Karaoke Forums

I find this quite frequently--I go to a venue I havent been to before and find the song books to be completely INCOHERENT. More often than not there are 4-5 duplicate versions of a song listed whlie Its claimed they have "X-thousands" of songs, when in reality if you boiled out the dupes they'd actually have about a third to 1/2 less ACTUAL selections! I read the add that says "WE HAVE 15000 songs!!" when in fact if you take out the dupes its maybe 9000. I mean do you really NEED 5 versions of BLACK MAGIC WOMAN??? For me this is an instant turn off and tells me that if the books are this rough then the rest of the show will be the same way. Usually I make a quick exit stage right!
Couple this with missing pages, or missing discs for the pages, and sticky page holders from partially dried beer, or sometimes actual mildew or dried up food particles and you get YUKK!
Youd think DJ's or venue owners would take a little PRIDE in their product--but instead in some of these places this is waht you get!! Comments?

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

The reason some keep all versions in the book is for choice. For those who know their discs, they can choose the version they are most confortable with. Some may prefer SC, MM, DK, THM, PHM, or whatever version of a song. Last thing I want is someone else making the selection for me. We also use the manufacturer's number so the singer does know which version they are getting.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I agree with timberlea. I prefer a book with many different versions of a song. Some nights, I may even be brave enough to try a version other than the one I am used to. So if the cat is saying he has 15000 songs, he may well have them. Now if he says he has 15000 "DIFFERENT" songs, he should be able to back his boast.

The food, mildew and other assorted spooge on the pages is just nasty though.

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Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans
~John Lennon~

I've been wondering what these initials stand for...can you shed some light on this for me? Thanks.

Luly, they are initials for the Disc Co. name....i.e SC = Sound Choice


I just learned that recently myself.

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neverheardofher

Ahhh, thank you girl!!

I list every version of every song in my books for that exact reason! Many people prefer different versions of a particular song. I personally list the SC
version as the FIRST Version...That way Someone who doesn't know the difference between manufacturers will usually submit that version...and 99 times out of a hundred , it's the most accurate to the original.as for food particles or other U.F.M. (unidentifiable Foodtype matter) I use a damp cloth and wipe the pages (plastic sheeths) after every show ,or party.I can't recall any alge problems. Not lately anyhoo. P.S. I don't list how many songs I have in my books or anything , but if someone were to ask I'd tell them that I have about 6,000 songs to choose from in my books...Because I do!

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Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

Here's a list of the abbreviations for disks that I am aware of. There are probably others too:

AH All Hits
AMS AmeriSing
BS Backstage
CB Chartbuster
CBD Chartbuster Demo
CHM Country Hits Monthly
CHMP Chart Hits Monthly- Pop
CHT Country Hits Today
CSZ Country Starz
DA Dangerous CDG
DK DK Karaoke
DM Doctor Music
HV Helluvadisc
KB Karaoke Bay
KC Karaoke Classics
LC Priddis Lost Classics
LEG Legends
MM Music Maestro
MMG Music Maestro Gold
NS Nashville Sound
NT NU-Tech
PC Pioneer Classics
PH Pro Hits
PHM Pop Hits Monthly
PHT Pop Hits Today
PL Top Hits Monthly Platinum
PP NU-Tech Party Pak
PR Priddis
PRD Priddis Demo
PS Pocket Songs
PSM Pop Singles Monthly
PT Perfomance Trax
RCA RCA KARAOKE
RS Rising Star
RSZ Radio Starz
SAVA Nikkodo SAV - Country Series
SAVP Nikkodo SAV - Pop Series
SC Sound Choice
SCD Sound Choice Demo
SD Star Disc
SF Sunfly
SGB Sweet Georgia Brown
SI Sound Images
SO Standing Ovation
SY Sybersound Party-Tyme
THELVIS Top Hits Monthly Collector's Elvis Edition
THM Top Hits Monthly Platinum
THMC Top Hits Monthly-Country
THMF Flashback Karaoke Series
THMP Top Hits Monthly-Pop
TU Top Tunes
TT Tip Top
UK United Karaoke
US Ultra Sonic
ZM Zoom Karaoke

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Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans
~John Lennon~

I often sing What a wonderful world by Louis Armstrong. I first sang it off an All Hits (AH8001, Track 11 IIRC) disc and it's the version I'm most comfortable with. I can sing other versions but they vary ever so slightly from what I'm used to. So, if they list disc numbers I don't have a problem with them listing every version since I have a preference on some songs.

