Pro Musician Considerin Doing Some Karaoke...

[DanG2006]

There's still no mention of the Media Pro on the DigiTrax site.

It's on compuhost's site.

[wiseguy]

Yeah absolutely. I am not going to be looking to open up some huge KJ service and hire people to do shows for me, all using the same songs I only paid for once. But let me ask you this, since you brought it up. I have sometimes had some terrible luck with PC's, particularly laptops! So it is my plan, if I end up doing this KJ stuff, to always have a backup laptop with me in case my main lappy crashes or just starts giving me grief.

Now, if I have the songs loaded on both PC's BUT am only using one at a time, am I in violation of this 1:1 compliance? Seems like there is some grey area here, because if I am only using one as a backup, and NOT even so much as booting it up unless my main machine goes down, then it seems reasonable that I should be all right. However, I have learned that reasonable is not always how its done.

I store all my music on two separate external USB hard drives which both are with me at every show. I also carry two laptops. If a hard drive would fail I can quickly change it out for the other one. If a laptop fails I can have the other one up and running in just a few minutes. Yes, I suppose you could call this a grey area but it would be hard for anyone to say you were using the music illegally. The way I look at something like this is that if I know I'm doing nothing wrong I'm not going to worry about it.

Actually wouldn't the reverse be true? If some drunk is going to trip over a wire, I would much rather he do so on a wire with an extra 20 feet of slack in it rather than one that is shorter that can literally rip the mixer to the floor or smash the mic. I run into the same issue with my band. We play regularly and many times I breathed a sigh of relief when (because there was no stage, but instead a "stage area") some drunk got tangled in a wire that was longer than it needed to be and so I caught him way before all the slack was taken out.

Well, I guess you could let a long mic cable be stung across the floor and hope that when someone trips over it the slack will be sufficient to prevent a problem. Personally, I would prefer to avoid the situation completely by eliminating the possibility of someone walking between the mic and mixer. Of course this is all theoretical as I use only wireless mics.

[ChiroVette]

Wiseguy, I may go wireless at some point with a higher end mic like a Shure SM58, or one of the EV or Sennheiser offerings for the vocal enthusiasts and better singers. I figure that for a start up, if I end up going the KJ route, it's probably best to keep startup as inexpensive as possible, which would mean a lower end wireless mic that some in this forum recommended and saving the hot (and wired) vocal mics for the pro's and semi pros in the audience.

What are your thoughts for buying used Karaoke tracks (they have some used lots) on eBay? This is, of course, assuming that I am getting original discs AND that the seller warranties to me, in email receipt, that he is destroying all backups AND deleting all tracks from all devices. (lol whether he does so or not, I obviously won't know).

But I could build a five or ten thousand song library for pennies on the dollar going this route. I will of course avoid the company you mentioned at all costs!

[mr.dj]

There's still no mention of the Media Pro on the DigiTrax site.

It's listed here: http://www.mykjmedia.com/

[Bigdog]

I would seriously suggest visiting local karaoke shows.

Being in a band and "doing" karaoke are 2 different animals.

You just might get your eyes opened by what you experience....

A band basically does one style of music and the following is geared to that. Karaoke involves all the different styles of music and musical talent...much of which is lacking.....You will probably hear more bad singers than good. And many songs you'll wish you didn't buy.

The pop & water drinkers will kill business which is already dying from the economy.

In the beginning karaoke systems were pretty lame so having a good one set you apart.

From everything I have seen lately....the quality of the sound system doesn't matter anymore. What matters now is if I can smoke in the bar or not. If so they gladly sing on crap systems...

The smoking bars are the hot spots now. I play nonsmoking bars and the business is way down...smokers have more bad habits like drinking and they are drawing bigger crowds...


Do some quality homework..before you get real serious about it...study your competition.

The entertainment dollars are drying up..

