Karaoke Forums

I have done Karaoke for years for our church and for personal parties but never as a professional KJ.  My current system consists of the following equipment.

Yamaha EMX-640 8-channel mixer/amplifier
Yamaha SM15IV Speakers
Sony VCP-C1 5-Disc Carasel Video CD player w/CD+G

I have been very happy with the Sony CD+g player for years and have enjoyed having the capability of having a song playing while setting up the next five singers.  My only complaint might be a relatively slow disc change/track startup times.  I had trouble getting this player to operate reliably on my last gig and am in the market for a new player.  I was impressed with the Vocopro CDG 9000 until I began to read the posts on this forum.  The ability to play DVDs would be a plus.  However, many of the equipment suggestions that I have seen have been for equipment that is less sophisticated that what I have been accustom to using.

Could some of you professional users tell me what equipment that you use and why you like it over other models.  This info may be on this forum somewhere but I haven't found it yet.

Thanks for any help you can supply.

TNichols

You will find for the majority there are 2 units being used by professional KJ’s around the world.

The RSQ/JVC Triple Tray CD/CDG/VCD PLAYER – The player allows 1 tray to be in use and you can load and switch the other 2 trays. It’s load and seek times are fast enough and it has an on board digital key changer and a multiplex feature allowing you to take the vocals out of MULTIPLEX CDGS.  It’s quality has been tested and now it is rack mountable with special racj ears.

The new kid on the block is the  Numark  CD25+G –This is a basic rack mounted professional dual cd player with separate player and control modules.  It plays CDGS and has all the features of a basic DJ dual cd player.  Sound is Good and Quality has been good also – Although the unit is NEW and no long term use is known.  Numark is one of the leaders in the pro DJ business though.  Drawbacks of this unit are s NO digital key changer , just a tempo +/- type of key changing and the VIDEO feeds are separate meaning you will need a A/B switch to view the two players off  the same monitor.

Thanks,

I have looked at that unit and like the price and the features look ok but it doesn't excite me much.  I guess that I would just like to see a higher tech unit.  I am a bells and whistle kind of guy and would like to see a unit that plays everything possible and allows the greatest control of each track.  However, it seems a shame that there is so much junk that you have to sift through to find a good player.  You can go to any Best Buy and pick up a great DVD player for next to nothing but it's hard to find a great Karaoke machine

Thanks for the suggestion, I may buy this one.

TNichols

the RSQ dvd players are pretty good... but they are seriously dependant on their remote control for a lot of their features.

Let's face it... Karaoke is a nitch market, and you're NEVER going to have a Best Buy or Sears or whatever specifically carry what you want so you can go in and test drive them.

That's what the customer reviews at karaoke.com are for! And Acekaraoke.com has some good graphics images of their players, and their spec sheets are decent enough to know what you're getting. If you like a certain model, do a search on google for reviews for them, or do a search on the unit model and see if such reviews show up!

Have you checked out these units?

HDD based player

or

Multi-disc jukebox player

Not sure about the quality of either but both seems to have neat features that I would like if I can afford them.

_________________

Seize the day and SING!!!

I wouldn't own ANYTHING by Acesonic... and the newness of the ten disc magazine player is okay. But if you're going to go with that, the old Jukebox would be almost better. (300 disc player with a graphics decoder)... if it handled more than one magazine at a time, I guess.

I just prefer the trays for disc swapping if you're going to go that route!

Thanks for all the comments.  I have researched all the units at all the online karaoke sites and have done an extensive search of the internet and I've come to the conclusion that I will most like have to convert to a computer DJ/KJ program.  I want features that are just not available on the versions available today.

One store told me that their units came with a one year warranty.  Well big deal!!  I expect a unit that I would buy to last at least 5 years or I don't want it.  Plus, even with a 5 year warranty, if it breaks, you still have to fool with sending it back and that is costly too.

Any comments about good PC KJ/DJ programs?  One DJ told me he uses a program called PCDJ and uses their KJ pluggin.  I haven't had time to research it yet but I will.

Thanks again for all comments.

TNichols

there are several karaoke programs that are discussed on the "Tech" forum... go to "All Forums" and click on "Technical" and you'll see the discussions that have been had about that.