Karaoke Forums

I have to thank you all for turning me on to Dangerous Karaoke.

In my other post about DK (Daiichi Kosho), one poster thought we were talking about Dangerous Karaoke, there were comments left about Dangerous being pretty good.

I went out an looked at the song list on the 11 disk set, and was impressed, because many of the titles aren't available anywhere else.  A lot of these songs are from my days in High School, some of them I used to sing in local bands, so I took a shot and ordered the set.

They came yesterday, and I sampled the songs, and almost fell over. These are excellent quality recordings. The set will be on my system by the weekend.

It's really hard to add new disks after you get to the number that I have. Most of the time I'm adding by request, and generally Sound Choice. To find a set with probably 75 % songs that I don't have is a real find. Then to have many of my old favorites is even better.

Thank you all for turning me on to this! Much appreciated!

I have to agree..it's a dynamite set! I've had mine now for about 3 years and it's amazing how much it used. Guess it depends on the clientèle but it's a hit in my venues.

_________________
FlipSide Karaoke
Scott

Flipper,

The one thing that I didn't include in my original post is that after you build your library around DK, Sound Choice and Chartbusters, it's hard to buy other brands, in most cases they are never very good. It's an expensive "hit or miss" proposition. To get the comments from people here, help me to take a chance and see what these sounded like (actually the price was not bad). Then, when I sampled them, I was floored. They sound like all studio musicians and very talented ones at that. Not the synthesized elevator stuff on many of the "other" brands.

I've had the original set since they came out in '94-95.  Musically, they have some of the best versions - lyrically, well they wrote what they heard often times  LOL .  This set is highly under rated by many kj's for some odd reason.  I have at least 1-2 discs pulled nightly.  You Oughta Know is preferred over SC version.  Honky Tonk Woman, Turn the page, a couple of the Van Halen tunes same thing.  They weren't your typical midi recordings like All Hits & the likes, they actually used instruments & drums (or they had THE best drum machine ever made).

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

Always got to take at least a chance on occasion.  I got 2 American Karaoke discs for Gretchen Wilson, they sound fine, at least up with the Monthly sounds.  Same with an Evanescence disc I found on an off brand (still think it was the Top Tunes relabeled), pretty good & still gets used nightly (or near to that).  There are certain brands I wouldn't touch if they were given to me - SGB comes to mind, have HAD a bunch given to me & I literally threw them away they were so bad - I have 3 SGB in my collection.  However EVERY brand has got their diamond in the rough!

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

Lonman,

I've got a few Monthly's, and have been looking at getting more for my local job. Have a lot of younger people that want the latest stuff. Up north the crowd is older, and they want country, country and more country.

I disagree with you on SGB's tho. I have a few songs that I do from them. One is Sweet Home Chicago, from the blues disk. I haven't found a better version. SC version is just flat compared to SGB. Also Freddy Fender "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" the SGB version is true to the original with the spanish verse included and correctly spelled and cued. The SC version does not have the spanish verse, and sounds flat musically. Over all, SGB's are not the best, but there are a few gems in there.

It's kind of hard to always know the best version out there, we just assume that SC is the benchmark, but then you find out they aren't in some cases. problem is with the thousands of songs in a collection, it's hard to hear them all. Usually, it's a song you do, or one that someone tries, and you go "geez, I didn't know I even had that!" Sometimes when I'm sampling new stuff and converting, I'll hear one that I make a note of...otherwise, there isn't any way of knowing.

I noticed that right away. The words were wrong on a few of the ones I ran through. The thing is, the music is so right on, that if you know the song, it doesn't make any difference. I'm already working on a couple of songs that I would like to do off the set, and I don't need the lyrics.

BTW, singers that follow the lyrics for karaoke will most times get into trouble...

Actually many of SGB discs were direct copies from All Hits - some even down to the All Hits graphics at the beginning.  SGB added an exhuberant amount of reverb to many of the tracks to 'thicken' them up (this can be done to the 'flat' SC discs as well on the spot live), but none the less, the are mostly all midi versions.  Sweet Home Chicago is a prime example of the reverb manipulation.
http://www.phonglekaraoke.com/store/cat ... /1-318.mp3  All Hits clip
http://www.phonglekaraoke.com/store/cat ... 27/1-1.mp3  SGB clip.
Same song, just mass more reverb on the SGB version & maybe a little eq adjustment in the bottom end.
I just listened to the clip from Sound Choice & Must say I have to disagree whole heartidly, the music is much cleaner, not as muddy & a whole lots less reverb.  Again, if you want the false thickness of the SGB version, you can do the same thing with the reverb knob on the music channel.  
But I guess it's all in what we hear.  Someone argued that the SGB version of Lynyrd Skynyrd - Simple Man was musically perfect & the SC version sucked, not so!
I stand by my original statment of SGB, yes they do have a few 'diamonds in the rough - as all manus do' but overall, they are among the worst IMO.



No SC isn't ALWAYS the best, probably 80% of the time they are pretty dead on.  But when buying, there are several online sources you can get a quick sample to hear the quality before hand.  Especially if you are getting one song, compare them all beforehand.

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

Lonman,

Hmmm, I play guitar, and I'm struggling with believing that that guitar track is a midi track. If it is, it's a pretty damn good midi. Part of what makes the SGB track work is the "fatness" of the sound, because that's what this blues song is all about. Blues also needs to have the "slip" that the SGB version has. Everything is not perfect in a real blues performance, and I think that is why that particular version works. Now, if you just take the music, out of context with the vocal, it's a bit hard to get the point of it. I happen to sing this with a very heavy "rip" Joe Cocker style, and the music becomes a background to the vocal once it's sung...this is one of my opening songs...it is used about every other week to open the show, and it honestly kicks butt...I've tried the SC version, and it just doesn't work as well.

