Stumbled across this theme today, and thought that it made a great match for the site. So what do ya think?

Pretty good find, if I do say so myself!

These days, it’s not uncommon to find karaoke contests sprinkled across your area, and though introducing your un-trained voiced to a crowd of local nay sayers can be nerve racking, I’ve put together some tips that’ll work for anyone looking to sing karaoke for some quick cash and/or other prizes.

1. If you smoke, you’d better stop for at least one day. Smoking tends to dry out your throat, and unless you’re a natural born singer, there isn’t a cough drop in the world thats going to make a bit of difference. Sure, you’ll find those that can smoke, drink, and swallow glass, and still get by fine, but if you want the cash prize, you’ll need to treat your pipes with care!
2. Alcohol tends to dry out the throat as well. If you keep your drinking to a minimum, then you’ll not only help save the throat, but you’ll also be much more alert, which increase your chances of ‘punching it home’ when the timing is just right. Off-key, drunken babbling isn’t good for anyone.
3. Practice, but not how you might think. Some people sing in the shower (good), some people sing in the car (bad). Why? When we sing in our vehicles, we tend to turn the volume up really high. Doing so will not allow you to hear yourself nearly as well, and actually tricking you into thinking that you’re doing a great job (sorry… it’s the actual singer, not you). Singing along to the song is great practice, especially for getting the timing down, but keep the volume down to an extreme minimum.
4. Song selection - Start out with some easily recognizable country tunes, that don’t require much strain on the vocals (which is about all of ‘em anyways). Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash is an excellent example. But going for the win might require you to do a rock song, and everyone loves ’80s rock. Problem is, the lead singers from that generation, more often than not, added much annotation to their voice, which makes it difficult to sing. Practice is the only thing that’ll help in this arena, but if you nail it, you’re a sure fire karaoke winner!

I hope those tips help, and if you like, you can download karaoke tracks with Rhapsody. However, these tracks are just music, and no lyrics. To get the lyrics, simply do a google search.

One thing thats sort of annoying about your standard karaoke set up, is the fact that all the sound is coming from one single source…. YOUR main speakers. It’s bad enough that the people in the front row get stuck with an onslaught of off-key country tunes. Now you’re subjecting them to high-volume drunken rambling. So why not tap into the club’s main PA system and deliver your tunes on an even scale?

1. First ask the club owner if you can tap into the main PA (duh… but we all need our permission slips).
2. Then find out if the ‘house’ audio system is owned by the club or not. Some places own their equipment, while others lease it from a vending machine type company. If the later is the case, you’ll need permission and probably assistance for hooking up your system.
3. As long as you have the green light, it’s time to get to work! First thing you’ll need is a splitter to attach to the output of the CD+G Player. You NEVER want to line out from your power amp to the House PA. Doing so could cause very serious damage, and you’ll be stuck doing karaoke for free, for quite some time. The line out from your CD+G player will be perfect as it does not send voltage up the line. Your typical connection from the player is an A/V style plug, and the splitters (you’ll probably need two) should run a couple bucks a piece.
4. Cabling - Since you’re asking for the extra ‘umpf’, you’ll need to supply all the cable as well. This could get quite expensive if the House PA is all the way across the bar. So spend some time shopping for cable. For those really long runs, you’ll probably have to stop down at the local music shop for a custom made set, which is highly recommended but can be expensive.
5. Determine what kind of inputs are allowed on the House system. Since the input can vary widely, you’ll probably have to purchase, yet another, set of splitters and possibly some adapters. If you’re dealing with a leased system, it might be wise to speak with the rental company to make sure you’re hooking your lines up in the proper place. When it comes to electronics…. ‘You just never know’.

When the smoke clears, you’ll have a KILLER sounding system. The bartenders can easily adjust the volume of the house system just like they normally do, keeping the volume at a comfortable level. Meanwhile, you can run your system louder than the house, but not nearly as loud as before, which saves your up-front audience members a trip to the hospital with bleeding ears. The overall effect is a perfectly balanced audio environment!

Great show on Saturday night! Despite the fact that three bars in town had live bands (one of which came all the way from Kentucky), the place was fairly packed. The population dived a little for about an hour, but came back quickly. Lots of new singers, which was nice. On the down side, I then hear lots of “When is my song coming up?!?!”. Can’t win ‘em all I guess.

We also added an extra CD player to the rack. This allowed us to constantly run regular music in between singers. Never realized how much of a difference that would make, and although it got a little hairy at times trying to operate everything, the ‘filled void’ was well worth it, as it kept the place rockin’ all night.

Got a Karaoke business? Here are some tips for picking songs and operating your equipment, to fill that gap -

1. No matter how your playing music (CD or computer files), make sure your ‘off’ music is extensive. Using just a plain CD with only 12-15 songs will force your patrons to hear the same songs over and over throughout the course of the night. Make an MP3 disc with 100 songs or more. This allows for that ’something new’ factor during each and every song break.
2. Pick songs that are at least somewhat well known. You don’t necessarily have to have an entire archive of Britney Spears, but you wouldn’t want to toss songs in there like Dead Embryonic Cells from Sepultura. New top 40 type stuff combined with classic hard rock and country will make a fair mix.
3. Stay away from obvious popular karaoke songs? Thats a wishy washy situation there. Personally, I wouldn’t play a song that I KNOW is going to be requested by a potential singer. However, I will play songs by the same artists, that don’t get a lot of attention. This way, everyone will hear something different during the course of the night, keeping the situation ‘fresh’.
4. Keep your music running, and on a mixer channel that allows volume adjustment. Even when someone is singing, my ‘mix disc’ is running. I simply turn the volume down to nothing. When it’s time to cue the music, I discreetly fade-in. Using a Mute button will be far to awkward for the audience. Picture a singer finishing up ‘Grandpa’, and suddenly ‘Back In Black’ explodes in over the speakers. Very uncomfortable. The fade-in should be used as the audience is giving the singer their round of applause. This way, they don’t even see it coming, and the show keeps moving.
5. Volume - Low is the key here. I prefer to run the mix disc volume several db below the main karaoke music. That way it becomes blatantly obvious that it’s just background music, and the host can clearly be heard when announcing the next singer, contest results, last call (never liked that one ;)), or any other quickie information bits.

