Karaoke Forums

Actually the original Gold Standard was and is DK Bazza, every host has a set, not every host has a set of SC. From the artists you listed, I guess you are really doing a Golden Oldies show after all.

All of the standards are slowly being replaced.

Pioneer LaserDiscs were a standard even before DK. Top Hits Monthly, Chartbuster, and Sound Choice were all somewhat parallel standards - any decent KJ could run a successful show with any of those libraries. But SC and CB are out of production. As time goes on, ASK, SBI, SF, KV, MRE, Abraxas, and other downloadables are adding new, current music that the new generation of karaoke singers wants to sing. Eventually they become the standards. (I default to Karaoke Version these days).

In the last 4 years I am using more of the current brands and less of Pioneer, DK, SC, CB, PHM. If the process for US based manufacturers doesn't change the speed by which they can produce new, relevant music and do so in a cost effective manner, they will cease to exist. Even worse, they will cease to be used.

There is a disturbing sense of nostalgia knowing that with ever passing day, all the DK discs that were ever made are sitting in storage, or otherwise getting damaged or lost forever and that karaoke music will eventually cease to be. You could say it will exist eternally in cyberspace, but it isn't the same and isn't even necessarily true. I have the discs and the digital files, but I don't as many requests for the music that they produced during their hey day. The music is simply becoming less relevant and requested over time. The same will happen to SC and CB over time. (a looooopong time).

-Chris

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-Chris

I agree. Well said Chris.

Chris, I guess that depends on were you do your shows. In Sarasota my number one go to brand is SC and number two is DK. I get almost exclusively "oldies" sung at my show and my newer music (2000 to current) rarely gets sung. My crowd (yes, crowd) is primarily made up of boomers., and there are a lot of us out there, and they have time and money. Don't write the old standards off quite so quickly.

Here's the best part..... I'm done, packed up, and having an after show drink with friends by 10:30!

Right on mrmarog, before retirement my most requested brand was still DK, in fact it was all that was really requested. You are right on about the boomers also, they are the biggest single segment of the demographic groups and will continue to be for the next 20 years. They have the leisure time and the money to enjoy it. A host can still make a decent living just catering to them.

While DK is a good set (if you can still get them) a lot of people complain because they are out of key with the originals and they have that blasted pan flute on most of their tracks. LR the reason you get requests for DK is that you have said, you don't use SC, so that is not a true comparison. With us we have DK and SC with SC being used more than DK. DK though do have some songs that are not available an any other label.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

On the other hand tim not having SC was never a deal breaker for me. I was still working six days a week, 10 months of the year, until health reasons forced me to stop hosting. While the SC tracks might be closer to the artist rendition, not many karaoke singers have the same ability as the original artist. Many have to have the key adjusted in order to sing certain arrangements. What the flute does is keeps the singer between the lines as it were. Just like any manu there are certain songs only found on some labels and not others. Sunfly has many Irish tunes only found on their label for example. One thing I do agree with Bazza on is you can run an effective show if you have certain core labels, SC is one DK is another.

i thought it was just me, the only brand request i have gotten in the last few years are a few 65+ singers requesting DK, and a few of them requesting CB for the obscure country they put out, but since ONLY CB put those out it may not be a truly fair comparison there.

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

Never had a DK set, gold standard out here was Pioneer laserdiscs. DK were considered a joke by most kj's in this area, especially with the pan flute guide melody, often wrong key and shortened versions.

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

The rest of what? I'm not worried one iota about it! What they do to try to recoup their money stolen from them is their business. Those who do worry, often don't have any original product to show for it are the ones that seem to worry and have something to say. As far as them tarnishing CAVS reputation, that is laughable - again, they (cavs) sucked to begin with. SC just poorly worded something (illegal CAVS players) and got popped - oh well. Next time they need to be more careful in their wording to something more fitting like illegally loaded hard drive players.

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

It's funny Lonman that SC didn't run the wording by their legal department before they sent out the printed material. Sort of put the cart before the horse didn't they? Where is Jim when you need him, I'm sure he would have caught the error.

I didn't mean to imply that DK (or SC or CB or any other brand for that matter) is completely irrelevant....yet. But with time, they will be.

It does depend greatly on where you are and who comes to your shows. My crowds are generally 20-30 somethings. Thus more modern music than oldies. I do have one venue where DK gets used a bit more for the oldies.

