Karaoke Forums

I have opened it up to my Facebook community -

I posted the following to my FB Page last night. I only have two public responses but I have about 30 in private. I am withholding the private tally until more comes in (and also because some are just asking me WTF vs submitting a positive/negative response).

I may take no action at all, but the fact that I am even considering it should tell the KaraokeScene community AND Sound Choice how I feel with how things have gone down.

More to come....

https://www.facebook.com/feelgoodpros/p ... ed_comment

Hiya Folks. Blowing off a little steam here.

I personally don't think people come to my karaoke show specifically because I use primarily Sound Choice brand karaoke music. In fact, I have had very few specific requests for any brand of karaoke music over the years. Singers seem to want the songs they want regardless of vendor. I just happen to like the Sound Choice quality, have made a significant investment in Sound Choice music, and default to Sound Choice for certain types of music or songs.

I generally pick brands like this -

If I have it on Pioneer, I use it - if not.....
If I have it on Sound Choice, I use it - if not.....
Well.....it gets a little wonky here but basically

Was the music produced 2009 or earlier? If so.....
Country = Chartbuster then Radio Starz
Rock/Alternative = THM/PHM then Chartbuster
Hip Hop/Rap - Pop Hits Urban

If it was produced after 2009
KaraokeVersion then
Zoom/SBI/Mr. Entertainer/Abraxa

Of course I don't stick to this 100%, but this takes care of 95% of what I need to worry about.

For reasons of my own (which I am happy to discuss in private and off the record), I am contemplating a life without Sound Choice being my go to brand. Sound Choice ceased production in 2009 so everything after that is some other brand anyway.

So I am wondering -

If I pulled all of my Sound Choice material, would your stop coming to my karaoke show?

-Chris

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-Chris

I can tell you that I have found many alternative versions to songs I did exclusively off SC discs, that are the same quality or better, so I would continue to support your show, if it were in my neighborhood. Besides, as I have said many times, Sound Choice is NOT a big part of the karaoke world around here, so I am used to going to shows without their stuff.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

It will be interesting to see how the poll comes out.

For me, I'm keeping it and wish I could afford more. My singers do not have much brand awareness but I have had them exclaim that they thought they were singing to the original on some SCs and I have had complaints on the guitars not being correct on some non SCs.

When I was in a small venue with good acoustics and carpet on the walls, even, I didn't really see why some people hated some brands--like SGB for instance. I found it not the best but not as offensive as some. But since I am now in this larger, long cement bunker with the acoustics from hell, more crowd noise and larger volumes required I sometimes cringe when lesser brands come on and am in such relief when it's an SC. They are much easier to make sound good.

But that is one freedom I do have as a disc host. I can play whatever brand I want without worry or even having to make such a poll. I know that won't last forever but I'm enjoying it while I can.

To be clear.....

I Don't Want To Drop Sound Choice

....but I am fed up with the way Sound Choice ISN'T handling piracy and how they continue to enable pirates to compete more effectively against legitimate hosts.

I am contemplating another avenue altogether as well so pulling Sound Choice is not my only option.

-Chris

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-Chris

I have the same freedom. Only SC would want to TRY to bother me. I never was a collector of Chartbuster, so there is nothing to see there. My Sound Choice is on and played from disc. Nothing to see there, either. Everything else is on computer, but nobody is bothering about it, and I buy my downloads, and have proof of each song I have downloaded, so I am free to use them, too. Not too worried.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I get you on that, Chris. I do get a bit resentful that if they came to our area, people who built a reputation based on years of stealing will get to keep that build as an advantage by spending a few thousand dollars. But I'm also not convinced that even a few thousand doesn't make a lot of the real scummy bottom feeders disappear. And I also don't think we know all that SC is doing as they no longer want to tip their hand.

Chris,

We are all pretty much in agreement that Sound Choice is the most RELIABLE when it comes to karaoke music. In other words, more of their music is closer to the original artist's rendition than any other manufacturer. Sound Choice has some bad versions, too (i.e. Baby Got Back), but for the most part, when you play a Sound Choice version, you probably won't hear any complaints. That's reliability.

