Karaoke Forums

Hi everyone, I have been browsing the forum here and just signed up.  I am John Burr, the Stage Name is Blind Snoopy Rhodes, either is fine though.  I am a 50 year old folk singer, generally do a solo singer/songwriter act with me and a guitar.  I do quite a few private party type gigs where i am often asked to do songs I don't know so the folks there can sing along with me.  On the 8th I was doing a large Birthday Bar-B-Que bash and the host rented a Magic Mic Karaoke thing.  I played a 4 hour set while the guests got a bit of a buzz on and did some skydiving and then I started pushing the karaoke.  Well, frankly the system was junk I thought but i had a blast and so did the folks there.  I ran it through my PA setup and it sounded OK but the magic mic is not the way to go.

What it did was convince me that I need a karaoke system to work into my existing PA setup.  I have been perusing the online ads for Karaoke stuff and I see some incredibly attractive prices on the RSQ NEO+G systems out there.  I am a bit of the old School though as far as believing that you generally get what you pay for so I have to wonder if these NEO+G systems are decent quality sound or if the tracks and units are even usable.  It does seem to offer a huge number of songs with the system, 3700+, with the player for under $400.  Is this going to be enough to let me get started doing some shows?

The best thing I have going is that I have a different crowd for every show generally, it's not like I am doing a regular show at the same place every week.  I do have some weekly gigs but they are just me playing for the tourists on a patio bar in the afternoons, no karaoke or open mic stuff.  This will be an additional option for me for home parties I am thinking rather than a main event or huge source of income.  It is a LOT of fun though for everyone involved and I always love Karaoke anyway so i am looking forward to getting into it, just curious about the new stuff and if it is viable sound wise or just junk.

Thanks for the help and I am really enjoying browsing through the forum here...

BSR

the NEO or SuperCDG or RSQ aren't bad, but you're essentially correct... you get what you pay for.

Here's the problem I don't like about a format ONLY supported by a single manufacturer - what do you do when they stop supporting it?

Speaking VERY PERSONALLY, my recommendation is to buy the cdgs and rip them to computer.

Welcome to the site Blind!! Thanks for doing some research, and asking some very serious and open-minded questions!

Wow, appreciate the quick and informed response Bro!  Yeah, I was thinking of going the computer route but if the NEO+G thing actually works the player also plays all the other formats.  I really have plenty of stuff to tote in and out now days and this is really kind of a side line thing so I may just snag one of these units with the gazillion songs on three DVDs and let it be what it is.  I will probably use it about 10 times a year and if it gets through a couple of years I am cool with it.  I am not much of a bar guy these days, clean and sober for just over 15 years now.  I do a couple of afternoon shows each week in a local shopping district but they are at least outside on a patio.  

I did run a karaoke show for a friend of mine about 17 years ago for 6 months while he was recovering from an auto accident.  It was quite an experience but not something I would want to go through again.  I envy those of you who can maintain the pace of a long show night after night.  My weekly gigs are generally background music.  I generally do 2 or 3 45 minute sets with 15 minute breaks and I am home by 8:00 pm.  For an old guy that is plenty.  When I do the big parties though there is a certain amount of energy you draw from the crowd and I really did enjoy having the Karaoke to do once my fingers had tired and my limited repertoire on the guitar had run it's course.

I have been searching a bit on the PC based systems on this forum but not sure if I really want to go that route.  Computers are expensive and I have a few already in my business and I record with a laptop in my studio at home but just not sure I want to put one in the gig bag since just about everything I do is outdoors in Florida.  I have enough dust troubles with the units in my studio out here in the barn!  

Thanks again for the quick answers though Bro and I will be lurking and learning and trying to contrubute something when I can as I start to add this stuff to my shows.  

BSR

Pretty much everything below is stuff I found out in last few weeks searching for tracks for my music collection and from information I got from the people here.

As far as the deal that you mentioned, it's not the player itself that's iffy, it's the music tracks that come with it. I almost got that system because I was looking for an inexpensive way to get started, but I got some good advice from the folks here about the different manufacturers of the music tracks.

The cheapo systems on ebay that have 3700 songs included come with lower quality Karaoke tracks. Not everyone agrees as to which are the best musical quality, but most of the people here have recommended the Sound Choice brand when asked. They are quite expensive though.

I got ahold of several discs from different manufacturers and I found that All Hits sound very good generally speaking and can be had on ebay for very little money. Sweet Georgia Brown is the same as far as I'm concerned(not everyone likes the SGB though)-decent sounding to me and very inexpensive. Monster Hits sound decent too, but I have found that they are not that widely available and are on the more expensive side.

Music Maestro is one of the worst in my opinion. Nutech is another one that is on the lower end for quality as far as arrangements and quality of the musicians they use.

The Legends Series is good IMO, but not that easy to get-you have to buy them by the individual disc-I can't find them in a collection like many of the other brands. I also got a cople of Backstage brand which are OK, but not great-not bad.

