Karaoke Forums

I do most of my work in the summer during the tourist season here in Alaska. I do shows at a couple bars, but also do shows at a couple hotels in the area as well.

We have a number of groups that come to Alaska from Japan and I was considering adding Japanese discs to the tracks that I have. Keep in mind that some of these tourists don't speak any English at all. While the manufacturers or English discs are pretty well known, I'm curious which manufacturers of foriegn discs are the 'best'.

BTW, we also have a large number of employees from eastern European countries (Russia, Chech republic, Poland, etc) for whom some discs might be beneficial as well.

So the questions...

1. Who makes the creme de la creme of karaoke discs for foriegn languages (specifically Japanese/eastern European)?

2. How do you handle languages (like Japanese, Chinese, etc) that don't use the roman alphabet for it's characters when adding them to your book? Do you make a seperate book for those songs? or just a seperate section? or mix them in with all the other tracks?

3. Have you experienced any incompatibilities with foreign discs? (NTSC/PAL/etc)

4. Are formats other than VCD/CD+G popular?

5. While I would never dream of using midi tracks in my normal show are midi tracks expected and/or used frequently in other countries and almost expected?

If you have any other information on doing shows for foreign nationals I'd appreciate it... It's just something I'm considering at this point to determine how feasible it is. I still need to see if the groups will actually be interested in karaoke (making it financially feasible).

I use some laser discs when I play at this french bistro in beverly hills. The pickens are slim but i'm sure its out there..oui oui baby french karaoke. ps theres also some foreign songs on SAV discs.

I get a lot of foreigners to my Thursday show - they are bussed in from a large corporate/global training center nearby. Have purchased European languages (German, Italian...) discs for them. The one I am still missing but have been asked for many times over is Dutch.

I got most of this music from acekaraoke.com, one of this site's sponsors. They have a very large collection - CDG, DVD, VCD and some sort of "chip" for a Mr. Microphone thingy. They do carry Japanese karaoke.

I haven't ordered anything yet that would require a different character set for printing. It could present a challenge - maybe you could xerox the sleeves and put them in the book with your own numbering system. As for the quality, it's difficult for me to compare. Haven't had any complaints though.

_________________
Sounds Great! Entertainment
Bartlett, Illinois

A local club just pulled all the laser discs from their books and are likely going to sell them off. It jsut so happens that they have a rack of japanese, chinese, phillipine, and 2 racks of english.

Anyone have any experience with the laser discs in other languages?

How do you feel the Pioneer laser discs (english) compare to sound choice, etc?


BTW, if I got the laser discs I'd copy them to my computer and then burn VCD's for my shows. Anyone ever have a problem doing this?