Karaoke Forums

Lately it seems as though all the KJs’ in my area are switching to computers. Question – Do these KJs actually own the thirty to sixty thousand songs that they profess to have? If they do own them then they have a lot deeper pockets than this country pumpkin does. I've purchased about twenty-five to three thousand songs and they cost me a fortune.

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I can't speak for everyone but I have been buying karaoke music since 1992. What started as a personal collection grew into what I have today, which is probably 16,000 songs. In years past it was very expensive; thankfully, with the advent of CD-G's, prices have come down. You're right - if a person purchased everything they had through legal channels, and you offered 60,000 songs, you're looking at an investment of probably $60,000.  Interestingly, shows are popping up everywhere stating they offer 80,000 songs...phew, too rich for me. (A lot of these people will tell you straight off that they are downloading karaoke music FREE off the net...and these same people will offer to create custom CDGs for people for $2/song...and these same people are undercutting the honest companies and offering to do shows for $100 night).   Not long ago on E-bay one could pick up a hard drive loaded with 50,000 songs for under $500.  I think you'd be hard pressed to find that as easily now, though apparently it is possible.

Chances are they have illegal libraries. You can't be sure of that though. You can over years accumulate large libraries.

You don't need a huge library to be successful though. As in past disccusions the majority of songs used are the same. If most KJs went through to only pick out the songs sung from their libraries it would be only about 2000 to 3000 songs. The key is to buy only the popular songs sung. If you wait to update your library only buying the songs requested  by your specific clientel your better off than trying to keep up with monthly updates.

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I keep trimmed to about 13k no dupes.   Half of that  is $100/month for 7 years. If they just started KJng NO...  I can look in their book and tell in a minute. They have dupes and the dupes might have the artist name spelled different..The different brands are not listed. That many songs is rediculous.

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ok, is there a service or place on can go which isnit illegal and purchase of 3000 or so library of karaoke songs.. some of the older ones or classics, without buy cd packages of 30 to 60 songs or indiviually?   Also, if one buys one of those CAV units that has programed a lot of karaoke songs.. is he/she setting themselves up for a lawsuit later down the road if they are having legal problems now?

On Ebay do a search and include the links to the left such as this karaoke cd ace karaoke  Check the box search title and description.. You can get some good deals this way.  Its a way for them to have sales and pick up internet customers. Thats how Doowop got me years ago. Most  have package deals..

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Im two weeks away from opening my first karaoke gig.

My current song list is running at 4300 songs (incl some dups).

I have purchased them all legally in the last two months for a grand total of right around $3500. I have managed my purchases to be under $1 a song mainly by buying some sets, but now I have to buy single disks and eventually single songs to prevent too many duplicates. By the time I am at 10k songs I expect to have spent at least 15k$.

My mix is SC, 40% PHM 30%, SGB 25%, Others 5%.

I bought nearly everything on the internet, about half from discounts (circle of deals/ebay). But the rest I just shopped around for the disks/sets I wanted from various internet stores.

I figure I could have spent a lot less for the same number of songs if I went for a discount line (MM, Chartbusters etc). But in any way I dont think I could have gotten 4300 songs for under 2 grand, whithout hitting up obviously shadey manus/deals.

I seriously doubt there are many beginning KJs that spend a lot more on their inital song setup than me. Over time sure the $50-$200 a month on new songs add up, so some long term setups may have spent 20-30 grand but such KJs have been running gigs for years.

I think the easiest clue to a pirate is a $25,000 (retail) songlist being attached to a $25 microphone. Seen it happen.

In any case a 4 hour show is about 50 songs or less. My songs wont all get played in two years time even without repeats (at once a week gig). Personally I doubt half of the songs I have right now will EVER be requested even if I KJ for 5-10 years and go to two shows a week. 50-80,000 is silly overkill.

Another thing is that many of the big list kjs have Midi karaoke. I have tested a few of the midi karaoke songs out of curiosity and they were so badly done I dont want them on my list even if they were free AND legal.

Yep it's interesting, but chances are they are completely illegal - either preloaded drives with nary an original disc to show or they are downloading through the Limewire type sites.  I've been at this since 94 (on my own) and I just topped 11K non-dup'd & a little over 14K counting dups.  About 900 cdgs & 60+ lasers - YES I still run lasers.

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ok, of those speaking on the legal and illegal issues.. Here is a question that many are posing to me when i call them about their systems. Have any of you heard of what they do ..... or fines that have been levied against those that did not have an original disk?

For that matter, I ve read a few posts on here that you dont even need to pay for the rights to play music, that it may be the responsibility of the venue.  As a person who is going to start a DJ/KJ service up, please advise what i should do about that and how much it will cost me please.  I also heard if I do video playback with the songs on my screens or that at the venues, it will cost me more.