I still use Sound Choice more than anything else, but the fact is, anything from 2009 or later will be some other brand. For that I like KaraokeVersion.

It is just the natural evolution of karaoke music. Brands come and go.

-Chris

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-Chris

Really? NO ONE disputes that? Sorry, but no.

Most folks find Chartbuster to be #1 in country- not SC.

Whether I agree or not, most folks find MM to be #1 in Oldies - not for production values ( obviously ), but in truest rendition to originals.

Even Kurt Slep himself will tell you ( and has, back in the day)that Pocket Songs is #1 in Show Tunes.

My customers prefer DK and Zoom for Pop.

I'm thinkin' there may be a teeny bit of dispute....

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

WOW! While I always admit that SC puts out a fine product, the best example of CLINKERS is their Elvis. I don't know if the production crew was drunk that day or not, but their Elvis is absolutely the bottom of the barrel, worst, below anyone that ever produced Elvis discs. BRUTALLY bad. The King himself wouldn't recognize those tracks. Seriously, if SC did ONE thing completely wrong, it was Elvis. I sing a lot of his stuff. I used to do an Elvis show in the '70s ( still have the leather- and outgrown- suit). I prefer CB and PS ( not an MM fan), but even freakin' SGB does a better job.

SC does do some great stuff ( even I admit no one does better duets), but using their Elvis as a top example? Please Bazza. Argue away, but try to find a better example.

BTW- The most requested Beatles versions at my shows are Ameri-Sing and Legends. Stones? Legends as well. Customer choices, not mine... However, SC8119 is a top duet disc, 8108 it a terrific oldies disc, and their Star Disc series has some awesome Dusty Springfield and Bette Midler.

Yes, they do some great stuff- but PLEASE leave Elvis out of it..

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

i thought amerising was rebranded SC.

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

What I find laughable Lonnie is some hosts say DK is crap and they all still have a set in their particular show. Also they say CAVS product is crap, and that no one should take them seriously. If that is true then why did SC have to trash them? If their product was that inferior wouldn't it have been better, to let them collapse on their own, as a business? Is SC so insecure that they have to go after producers of a substandard product? Sometimes I think some hosts have to to build up in their minds that the SC product is so superior, it is worth putting up with their flawed legal process. Sort of justifying to themselves this whole legal recovery comic opera. Only a company that is suffering from severe paranoia has to make trouble where there is none, hunting ants with an elephant gun.

Amazing how some people will bad mouth a product that they are just too cheap to purchase. I have sung many an Elvis song from a Sound Choice disc with no problems. Many of the SGB Elvis tracks sound like they were recorded in a tin shed with Bongo drums and homemade guitar. Amazing how a guy with admitted hearing problems so freely gives out advice and opinions on things that he can barely hear?

Maybe some KJs just don't want to tell their regulars that they just don't want to buy the good stuff so they try to comvince their singers that the good stuff is crap so they won't have to provide the good stuff. When someone starts touting that the SGB material is better than ANYTHING by Sound Choice, you have to question their motives and their sanity....especially when the same guy says that SGB is WAY BETTER than Idol Makers when they are, in fact, the same thing with different splash screens.

Bruce when I was hosting about half of my customers brought in their own discs to play. They used various products DK, CB, SGB, MM, MH, Sunfly, Zoom, and even SC. Even if I had the same version they wanted to use their own disc, which was fine by me. The customer is always right. I never got a complaint as to the quality or size of my library. The most important thing was to have a version of the song they wanted to sing. While there are singers that are particular about what they sing, the one's that are that hard to please bring in their own music, rather than sing one off the rack. Sometimes they even had their discs key adjusted ahead of time so I wouldn't have to change the key.

I'm all for people bringing their own discs to a karaoke show if they have a preference for a particular track. I have a problem with a KJ telling their singers bull$hit excuses as to why they don't have a better version than SGB in their library. I knew one KJ that would tell people that a particular song wasn't available on any karaoke discs, if he didn't have it because he would tell anyone who would listen that he had EVERY karaoke song out there. He had even posted something in the front of his songbook that he would buy anyone a drink who had a song that he didn't have. I had quite a few free drinks at his shows until he took that page out of his song book.

I wonder how many homemade Bruce songs you brought in to his show...