I bought a couple country discs on ebay, one with Toby Keith and one with Travis Tritt, they were $8 each including shipping-I consider that expensive-the musical quality is decent. I got them because they had several songs that I wanted instead of just one song per disc and the rest that I'm not interested in. They're some sort of asian made in Taiwan discs, not sure of the brand.

I also picked up a small collection of Supercore discs on ebay which sound just fine along with a few Northstar Pop and Country discs which I haven't even listened to yet. I looked through the Northstar collection and there are almost no songs I know or want so it can be a bit of a crap shoot sometimes on ebay.

My best advice is to borrow some discs from a friend or ??? and listen to the recordings of several brands before you buy Karaoke discs. Listen to several discs from each manufacturer if you can.

One warning, most of the background vocals from all of the manufacturers are bad IMO. Not much you can do about that though.

If you can afford it get the Sound Choice Foundations that everyone here recommends. They are several multi disc collections, 30 discs each I believe.

If you don't have ta couple thousand to spend and you want a decent starter collection get the Sweet Georgia Brown 78 disc set, All Hits 26 disc set and a Supercore set of 15 discs. You'll have around 2000 songs with some duplicates in there, but at least you'll have plenty of songs to get started.

Thanks for the info Stogie!  I guess that is what I was wondering about, the quality of the music really isn;t so hot on the NEO+G disks I guess, well for the money I didn;t really expect tham to be I guess.  Still, as a start it might be OK.  If they are really stinko i could always fatten them up a bit with my guitar I suppose.

With that said what is incvolved in making backing tracks I have created in my studio into Karaoke tracks?  I have a pretty decent recording studio setup here in my barn and I do a bit of recording myself.  I am wondering what I would have to do to add the  software to add the lyrics tracks and convert to a karaoke friendly format, MP3+G I am thinking.  Is this something that is possible for the home studio or do you have to have a ton of money and a proprietary software system to create theis stuff?

I will look into getting the disk sets you suggested Stogie, I will search for them and probably add them to my wish list but I am thinking that I will probably get the RSQ DVD machine next week and try this out at a small New Years Eve party i am working at a retirement center.  Maybe if I get them singing the party will last until midnight this year...

Thanks again for the help and you guys have a very Merry Christmas...

BSR

There is actually software available that lets you create your own Karaoke tracks using for example your recorded backing tracks that you make yourself in your barn. You add the lyrics using the software and synchronize the reading of the lyrics. I can't remember the name of the software right now, but if you do a search on Yahoo or Google for Karaoke authoring software or karaoke creator etc.  you'll find it. I never looked into it because I don't have the time, don't have the bare music tracks without vocals and don't think it's something I would like/can do.

there are a few different ones...

karaoke builder studio
dart

and I think powerkaraoke makes one too, unsure about that.

Powerkaraoke does make one. you also forgot about MTU's Karaoke Home Producer.
between the ones mentioned I like PowerKaraoke's program the best but that is just my taste. It has a wizard that takes you through the entire process of creating the karoke song from vocal reduction (eliminating leqd vocals out of normal music) to a final version of the song that includes a cool title page.

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That's interesting about being able to take out the lead vocals but I have had a couple of mixers that supposedly did that, I thought they weren't very good at it though.  I was thinking about just getting some of the backing tracks I use now, (that I created myself in my own studio), and adding some lyrics so the crowd could sing along.  I generally play guitar and sing to these on stage, they are usually just a drum track and a bass line or maybe some rhythm guitar fill so I can do a solo here and there, they wouldn;t have any vocals in them to start with.  I mean if I am going to have the stuff there anyway it might be cool to have them sing along with me from the cheap seats, eh?  Thanks for the names of the programs, been looking at some of this stuff and it looks to be pretty easy.

BSR

This looks like a good deal to me, a lot of money in one pop, but a good deal:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Monster-Hits-MegaPack-Karaoke-159-CDG-Pack-2506-Songs_W0QQitemZ160192869887QQihZ006QQcategoryZ307QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Combine this with SGB, All Hits and Supercore and you have almost 5000 songs for less than $600. If I had the $400 right now I'd buy it.

Yes it does not work well MOST of the time, but when it does and your chrowd has a local favorite song (either an older indie song or a song by a local artist) then they may really get into a song done that way.

It is almost never worth doing it if the song is already be as a commercial karaoke track. It takes a long time (30+minutes song) and you need the origional CD not an MP3 of the song. I have only done this for about 25 songs so far, but usually 3 or so of them get sung on my shows each night. Much better average than the 35/6000 for the commercially bought songs. Your crowd will apprieciate the effort if they understand what is going on and they like the music.

As for doing your own tracks, another probably better route for a obscure song if you are a good musician in the song's genre but to build up your base you need the numbers of songs from a commercial maker.