Karaoke Forums

I have a program (that is FREE) that will scan your drive for all your mp3+g files and create BOTH a title and an artist section for a songbook.

The resulting files are in a Rich Text format so you can open them with MS word and just add your header, footers, graphics and hit "print." All the "hard work" of sorting and formatting has been done for you. (BTW, don't use Wordpad because it will not show you the 2 column format) It will also leave behind a *.csv file that you can open with Excel if you prefer.

AND... if you use Karma... it will save you $79.00

Here's a sample of the artist file:


http://dkusa.com/images/SMPLARTIST.jpg

And here is a sample of the title file:

http://dkusa.com/images/SMPLTITLES.jpg

Let me know if you're interested.

The forum will not let me post the link to the installation program

So here is the link in a "picture format":

Thanks, Chip! Awesome little proggy!

I'd take one.

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

Hi Chip!
This is just what I need! Please send me a link to get this! BTW, I still use your Speedbook program and I still love it! Did you ever update it? What new program do you use now? Glad you are still making great software!

Talk to you soon!

Kevin

Alrighty then... email me at

c h i p s @ d k u s a . c o m

and I'll get it right out... because your email address will get stripped even in a private message here.

Lonnie: Just curious... if you use hoster, this won't work with their KMA format, but if you use Songverter to convert to MP3+G.zip it will run just fine.

Kevin: Nice to hear from you again... This is the same output as Speedbook, it just reads the filenames to get the data and doesn't maintain a db of it's own.

ALSO, this will run on win '98 or XP just fine... If you want to run it in windows 7, you'll have to use virtual PC and run it in xp mode.

And, feel free to send this along to whoever can use it as well.

Just let me know if you encounter any problems or need any help....

Actually it's for my Dad, he has his discs in mp3g format and always has me create a book for him, now he can make his own.
But I might be able to use it if it can work on mp3 only files for my dj book.

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

I have a file which has the " *.zip" limitation removed - so if you do change the extension of the file, you need to make sure the rest of the naming convention is correct..

This means that it (theoretically) can work on mp3 and mp4 files or basically any file where the rest meets the conventions....

Well, I looked at the screen shots you posted and I don't want to sound ungrateful, I mean after all the program is free...but, in all honesty, it doesen't even come close to Karma or FastTracks. It looks very primative and unprofessional. Personally, I would spend the money and get one of the two mentioned programs. Sorry but I'm just being honest.

Not for me -- I'm special@duxmail.com

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Well. That's fine. However, it's purposely "plain vanilla" to let user's customize the pages anyway they want. But you go ahead and knock yourself out. And it doesn't come close to karma or fastracks in price either.

It shows.

Again, not trying to be disrespectful, just an honest opinion.

Most of the posts in this forum have always been about "the best". What is the best mixer? What are the best speakers? What are the best microphones? And on and on. So, it stands to reason, these very same people who want nothing but the best would have no problem spending $79 for a professional level program. I mean why spend all your money for "the best" and then wimp out on the song books, which in my opinion are the most used and viewed tool you have. The quality of your books creates a lasting impression IMO.

And that's all well and good, but based on the number of downloads in just a few hours, I'd have to disagree with you.

Feel free to do whatever you want to do.

Chip that was very kind of you to post the link. Thank you very much! I saw another KJs book here in town that I just loved -- they added caricatures of some of the more popular artists into their books and I'm thinking that would be very fun to do on my next book. I doubt too many commercially available programs could accomplish that task.

I personally like Chip's Speedbook program (which is NOT the sample or the link he posted). You can import it into Word and format it any way you want with it's Rich Text format. It also exports to Excel and you can import your info into lots of programs. I've tried the demo for other more expensive programs and I was crazy about their layouts and their databases had many glaring mistakes. I may upgrade at some point but Speedbook has worked very well for me.

Chip. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Well thank you very much! I actually don't use MS Word to format my pages and print from... I used PageMaker (a desktop publishing program.) I know it better than Word and it's easier for me to manipulate elements around on a page, add page numbers and headers/footers and insert graphics.

If you look at the output in the samples you'll see that each element is in a slightly different type style and this let's you change them independently of each other. Take a look at the Titles sample for example:

The Title Is In Bold - Artist Is In Italic...................... Song # is plain.

Because of this, you can do a "global search and replace" for formatting only and change only the titles from 9 pt Arial to 11 pt Helvetica Bold, the song numbers from 9pt Arial regular to 10 pt Times BOLD to make it a little bigger and easier to read all the while leaving the artists names as they are. You can also modify the tabs (indents), column widths, margins or even change the number of columns from page-to-page if you like and drop in coupons, graphics or photos.

This allows a lot more freedom for the end user to design and customize their book than being locked into a group of pre-programmed inflexible formats, no matter how "pretty" they might appear with grids and shading. And yes, if you want to customize it, it will take slightly longer than simply choosing "format #5" and pressing a button but the end result is far better in my opinion.

And besides, did I mention it's "FREE?"...

I wrote this program and decided to give it away as a contribution on my part (think of it as community service) but also a way to get the word out that this industry is moving toward a "book-less" version using a kiosk....

I know, I know.... I should probably pack up what little I have and move far away.... how about the U.K.? I could live with you right?.... I'll cook an American breakfast and you cook an English supper!....

We'll figure out something in between for the midday but tea time is all yours buddy!

Absolutely have to insist on an English breakfast old boy.

I will agree that there are KJs that will have the best sound, personality, equipment but then will have a book that looks like my 5 year old grandson made it. So to get a program for free that from the screenshots it does what it is designed to do and it's FREE. What can you loose if you are not already using a program.

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