Other manufacturers are also reliable, just not to the extent that Sound Choice was. I know of a few bad Chartbuster songs (Ice Ice Baby), but for the most part, anything by them is going to be pretty reliable. As is the case with PHM, THM/Panorama and just about everyone else.

It comes down to Satisfaction. Almost every singer is satisfied with the version you give them. They might come to a couple spots in the song and maybe something is a little off, but they are almost always satisfied.

It is when a singer is not satisfied that you need to be concerned. In my opinion, a song has to be a real dud for them to be dissatisfied.

If you make a real effort to identify, segregate, and/or replace those songs when you learn of them, you won't have a problem. Plus, it is also my opinion that any time you reach out to a singer (via Facebook, email, phone, or even just pulling them aside) and let them know what you have done for them, you just made a karaoke friend for life.

Nobody NEEDS Sound Choice. All we really need are satisfactory renditions of the titles people want to sing and, as mentioned, a system of identifying, segregating and/or replacing the $hit versions. That's a system I have survived on for many years now.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

Hmmm, pretending to be a customer of yours for a second, if your choice did not affect my song choices at all and I could still sing what I would like to sing, then I'd have no issue with it.

If the choice causes gaping holes in your available songs, then I guess I would be more likely to move on to another show where I could sing what I want. Nothing is more frustrating to a singer than a host not having a seemingly readily available song that everyone else has...

What I don't get is what you hope to achieve by removing your Sound Choice tracks since Sound Choice already has your money for all your legal Sound Choice material. It is kind of like crippling yourself to make a point. You have zero leverage in this instance by removing their tracks. Who are you affecting other than your customers who have done nothing to you? What affect do you suppose this will have on Sound Choice? None, obviously.

My own bottom line is as a host... Give my customers the best legal collection I can... Since I have paid for Sound Choice legal material I would be foolish not to use it. The same holds true for any other manufacturer.

Maybe there is a better way to get your message across to Sound Choice... but hurting your own business by invalidating thousands of dollars spent is kind of silly.

I'm with Cliff. I would want you to keep SC just to have the songs I would want to sing. Of course I think I know what you might would do if you dropped them, but the customers probably do not. I also agree that it's foolish to have purchased a bunch of SC legally and not use it. Hey, I sort a "chose" to get out of hosting because I would rather use my SC than to host. I have something different I am cooking up now and I may be back into bars making a little change soon, but not hosting or showing trademarks.


I will be watching this thread very closely!!!

I am kind of along the line of thinking with cliff. If the songs I normally sang were replaced with inferior versions (SGB, Backstage, etc) or lost entirely because of no other alternative, i'd most likely be heading elsewhere looking for the songs. If you had suitable replacements that equaled or bettered the SC version, then it wouldn't matter to me.

I get singers ASKING for SC versions - have for years. I get it with other brands too, but SC is the most requested. We do have singers who are very brand/quality aware.

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

Something I factored in on this.. I already paid SC for the stuff I bought from them. Like they are really gonna care if I dropped them? Unless things changed drastically, I would never give them another dime. But I see it more as a dig playing their stuff off my PC from home than not playing their stuff at all.

...after everything I said, I fully agree with the consensus. I wouldn't pull any song that was my only copy of a song.

Furthermore, I wouldn't pull ANY song that was the best version I had. But, my music is all legal, so I have that luxury (and I have no reason to believe that yours is illegal, we all know about your big fancy purchases).

But, if you are running into bar owners that are saying "No Sound Choice!" then that's a different story.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

When I first began really getting into karaoke, SoundChoice was the first manufacturer I noticed in terms of trending towards higher-quality tracks.

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Co-host of The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly), a karaoke-themed podcast

Valid point.

Prediction:

The majority of your fans will say "I don't care" or "Sound Choice Who?" because they don't care or know them.