Darn - I tried downloading karaoke songs from Napster, however the songs don’t have any on-screen lyrics… real bummer.

On the bright side, I believe most songs are supplied by Sound Choice, which produces some of the highest quality karaoke tracks available.  Spendy, but worth it!

I’ll keep this in mind for later, but I’ll have to grab some karaoke making/burning software and see how the results all pan out.

RK is doing a show at the Longhorn again this coming weekend, and I hope it was as good as last time…. the place was packed, wall to wall!

Needless to say, I was busy as all heck, and could barely keep up.

Despite the frustration, and karaoke tickets from hell, it turned out to be a pretty good night. Though, daylight savings time kept us out an hour later. Never realized how much difference a lousy hour can make in a night.

On nights like these tho, you often get that little ‘music gem’, where someone will sing something completely out-of-the-blue. And this particular show gave us an excellent version of ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’, by Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong. The guy singing sounded awesome! Hit every note, and the voice sounded like it was straight from a ’70s recording.

We almost didn’t play it, because the last two times we’ve tried, for some reason the track started skipping like crazy… right in the middle of the song. The disc looks fine too, so I’m a little confused at whats going on there. Hopefully the karaoke machine isn’t on it’s way out!

Guess we’ll find out on Saturday…..

Lets face it - Some nights at karaoke can be drag, and it usually isn’t the overall clientele. No, it’s the singers…. the ones that are singing all those mopey “I-lost-my-dog-so-she-left-me” songs. Nights like that can be a total bummer. So here’s a list of songs I’ve put together that really kick things up a notch.

1. Love Shack - “Tiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn Roof!….. Rusted.” I don’t know what that’s suppose to mean, and neither does Cindy Wilson. Despite the cryptic lyrics in the song break, this B52’s classic tune is easy to sing, encourages multiple people to step up to the mic, and heck… it’s just really fun. Guys generally won’t admit that they like it, but if you look closely, you’ll see them singing along.
2. Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy - Young, old, wanna-be-rockstar; It don’t matter who you are, everyone likes this song. It’s fun to sing, and with two fella’s at the mic, the mid-break in the song will really come to life. Go’s to show that country isn’t always full of heart break.
3. Baby Got Back - Now this one’s a little tough. Well… Ok, so it’s really tough. But if you can pull this off, you’ll have everyone in the joint jumping. The theme alone is socially acceptable these days (unless you’re in the wrong joint), even to all the women… especially the women. I wonder if Sir Mix A Lot knew this was gunna be a karaoke favorite?
4. Purple Rain - “Say What?!?!” Yeah, thats right. Slow churning Prince music. Sure, it’s not ‘up beat’, and yeah, a guy might feel kinda gay singing it, but if the right person throws down on this song, they’ll have every womans heart running double time. I’ve even seen a 350+ pound bald guy (white as a snow cone, I might add), put every ounce of himself into this tune, and walked away looking like a legendary Rockstar. Weird… very weird. But it works!
5. Hard To Handle - One of the great songs from the ‘hair band’ era makes a come back in karaoke fashion. With just a little practice, this song is easy to sing, and a real crowd pleaser. What’s even better about this classic rock tune is, Chris Robinson doesn’t add a whole lot of annotation to his voice. This makes the song vocally doable for anyone.

I leave it on that note, and maybe put together another list later. Enjoy the tunes, and hopefully you’ll be able to try some of those at the next gig!

You know that show, where this cab driver drives his customers around, asking various questions… and they win cash?

Well, someone took the idea and created Cabaraoke. Based in Kansas City, the service offers miniature props, a plethora of songs, and more. Better yet, they record each person singing, then post the videos on YouTube. I wonder if the passengers know this?

I was watching a video at that link, and the audio seemed a bit odd…. like they weren’t using actual karaoke tracks. Instead, it sounded as tho the people were singing to the regular CD. Odd…. maybe it’s just an acoustics thing.

The owner wants to get this business off the ground in many cities. So who knows, maybe it’ll get big and turn into a TV show.

Not a big deal, really. But I thought I’d make a tool as an added bonus to the site - A karaoke ticket generator.

Karaoke business’s can type in their business name, hit the ‘generate’ button, and print out blank request forms. Sure, it’s not all that fancy, but for anyone who’s lost all their info due to a computer crash (or god knows what else), they can just swing by here and get the job done.

There will be 10 request forms per page, complete with business name, and a name, track, and song line. So far, I’ve had success printing them on a few different styles of printers, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

So let me know if it’s not printing just right on your system, along with what type of printer you have. Any adjusting that I need to do, should be extremely minimal. More updates on the way!

News Source: Daily Chronicle

Michael Moses Griffin, a Northern Ill. University student, rocked the Karaoke World Championship by taking home second place. His final tune of choice - “Give It To Me Baby, by Rick James”. Somehow I’m picturing Dave Chappelle slappin’ the crap out of Japan.

First place had gone to a Malaysian man… gee, didn’t see that one coming.

/sarcasm

Odd thing is, the website didn’t say what our musical ambassador won in terms of cash. However this site tells us that they went home with a few nice things, like a Pro 88 player, some CD+G’s, and mic’s.

Seems like a small haul considering he crossed the Pacific Ocean.