The SC version is in an older blues style (like Muddy Waters), while the SGB version more approximates the way the Blues Brothers did the song in the movie...it was tighter, more upbeat and jazzy.

I rarely add effects to the music, most times it creates a "fake" sound. Maybe this is a "weakness" of mine, or the fact that my ear hears "too" much. We could get into a bunch of stuff here, but I think we disagree on this one.

The midi portion I was talking about was more drums, bass, horns etc..  I do believe they are in fact using real guitars - I play as well, but midi & sequenced drums that SOUND processed are a big issue with me.  Don't get me wrong, Sound Choice DO in fact have many drum machine tracks they use, some are very obvious, but they aren't as often as some of the others.  

That may be why you didn't care for the SC style, they do have both a Robert Johnson original style (slide guitar, slower version)
http://www.phonglekaraoke.com/store/cat ... 4/1-16.mp3
& the Blues Bros version, faster, complete with horns and all.
http://www.phonglekaraoke.com/store/cat ... 14/1-8.mp3
And to me this is closer to the original movie soundtrack.  
http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Brothers-Or ... 560&sr=8-2

As far as adding effects to the music, it generally is not needed, especially on the SGB track in question, it already has a buttload of reverb in it.  That's all I was getting at was you can acheive the same effect on the SC version if you wanted that 'processed' sound.

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

Lonman,

Your right on there. Robert Johnson...couldn't think of his name. I said Muddy Waters to get to the general time frame. The older version has a more twangy guitar...if you know what I mean. It's also really slow. I didn't realize that there were two different versions of SC on this song... I have those both, I will have to listen to them. I might be wrong on this until I hear both versions.

I understand what your saying about the midi on the drums and bass, etc. I don't usually like them either, but on this song, the guitar licks are really good, so you get a "live" feel out of it. The vocals really are the focal point though, so the midi stuff gets a little lost in the mix.

For me, the comparision on midi is a little different. I'm an old school rock n roll guy, and one of my favorite bands is the Doors. There are a very few (maybe 5) Doors songs available on SC. So for many of them the only disks are Legends and Backstage. These are some crap midi versions. Yet, if you can do the vocals, the songs actually don't sound that bad. Sure I would prefer better versions, but you can still do them at least.

Didn't Robert Johnson do Sweet Home Chicago at the Crossroads concert with Eric Clapton? He also wrote the song Crossroads I think...

Well of course, if a song is only available in a crappy midi format, you learn to adapt & make the best of it.  I'm not even saying ALL midi work is bad, but it seems these cheaper brands take shortcuts & don't really put a real effort into getting the music to sound better.



Well I don't think so , Robert Johnson died in '38.  Eric Claptons biggest influence WAS Robert & he did alot of covers from him in the early years.  CrossRoads by Cream was an adaptation of Johnsons CrossRoad Blues & also had a verse from Johnsons Traveling Riverside Blues (another song covered by Led Zeppelin & some lines were purposely used for their version of the Lemon SOng).  1 interpretation is it's about Johnson himself selling his soul to the devil for being able to play & gain fame.  Others believe the song is actually about an African-American worried about being lynched for being out in an unfamiliar place after dark in the Deep South.

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

I never knew those songs were that old. I remember an old blues guy doing Sweet Home Chicago at Crossroads...man, I know about the lemon song and the stories about him selling his soul...must be the drugs I did in the 60's...thanks for clearing that up.

I bought them to build my home library. While I don't use many any more, there are several that are better than SoundChoice, Chartbuster, or any other version in my opinion. They have by far the best "If You Could Read My Mind" and the only decent "Alone Again Naturally". Their "Genie in a Bottle" and "The Tide is High" are also quite good. "Doctor My Eyes" and "Melissa" have screwed up words, but each is a good musical track that is better than SC in my opinion.

Nonetheless, I think if I became a pro KJ I would take most of the SGB tracks out of the book, if only because the words can be so far off. I would keep the ones I mentioned on merit, and their SGB01 through SGB03 and artist disks (Alice Cooper, Cher, Skynard, Clapton, Weird Al) for coverage.

Funny thing is If You Could Read My Mind was originally off a MegaHits (All Hits alter ego) disc '93-94 circa - it is a good version, but kind of hard to mess up a guitar only song and since it's been relabled back under All Hits again.  The SGB is a direct copy musically of that song.  Alone Again was originally an All Hits as well.

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

Yes, a lot of SGB use the same music as All Hits. Since the graphics appear similar, I thought perhaps they bought the All Hits stuff to start with.

I know that IYCRMM is guitar only, but for some reason I have tried the SoundChoice and the SGB and far prefer the SGB. I think it is because of the fuller sound of the instrumentation -- some of the SoundChoice can be a bit delicate at times.

Alone Again Naturally is one of my favorite songs to sing -- a real crowd pleaser. No one seems to sing it but me, and if you were anywhere near a radio in the Summer of '72 you cannot help but know it.

I got the Dangerous disks converted and loaded on my machine for Sat nite. I already have 20 songs on there that I want to do! My wife is really excited, because she loves Neil Young and James Taylor...I like Ten Years After, Vanilla Fudge and Grand Funk...shows the diference in our tastes.

I figure I'll probably only get to do one of the songs off there this weekend, as my Sat shows have been packed...it's a toss up between Southern Man and The Air That We Breathe...I'm having a lot of fun with this...like a kid in a candy store. I haven't had this many "new" songs that I myself like added at one time for many years.

Thanks again you guys...it's fun again