Here's when I have a problem. They don't list manufacturer, they list by location in the rack. How do I know if it's Sound Choice, All-Hits, Bubba's Karaoke Crap, or whatever? I don't. If you don't let me know which version you have keep the book with all of them listed to yourself and just put up one version.

Anytime someone asks me how many tracks I have I say I have approx. 2500 UNIQUE tracks, with approx. 300-350 additional tracks that are duplicates. A total of approx 2800 tracks or so. They are fully informed and they start asking others how many tracks they have that are unique.

My Books are done kinda like this:

Artist....................................Song Title....................................Song #:

Aerosmith.......................Walk This Way...............................224 - 04 SC
Aerosmith.......................Walk This Way...............................187 - 11 MM
Boston............................More Than A feeling.........................12 - 06 SC
Boston............................More Than A feeling.........................34 - 08 PRI



Hada add the periods to keep them seperated here ,lol ,I then reverse them to Song Title , Artist , Song # so that every book contains search for artist and/or title.

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Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

Man, you guys MORE than answered my question on that one!! Wolfie, you sure took alot of time to write all these down and I'm printing the page to keep it for reference. Thanks so much!!

See, that's one of the reasons I LUV this site so much..everyone here is ultra helpful!!

I also have a page in the front of all my books that explains what the Initials
stand for.

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Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

I have two books... one, a singer's book, edited for the "best" or better version. I also have a master book. That book has them all, including the dupes.

As with all things, it comes down to what your customers are most happy with. I've had people love my books, and a couple that hate them! (they have a hard time reading the smaller font). Fortunately, they have access to a computer, so they can look at my songbooks online, and write down on the songslips that they print out from my site what they want before they come down.

One couple even copied the whole thing to a word document and then enlarged the font where they could comfortably see it when printed.

being that my books are only a total of a little over 200 pages ,I use size 12 bold font...but they're gettin' a bit heavy these days..so next print , with new selections added , I may have to change some things around a lil'. Yeah Knight , I've checked yer site out..VERY IMPRESSIVE!!! looks like you put a LOT of work into it..WELL DONE!

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Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

thanks Kdog!

I was getting in the two hundred page range myself, that's why I had to go with the dual column format!

I'm with Matt. I used to list all versions of songs in my books, back when I was in the "bigger binder means better show" phase of my career. It was more of a hassle than it was worth, AND it cost me more money to print the books. I was constantly having people asking which versions were the best ones, etc. Maybe I don't have as savvy a karaoke crowd where I am.

Then I got wise.

I realized that bigger isn't better, but rather, a clean easy to read format is much better than a huge binder full of duplicates. I believe Matt and I are using the same songbook program since this subject has come up elsewhere. I absolutely LOVE the way it looks when it is printed and in the binders, but I have other issues with the software and the people who sell it that I won't go into here. The output text is a little on the small side, but that is easy enough to fix when the book is exported into MS WORD.

Going with a two column format not only makes my binders half as big as they would be otherwise, but because the song numbers are closer to the song titles themselves it has really cut down on the wrong numbers on song slips.

I also keep a master list which has the brand information for those rare occasions when someone might actually care which version of a song they sing.

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Spreading the karaoke gospel

Tip for the day boys and girls. Small font double columns save a tree. God bless ............peace love karaoke

Lesser amount of paper doesn't necessarily mean cheaper. Remember volume shopping. We add four extra books (took us to just over 10,000 pages) and saved about 30-40% on printing costs, paying .02/page as opposed to .03/page. We also have in our front pages a key to the manufacturer abbreviations. Remember trees are replanted.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Not all duplicates are really duplicates, I can think of quite a few songs off the top of my head that have been done by various artists. If you just look at song titles and not the artist you may not catch this.

tom, we're talking about multiple versions of the same exact song but by different manufacturers.

For example... I've got I think five versions of Janis Joplin's "Me & Bobby McGee" and one with Kris Kristoferson's version of it... totally different.

I list every version of every song I have in the singer's book... if they're by different artists!