They also don't know if you are MP3@256k, Linear or MIDI. Because...they don't know and don't care.

It would be like having a poll saying you are thinking about moving away from Yamaha mixers and going to Behringer. They will still say they don't care, because they don't.

They only know if they have a good time or not and music quality is part of that equation. In my humble opinion, you would only be shooting yourself in the foot to protest gun control.

I think it is shooting yourself in the foot to not use what you paid for also. But Chris is certified and it will keep costing him to use those tracks on a computer if he has to pay yearly fees to re-audit (and I actually don't know what that arrangement might be). But if he did have to pay audit fees each year I can see where paying multiple manufacturers on multiple rigs could add up enough to give one pause.

Sound Choice produced a lot of top quality tracks for sure, but so do many other karaoke producers.
In fact the void created when Sound Choice ceased production has inspired many producers to up their game and produce tracks of much higher quality (Sunfly).
I believe that the success of the Sound Choice brand had a lot to do with KJs using it as their default brand when cueing up a song for their singers. This is especially true for pirate KJs that have many tracks of the same title by various producers (yes, I'm crediting pirates for SC popularity).
Now SBI and Karaoke Version logos are being displayed nightly as the newer songs are sung and they are fast becoming the reliable default brands with many KJs. The more this happens, the less important Sound Choice becomes to a quality karaoke library.
Singers mainly just want to sing to a decent rendition of their song.

Take a look at your request history for the past year. You might be surprised to discover that most of the Sound Choice songs performed can be readily replaced by other quality brands. You will also likely find that some of those songs can’t be replaced by another brand. If those are popular, often sung songs, you may not want to drop the brand completely, but you can certainly reduce the impact a single brand has on your business.
Running multiple rigs gives you a unique opportunity to research the effects of omitting a brand from the choices offered across different venues.

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KNOW THYSELF

generally speaking, singers don't care what version it is as long as it is the song they want to sing. there are of course exceptions, but most do not even know there is a difference. most singers do not even know that there are multiple companies making the same karaoke songs. i have always had a spot for version and 99% of the time the question is "what does this mean?" or in my book "what does SC, CB, MM mean?". in the last year i think i have been asked for a specific version three times maybe, one DK (ironically instead of the SC version i had) and two SF.
as for effect of removing it, if the singers don't see the name, they don't buy the name. more SF discs have come into my bar in the last 2 years than any other manu. i play a lot of SF and SBI and those are what i am seeing coming in for custom discs for the die hards. singers (if they buy anything) will buy the version they know, if they get to know SF, ZM, SBI, then that is where their money will go.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

I have been living by SBI, SF, ZM, and now KV since I started. NOBODY has complained, or said, "Damn I wish this was Sound Choice". They say "Thanks", because I buy the song they want on the spot, if I don't already have it. Being that I started without too much of today's country and pop, I am buying a LOT of songs.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I kind of agree. But, my contention is that decreasing profits led to the increase in quality. Survival of the fittest, if you will. Here's what I noticed:

Originally, (in the U.S. at least) mainstream karaoke was produced with accompanying videos. That is, until the advent of the CDG.

CDG karaoke put (or pushed) the video karaoke manufacturers out of the karaoke business. Gone is Tip Top, Pioneer, and several others. Why? Because nobody wanted to pay $100 for 28 songs when a CDG version was available at a savings of 80%. There was PLENTY of profits for CDG manufacturers. Even those who put out terrible renditions still rolled in the dough.

But THEN, piracy came about. Those manufacturers that put out terrible versions were eventually pushed out of business. And THEN, piracy really took its toll. There was only so much money being SPENT on karaoke. The manufacturers that still existed knew they had to put out quality versions to maintain viability in the marketplace. Furthermore, they had to get them to the market as quickly as possible. This is something that SC did not do. By the time SC put out a disk, the other manufacturers that put out "Hits Of The Month" had already beaten them to market. KJs already had the songs SC was trying to sell months after they became popular.

In my opinion, quality has more to do with piracy and decreasing profits than anything else.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!