[Bigdog]

Wiseguy, I may go wireless at some point with a higher end mic like a Shure SM58, or one of the EV or Sennheiser offerings for the vocal enthusiasts and better singers. I figure that for a start up, if I end up going the KJ route, it's probably best to keep startup as inexpensive as possible, which would mean a lower end wireless mic that some in this forum recommended and saving the hot (and wired) vocal mics for the pro's and semi pros in the audience.

What are your thoughts for buying used Karaoke tracks (they have some used lots) on eBay? This is, of course, assuming that I am getting original discs AND that the seller warranties to me, in email receipt, that he is destroying all backups AND deleting all tracks from all devices. (lol whether he does so or not, I obviously won't know).

But I could build a five or ten thousand song library for pennies on the dollar going this route. I will of course avoid the company you mentioned at all costs!

Even the best singers drop microphones.

The singers do notice corded microphones and most don't like them since everyone went cordless.

Buying a used library is a great way to get music.

Also karaoke gigs do not pay anywhere close to what bands get...

Many years ago I had 14 jobs a week and jobs were a dime a dozen....not so today.

In the old days I could count on 2-5 nonsingers for every singer there. Today I'm LUCKY if we get 1-1....

I still hear complaints about the crappy karaoke shows from people that sometimes show up at my shows...but those other KJs still work steady... and they still get the singers that complain about their crappy systems.

[Bigdog]

Thanks, Wiseguy!

Yeah, I had read somewhere that stage monitors were rarely used. But you know what? Being a little bit of a spoiled musician and singer, one of the main reason I have mostly avoided going with friends to Karaoke bars and singing there is the lack of monitors. Also, the lack of reverb as well as my sense that literally every "system" I have ever seen used in Karaoke sounded...well horrible. A subscription service may be the way to go for me, to be honest. Like I said I will do it right (and legal!) or not at all.

I was also thinking that it might not be the worst idea to offer a paid service to supplement my income: Maybe I record the audio and the video for every patron and if they wish to purchase the audio CD or the video DVD from me, then I could sell it to them. People might actually like the idea of paying for their performance, particularly considering how few times most people ever get to sing on gear like this? So the monitor, in my opinion, would be really nice because, as you alluded to, nobody uses them, particularly ones of the quality of EV's ELX line. That monitor, in many ways, is a better stage monitor than the PRX, which is why I bought it. But I can't tell you how many times I have invited people to sing with my band and having a high end monitor wedge in front of them just blew them away because it was not something they were used to. Plus, things like compression on the vocals can really smooth out some of the screaming amateurs.

Not sure I agree with you about the wireless mics, though, to be frank. Not that I am opposed to the investment, but because they just can't compare with an Sennheiser wired mic or even the SM58. There really is no comparison between audio quality. But I get the feeling that you will probably tell me that this doesn't matter, right? That people will "feel better" holding a wireless mic, so because they "like it better" it makes no difference if the audio quakity is inferior?

If so, I can't argue that point.

Copyright /legal issues involved in you selling recordings and I would think even more so in NYC with all the entertainment venues and people involved in the scene..closer scrutiny..maybe

[wiseguy]

Wiseguy, I may go wireless at some point with a higher end mic like a Shure SM58, or one of the EV or Sennheiser offerings for the vocal enthusiasts and better singers. I figure that for a start up, if I end up going the KJ route, it's probably best to keep startup as inexpensive as possible, which would mean a lower end wireless mic that some in this forum recommended and saving the hot (and wired) vocal mics for the pro's and semi pros in the audience.

What are your thoughts for buying used Karaoke tracks (they have some used lots) on eBay? This is, of course, assuming that I am getting original discs AND that the seller warranties to me, in email receipt, that he is destroying all backups AND deleting all tracks from all devices. (lol whether he does so or not, I obviously won't know).

But I could build a five or ten thousand song library for pennies on the dollar going this route. I will of course avoid the company you mentioned at all costs!

As long are the used discs are from the popular brands they are the cheapest way to buy karaoke music. I've seen a lot of generic discs listed there and these are often of dubious quality. As long as you get the original disc don't worry that the seller has made copies. If you have the original you are legal and are not responsible for what the seller retains.