CAVs. has worked for most of this year pretty well at the place I ve worked.  Only a couple of freeze ups but we had the old system to fall back on. (2-3 minute reboot).  Most of the songs are faster than the words.   Some are so way of melody you have to have a disk or another version to load.  Still  one cannot compare to Sound Choice.   OVERALL, however, the speed of cavs vs a cassette or single disk cd karaoke system is way ahead.  Cut my time in half.  However, I have only used those 3 type of systems.  I saw a laptap show and she was fast with song lookups and only carried in two bags and her speakers.  Fast set up and tear down.  

Back on the topic:  lol

Even with the threat of fines, most KJs in the L.A. area run 95 thousand songs..  LMAO

Sounds like you're doing this right...I love that.  I am not computerized (I'm lazy and use a computer all week, so the last thing I want to do is rip 900 CDGs...)  I run a three-tray player at my show and the most singers I did in a 4-hour show was 64....It can be done but people have to be cooperative! I don't spend very much time between singers...and I have all discs pulled as I receive the slips. People who come to my show are there to sing - so I reward with no dead air and very little time between singers.  As far as the songs that are sung - seriously, it's such a waste to have 95,000 songs - there aren't 95,000 people singing karaoke to sing each one! Bunch of dupes and poor versions. I'm not sure why a hosting establishment would be swayed by the number of songs but they do seem to be. I did have someone tattle tale to me about another show where their computer kept jamming up - and he's some sort of software guy...Ooops...I'll stick with CDGs.

I got 450 million songs I only charge $1.49  a night and if you need a vasectomy I can do it for $5.88 first time. Camel breeding $6.99 castration with no bricks $9.88 ( special deal goats with no horns) $4.99..

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Come on, no horns? Are you a-scaird???

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

I've been computerized for over a year now.  I have about 10,000 songs that I've painstakingly transferred from disk.  I try to update with new stuff (2-5) disks a month (given budget restrictions).

My computer system has only crashed (and it happen right at the beginning) once in the year plus (and I figured out the problem and how to avoid it).  My show has over a 99% success rate.  The convenience is well worth the risk (oh, and no scratches or lost/misplaced disks) ... and what treat to queue up 15+ singers and let the computer do everything but the call and hand off.  Then there's that singer who wants to change his song as he's coming up on stage (quick search, double click and bammo).  Somebody say "You got that song - I can't find it in the book" (quick search and an answer - next!).  I average 55-60 songs sung every show (4 hours).  

I imagine both show formats have their pros and cons.

I agree totally on the searching for the song bit... one thing about using your own disc management system and your own hand-typed list... you pretty much know what you have. So in some cases, I have NO problems saying "yeah I have it, let me do a quick search to figure out what the number is", and others of "I THINK I might have it" or "heck no, why would I have THAT?"

That's pretty much average anyway.  Even with disc based shows - unless the disc user didn't know how to run a show with discs, 1 player, never looking the song up until the current song is done.  I could actually run a faster show with discs than with Hoster - only drawback at this time in my eyes.  With discs I had 2 (or more) players, 1 was always cued up, the other is the current player.  On each disc I had cue up starting points, where as soon as the singer hit the stage, the music would start - unless it was one of those songs that the lyrics would begin before the music, in which case I would start it slightly before the lyrics.  If the song had a long outro, I would use that as my fill music to call the next singer to the stage, when the next singer comes up, I fade out current song & begin new song.  Now on long intro songs when i'm in a pinch for time such as Screaming in the Night - Krokus, gets cued to :45 seconds in as it's nothing but this very slow build up.  ANother example Black Sabbath - NIB, this gets cued to 1 minute as in the beginning it's an entire bass solo (like the album), but in karaoke, it's not needed, I start at the actual start point of the song.  With the current version of Hoster, you cannot do cue tracks or fade into another song (new version is rumored to be able to).  So I actually LOSE some time slightly using the computer.
As far as song switched/disc changes, I never really had a problem with that, all my discs are in jewel cases & easily readable & accessible & honestly I can almost tell you which disc a song is on, one of the benefits of typing every song in by hand, you can get to know your library a little better.  The most used discs you get to know by heart so there would be no looking up in the book the majority of the time & with cdg's and a good player, the turnaround time is very quick, usually less than 10 second to cue up & play - lasers are another story which can take up to :30-45 seconds to cue & play

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Besides cost it is the time investment as well.


It takes me about 10-15 min to rip a cd on average, takeing into account the ones I have to type in songs/artists.

Say 80,000 songs at 12 songs/cd it comes to about 1600 hours to rip them.

No one starts as a 80,000 song KJ from scratch in a month.

There just is not the time.

Even ripping on multiple computers at the same time it would be nearly impossible for one person to do it.

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This one on ebay look legit to you guys???