The Results Are In

[wiseguy]

The KJ Pro database may not contain every single karaoke CDG song track ever released but it comes very close. It's taken me a couple hours a day over the past month to manually remove all non-English language and duplicate song titles. While not precise, this is a good indication of how many unique song titles there are in existence.

I'll reveal the exact number I came up within a day or two.

[Moonrider]

What do we win if we guess right?

[Bigdog]

I now one thing for sure, you did a lot of deleting.

Did you correct the spellings of the titles and artists while you did that?

I picked 28,000 but it's probably 21,000.

[wiseguy]

I now one thing for sure, you did a lot of deleting.

Did you correct the spellings of the titles and artists while you did that?

A lot of deleting is an understatement.

I not only corrected spellings but also standardized titles and artist names.

For example, the many ways that the artist is listed on the Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons songs were all changed to "Valli, Frankie And The Four Seasons".

Song titles like "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" were corrected to "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You"

There were numerous other corrections like the wrong artist assigned to a song. Did you know that Bob Seger released the song Love Shack?

Many show tune and sound track songs have the show or movie listed as the artist. Some of these songs were released by multiple artists. I can't assign them to any one artist so I just had to leave them.

The bottom line is that there are undoubtedly many more duplicates that I could actually remove but not without a lot of researching.

[Bigdog]

With the nshow tunes or broadway songs I did a BROADWAY listing and after the song title I tried to put the show it came from behind it.

EX BLAH BLAH (Rain on the Street)

I also have a STANDARDS listing for songs like America The Beautiful, Home On The Range.

Just looking right now I see that there are 2 versions of Danny Boy in there. Should those stay there or be put in the Irish songs listing?

Each of us will have our own way of designating where the songs should go.

With Frankie Valli and similar groups like tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I used

Tom Petty & The Heratbreakers

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

Charlie Danials Band

I did this because it became the actual group name. Or at least that's what it says on the albums and how they are always refered to.

To simplify I lumped all the Four Seasons songs in with Frankie Valli songs because 99.9% of the public won't be able to separate them anyway. And because he was the lead singer of the group when they were just the Four Seasons.

I'm sure each data base company uses different methods.

[Sabrina59]

So ... when you're done with the document are you going to share it with us? I, for one, would sure love to have a copy of it.

[wiseguy]

In the complete song database a song title like "Danny Boy" would have multiple instances under artists... Children's, Irish, Standard, Show Tunes, Traditional, Various, and a few actual people. So obviously the "same Title by same Artist" criteria for a unique song cannot be applied. I had to make a case by case decision on which ones to keep.

You have to actually browse through the entire database to see just how messed up it is. For those of you who have KJ Pro, create a new custom song book (name it something like "All Songs" or whatever) and then just add every single disc in the database to it.

I use the program for storing and printing my books but have never used the database for naming them. I've always manually typed in every single song.

[wiseguy]

So ... when you're done with the document are you going to share it with us? I, for one, would sure love to have a copy of it.

If I can. I tried to export it as an Excel document but kept getting errors.

[Bigdog]

I use KJ Rip N Zip to get the songs on my computer. It works with the KJ Pro to name the ripped tracks automatically. You just have to make sure you use the same isc ID # that the KJ Pro uses or you could change it in KJ Pro to match what you are calling the disc. Saves a lot of typing. But again you have to watch for the spelling and naming errors.

There are a few issues with the KJ Rip N Zip. When it names a song track it there is a contraction in the title it capitalizes the next letter after the apostophy.

Ex Can'T Take My Eyes Off Of You

So I go in and maually change it. A friend talked to the KJRNZ deveolper about it and he isn't going to fix the problem. Now remember KJRNZ only costs $5 so there isn't a whole lot to bytch about for the time it actually saves. I know it does it so I just automatically look at every track once they are ripped to make sure they are all correct anyway.

They will show up this way {Can'T} on the hard drive and in the Sax & Dottys program.

I use the Billboard book of Top 40 Hits for a lot of my research. For correctly naming the titles and artists. Then I also double check questionable stuff on the internet.

[mnementh]

So ... when you're done with the document are you going to share it with us? I, for one, would sure love to have a copy of it.

If I can. I tried to export it as an Excel document but kept getting errors.

Which version of Excel did you use?

If not 2007, then there is a 64,000 row limit on all previous versions .

You could try the Wordperfect spreadsheet as that doesn't have an upper limit but the way I got round it was to produce a Comma deliminated file (.CSV). Rename the extension to .TXT and split the file, using a Freeware text file splitter.

Then you can import the text file into Excel on different Worksheets.

Unfortunately, to search through more than one worksheet will require use of a Macro as the standard search function only works in the current Worksheet.

Sandy

[Moonrider]

So ... when you're done with the document are you going to share it with us? I, for one, would sure love to have a copy of it.

If I can. I tried to export it as an Excel document but kept getting errors.

I might be closer to right than most people voting then . . .

[wiseguy]

Which version of Excel did you use?

If not 2007, then there is a 64,000 row limit on all previous versions .

You could try the Wordperfect spreadsheet as that doesn't have an upper limit but the way I got round it was to produce a Comma deliminated file (.CSV). Rename the extension to .TXT and split the file, using a Freeware text file splitter.

Then you can import the text file into Excel on different Worksheets.

Unfortunately, to search through more than one worksheet will require use of a Macro as the standard search function only works in the current Worksheet.

Sandy

I'm using Excel 2007. I get a "can't start OLE server" error. I never have been able to export to Excel from KJ Pro. There is no option to export to CSV.

[DanG2006]

Yeah that function has never worked for me either. One of the reasons I went to Fast Tracks.

[wiseguy]

I might be closer to right than most people voting then . . .

Nobody got it right. The correct answer is 39,000. The actual number was 38,991.

This number could be greatly reduced if common sense, as opposed to the "same Song by same Artist" criteria" was applied. Who needs 15 versions of "My Funny Valentine" for example? What are the odds that there is a discernible difference between most of them?

Sometimes, two songs with the same title are two completely different songs. This is the exception rather than the rule.

My bottom line is that I am sick and tired of these KJs boasting about having 80,000 to hundreds of thousands of karaoke song titles, and then deny that they are listing a myriad of duplicates.

Just quit lying! You don't have that many unique song titles.

[Bigdog]

I'm surprised.

But the disturbing thing is, that means there are over 300,000 worthless dupes out there. What a waste. No wonder most of the companies went under. They tried to dupe us to death. Good riddance.

Demand more original songs. Come on manufacturers. You're killin' us.