Seeking Advice on Library/Software, etc.

[DanG2006]

That's why I'm glad I have JustKaraoke on top of having Compuhost. I've been having issues with compuhost starting the next song even though I jumped someone who was either on a cigarette break or in the restroom. I know in JustKaraoke that I'm going to have to add back the last song that the singer I skipped was gonna sing before the skip. But that isn't too bad.

[wiseguy]

If someone is in the restroom I'll wait for them. If someone is not in the building when I call for them they are getting removed from the rotation because they could have asked me how soon they would be up. So skipping someone has never been an issue.

[DanG2006]

I skip because I don't believe in dead air. Waiting on them requires dead air unless you believe in filler music between songs. I don't. Simply because I feel talking over a song is unprofessional. As for removing someone from the rotation altogether, I'll do that after three attempts to get them up after skipping them. I run straight Traditional Karaoke where unless I have zero singers, I refuse to play filler music. Besides, JustKaraoke's filler player just doesn't cut the mustard. If it truly randomizes selections, it would not stay in one section of the playlist.

[Paradigm Karaoke]

i don;t play dj sets like you are describing, but i use filler music to keep something going in the background (i keep mine at 40% volume and karaoke at 100%)while i'm talking, like every DJ live, radio, or TV does. do what works for you but to me when i experience no filler it seems extrememly unprofessional to me to have that dead air. granted my filler music between songs never goes longer than 20 seconds if someone is moving really slow, generally it is less than 10 seconds from one karaoke song ending to another one beginning.

[wiseguy]

JustKaraoke has an ambient (filler) music feature that takes care of dead air time. Depending on the crowd I will sometimes do DJ sets along with karaoke. Karaoke hosting software does not have the features needed to DJ effectively and so I use a separate program for this.

[DanG2006]

As I was saying, I don't use the filler player anymore because I have had too many complaints when I start the karaoke song while killing the filler song. So if I have enough singers, I run a straight karaoke only show. It's all about the singer at my shows.

[wiseguy]

Filler music is fine if you keep it at a low level not near as loud as the karaoke. It is unavoidable having instances where a singer is delayed getting up to sing. Without filler music all you have is silence. Like Paradigm said... that is unprofessional. Karaoke is not ONLY about the singers... it's about the entire crowd. Most often there are more non-singers in the house than singers.

[DanG2006]

I use that time advertising specials and upcoming events. No need for the filler music except for having no singers and I rarely see that. IN fact I can't remember the last filler song and when I last played one. Most of the nonsingers are there to hear their friends sing.

[DanG2006]

I can't adjust the volume of the filler player on the software that I just changed to. I picked it basically because I got tired of chasing down a singer who doesn't have a song in before their turn is up, now I just let the player tell me that I need to make a decision on whether to skip them, delete them or get a song from them. I also like the idea that I can import my new songs without worrying about the naming convention used because most of the downloaded music I buy have MP3Tags in the audio file. I already unzip them anyway so why not make use of this feature. Back to the filler issue, I have a hard time getting myself to talk over music with vocals in them so I have decided to use instrumentals like Joe Satriani. I figure no vocals to talk over plus most people aren't going to ask me to let an instrumental play out which was another problem that I had with filler music.