the other formats for good, clean sound quality?  How about VCDs, how is their quality?

Lonman,
You mentioned, “…Or get a good quality 'core' library on disc.”  Could you please give me a listing of a recommended good core set?  Also, I have been told some karaoke songs are in midi format, which is compressed and doesn’t sound good.  Should I avoid midi songs at all costs?  If so, how do you know which discs are midi format?

I saw an awesome set up in the Philippines a few weeks ago where they actually had thousands of great quality songs (American and Filipino) on a computer hooked somehow to a TV & Stereo or PA system and a huge remote that you could search the songs by artist, male or female, song name and other ways.  It was all controlled by a huge remote that even had a “Service” button on it and when you pushed it the staff would come in to take your order for food or drinks.

Thank you guys for the help.

by digital system, I mean a computer. I have a separate show computer, with a hard drive of my karaoke cdgs, and lasers.

And yes, it takes a while to rip them and name them.

Depends on how many discs you have.

I took a very long time testing out various programs, and even had to have rebuild my pc once (maybe more! !) due to a beta program that overwrote tons of protocols... dlls, drivers and settings I used for other programs.

AND once I had it built, I was literally the last person who initially talked about going digital to actually run digital shows. I wanted to stress test this format as much as possible. To me, having errors when running the shows wasn't an option!

I will say that extensive preparation helped wonders when I DID run into snags. I know my ol' friend Tig helped me out more times than I could count... his patience was really without bounds helping me out by dragging me into the digital age for karaoke!

If money wasn't an object for the computer piece at least I'd buy one of MTU's computers.

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Nah you can get a custom built with better components geared more toward music/video, fast, more ram & bigger hard drives cheaper comparitively.
If you didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting one designed for music, then they do sell some darn good machines that will be more than ample.

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absolutely!

MTU offers a good deal. A good total package, and the ability to take the lite one if you don't want the songbook potential. That makes it more affordable.

I just don't happen to care for their software per se.

Clubdjpro works fantastic without all the rotation bullsh*t. AND they work with almost all forms of audio and video, with a terrific fade in and out for mixing. For MYSELF, that was a pure bonus.

A local company has recently went computerized, and they use a VERY similar type of show software. In fact, I thought it WAS clubdjpro, until I watched their software in action.

But for my particular needs, winamp works just fine!

I notice the couple of karaoke computers I saw on MTU do not have music already loaded, nor do they have component outputs or HDMI for widescreen high def TVs.

Nobody answered these, so I will ask again...Are CDGs better than all the other formats for good, clean sound quality?  How about VCDs, how is their quality?

Lonman,
You mentioned, “…Or get a good quality 'core' library on disc.”  Could you please give me a listing of a recommended good core set?  Also, I have been told some karaoke songs are in midi format, which is compressed and doesn’t sound good.  Should I avoid midi songs at all costs?  If so, how do you know which discs are midi format?

no, MTU does NOT do a preloaded hard drive.

If you'd go to their site and do some reading, ALL that they do is have the tools necessary for professional karaoke hosting, and file conversion.

The reason I've not answered your question about the audio quality of cdg vs any other kind of format is quite simply, I DON'T KNOW! They're CD quality! CDgs are the STANDARD nowadays. DVDs are usually the same tracks that are available on cdgs...

What many people consider good "Core" sets are the old Pioneer library, the Sound Choice Foundation sets (and bricks if you can), or the Chartbuster Essentials... sets that are designed by their very nature to give a rounded collection of popular "standards".

Echo what Matt said about a good 'core' set!

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Thank you, Gentlemen.  I really appreciate the assistance you provided me.

Hi Knightshow,
You mentioned these as good core sets:
the old Pioneer library, the Sound Choice Foundation sets (and bricks if you can), or the Chartbuster Essentials

I couldn't find anybody selling the "Pioneer library" and from listening to samples of the Sound Choice and Chartbuster sets, I felt the Sound Choice songs sounded much better.

In addition to any comments you want to make to my statements above, my question is which of these 3 sets have lead vocals that you can turn on and off with your player?  Or are they all only the musical instruments with no vocals?  I like to have the lead vocals on sometime.

Thank you again for your time and sharing your expertise.

some of the old lasers from Pioneer and Tip Top (and I think DK) were mulitplex, where you could have a lead vocalist on a few of the tracks.

I personally preferred the Pioneer versions on many of those songs. But it all depends on how you were brought up with karaoke. I know Tig prefers the DK versions of older Bon Jovi songs. They're what he cut his teeth on his introduction to singing karaoke. I did my introductory year with the Pioneer and the beginning Pop and Top Hits stuff. So I lean towards those three!

Don't get me wrong! I love SC stuff... but I can show you time and time again where I've compared the SC version of a song to the Pioneer one, and preferred the pioneer ones. ("Dreamweaver" is like that...) The only thing about them I DON'T like is the sound levels are QUITE reduced on the lasers (and DVDS) and cdgs! And to be brutally honest, I just loved the cheesy videos that came with the lasers/dvds! !

Where Pioneer kinda sucked was on their hits that were current at the time of the lasers releases... an example that immediately comes to mind was "Counting Blue Cars"... I felt the THM version was far superior!

Every Karoke system I have ever seen at Asian people's homes have the lead vocals you can turn on and off.  Are you saying the Sound Choice ones and others I mentioned don't have this functionality.  When I say lead vocals I am not talking necessarily about the original singer, but a chorus that helps lead the karaoke singer.

Thank you for the other info.

Sound Choice Foundations & Bricks are a great core.  No they aren't multiplexed with the singer.

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What is the best core set multiplexed with the singer?  I find it odd that they don't have the ability to turn on and off the lead singer.  Every Asian karaoke system I have ever seen (computer ran and disc machines) had this ability.