Karaoke Forums

Hi friends,
I, am a noob.. an ultra noob if you will.. I've been going up and down these forums, and trying to read as much as I can... still.. even the other amateurs here know much more than me.  The terminology is beyond me.

I went to this karaoke bar.. and folks, I had the time of my life.  however, it get's pricey.  so, we were finally thinking it's time to get one.  Now we go into a store, and lookie.. there's a ton of them sitting around.. no idea what is good, and what isn't.  And we don't want to get ripped off, so.. we decide to do some research..
so overwhelming.  From the looks of this forum, there are a lot of pro's here..
can anyone help?

so we have $400 that we want to spend.. if you had $400 to put together sth what would you buy?
what's a good player?  mics? etc..
I heard there are some machinese that have discs that hold 100s of songs, are those any good?  how can we update songs if we need?

will justdafe spend too much money?  will justdafe get ripped off?  stay tuned..
same Karaoke channel, same Karaoke forum.. heeeellllp... please.

Don't worry, we we all at that same poit you ar at no ant one time
I am sure we will try

First off, is the $400 for just the equipment, or equipment and songs?

With $400 for a budget, you can't get much.  I would suggest starting out with a cheasy litlle home karaoke system from walmart (or similar) and spend the rest on discs.

For discs, I suggest Chartbuster Essentials or Sound Choice (SC) Foundations serries.  THey usualty can be found the cheapest on Ebay, or check out some of the affiliates with Karaoke Scene found on the main page http://www.karaokescene.com/

Now if you had a bit more of a budget, say $1000-$1500, you could dive into the "pro" audio realm, giving you a much better sound, and get some discs too. $400 is just kinda a small budget, if you want a professional sound system.

unless you just get one off of ebay with 3200 songs included.... and it comes with a mic for 300 bucks.

http://cgi.ebay.com/RSQ-NEO-E500-KARAOK ... dZViewItem

Like that...

I just bought it and the machine was "upgraded" to play SCDG and it did... for the first week and then I brought it home and it stoped reading the SCDGs that it came with... so now I had to transfer all that music to the computer and use a laptop for tonights show...

if anyone has any ideas to fix that let me know and I will owe you forever.

really? doh..
the $400 wouldn't include music..

but yeh.. what about those machines like the
RSQ NEO-E500
that one looked impressive..

so.. if we were able to get to $1000.. what's your take?

You could get the RSQ players that are pre loaded with music, but then you still need to get speakers, and a amp, or jack it in to your home system.  Take note, suround sound systems for home theaters are not ment to reproduce LIVE sound, and will not sond no where as good as a PRO PA system.

For $1000 (no music)
Buy a package system, that has speakers, amp, and mics.  THen buy a CDG disc player, and you are set.


Personal I use Behringer equipment, and have never had any problrms with it.  Others may disagree, and will, but I have found that Behringer provides a quality product at a resonable price.

Here are a few packages from behringer that I recomend....
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=631259
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=600717

With the current trends I setup home karake systems. With various outmoded engineering degrees I charge $500 - $800 for setup. This includes setting up state of the art computers  and explanition of the latest karaoke sofware and legaL registration and how to use it. This also includes a simple interpretation of the legal aspects of doing private karaoke parties.
 I can use older stereo systems if they are adaptable and have adequtes speakers. Or I can recomend various ways and price ranges to setup an adequate system.

but this is a typical post in this forum.. I need to know the specifics Are you setting up in  the basement? What is the size of the room you are setting up in? Do you plan on having parties if so how many guests?what are your ultimate goals?

When you give me an idea what you are trying to do then and the general room you are setting up in I can give you simple general free advice other than that only guesses..

I dont where youn are son but Ill tell you what you give me  a thousand dollars we will go hit a few hock shops and you will have one hell of a system

haha.. well.. we were hoping to start off with a player first, then see what could be tweaked to help the sound from there on.

we never really considered a mixer or anything of that sort..

so.. first goal would be the player.. the mics..
and then speakers.

only thing is that I already have speakers from a home entertainment system,
they're Nuance.. that's about all I know.. 4 tower speakers and 1 centre channel.
I have a receiver as well.. Pioneer VSX1015.. that's the model..
I don't really want to go buying new speakers as these are already large enough and take up a lot of room..

the room is pretty large..  about 20' wide by 9' deep.. hard wood floors..

Let me take a wack at this one....

First off, go to Wal-Mart and buy a DVD player that is karaoke compatable. I have seen plenty of them for $50. The box SHOULD indicate somewhere that the player handles CDG format.

Next, purchase the following system online:

http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i- ... 06_77.html

This is a Squire PA (Squire is made by Fender) with a vocal reverb that is totally upgradable if you want more powerful equipment in the future. It runs $230.

With the remaining $120, purchase the following disc sets off of Ebay:

Sweet Georgia Brown (66 discs, should be able to get it for $89-99 on Ebay)
Dangerous Hits (12 Discs, should be able to get it for $39-49 on Ebay).

The SGB set is a base set of rock, pop, and country from the 50s-90s that will give you a good bang for your buck as a starter set. They are not generally professional quality karaoke discs (though I think their rock selections are done very well), but they are 1/8 the cost of the top brands and are certainly not the worst out there. I use some SGB in my pro show and have no complaints.

The Dangerous set has REALLY good rock selections and is known as being very good quality selections of songs that are hard to find anywhere else. There are a handful of pop/R&B on them as well. Most are from the 90s.

Those two discs will give you about 1300 songs.

That is a starter PA system with music for $420 plus tax/shipping (which may even be free for some of these items).

If you want more current music, you can always buy it later at www.karaoke.com.

The chartbuster year-end compilations give you the top 200+ hits from each of the past 4 years (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) for $80 per year.

Also in the future, you could upgrade your PA mixing amp to have more power and get cleaner sound through the same PA speakers. The next step would then be to upgrade the speakers. But I think the basic equipment listed above will satisfy the casual home karaoke enthusiest.

Hope that helps!!

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL