ok people just wanna know a few things how many of us are kdj's (karaoke disc Jockey), whats your gigs like , pet hates, likes and loves of the job, what games you use if any and what kinda music do u play to get them going?

I have only been a pro kj for a couple of months, but I am loving it.
I get a great response, something along the lines of 'you're a lot better than the other bloke we used to have'..:D
I play "normal" music from 7.30 to about 8.15 eg disco, 80's and charts, then the karaoke kicks off..
My wife and I always do a couple to start, and we always participate throughout the night.
No matter how many times we try to drop our "teenage dirtbag" duet or my world famous "I believe in a thing called love" (including cat suit and wig)...the crowd won't let us drop them.
I try to blend the karaoke in with the disco....eg I will have a chart song playing....I cue up the next karaoke song.....call the singer up......then fade from the music to the karaoke with no silent bits in between.
seems to work for my crowd anyway. :clown:

Oh yeah....pet hates.....I hate people who come up and scream into the mikes and nearly blow my speakers up.
(I must remember to turn those mikes down after every song)....
I have forked out for a pretty decent system and would hate some d**k head to ruin the night...and my bank balance !.

if you're interested......1300 watt amp, numark mixer with alesis effects unit built in...jvc karaoke player, seperate cd players, tower pc, playing through some nifty cerwin-vega speakers.
just need to save up for a 3Kw amp and some cerwin-vega subs and I will be able to blow the windows out of any room....he he he.:round:

I cant stand when someone brings up like 10 requests at once and actually expects them to be played in the order they gave them to me and all in a row...

Cant stand hitting the mic to see if its on or blowing into it.

Cant stand when people expect you to have every song ever written to play for them. Ya.. ok.. I have my 18 wheeler out back loaded with the archives.

oh yeah equipment, i have a set of soundlab tops and bass bins, with a soundlab 800 amp, a kam pro 1500 mixer, a jvc single draw vcd/cdg player add to that a sharp 3 disc changer and mini disc mixed into together, good stuff, i hate the same sort of things another thing as well the fool who no matter how well you do could do better,

I run a show in a captive establishment (this means I have continuous work). I own the system. I run my show from computer. I have a slide show which is tied to the wall paper in Windows. The slides are set to 352 x 288 pixels, which is the standard karaoke screen size. This is set to run in the upper left corner of my Windows workspace and is zoomed to my Avermedia digital to analog converter. Which then shows this on the karaoke monitor, and 3 other sets in the bar. This is the background screen for the karaoke show. I run my song selections from file folders, karaoke, music, videos, etc. When a karaoke song is selected Winamp is set to turn on over the top of the slide show. When the song ends, Winamp shuts down and the slide show appears. On the slides I have karaoke rules, like “One Slip At A Time Please” or “Return Mike To KJ At End Of Song” or “KJ Works For Food” “Please Respect The Equipment”. I also run announcement for the bar, and my shows. This really helps to get the crowd in tune with the protocol. It also makes my life easier. I rarely have someone give me more than one slip, and I always get the mikes back. BTW, at first I though this would turn people off, but my shows are always packed.

Dennisgb, that might sound simple to you, lol, but how do you get winamp to shut down after a song? wouldnt it be easier to run two winamps with the screen of the slide show under the karaoke word screen, then when it stops playing it would disappear leaving the slide show? I just thought of that as I was typing-did it make any sense? Is that what you do?

Hey guys very new to the PC show just putting it all together to start using it mid Feb, I like the idea of the slide show and would be very interested to learn more if your willing to share the knowledge

Dave

Let see if I can explain this. First, if you use Winamp with the karaoke plug-in, and then que your songs one at a time from a file manager window, Winamp will play the song, then turn off at the end by itself. I don’t know if this is a setting, I think it is the default of single song selection. I know a lot of people like the type and go method, and also que next song, but frankly, I find it easier and better to run my shows from file manager windows. You can have separate windows for karaoke, music and videos if you do that. Then, in between singers, you can click a music song to fill in. I have much of my music tied to videos or made into CDG with screen changes using DART software. I put pictures of the artist in the CDG rather than lyrics. You just set the start screen to stay on for the length of the song. Also have many music videos, and some AVI’s I made myself.

The slide show is made using Wallsaver software. This is shareware.

http://www.sharewareviking.com/desktop5.htm

Look down the page a bit to find it.

If you use the method I do, with a digital to analog converter, then you need to set your zoom to the corner of the screen that you will run your karaoke from. Then you make up your slide show pages to match this position. This will be off set pages. It takes a little playing to find the position, once you find it make a master. I use Paint Shop Pro software to do my slides. You could use Windows Paint, or Adobe.

This probably won’t work with a system using a video card with TV out, where you are set for two screens, as the slide show is running on the Windows desktop on your computer screen. I and other’s in here have been recommending that people use a digital to analog converter such as the Avermedia:

http://www.aver.com/products/comptv.shtml

Because they allow you to run from your computer screen and control what your sending. They also have very good controls for image quality, contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc.

Hope that helps.

You certainly have been doing ure homework wanna do mine too :p

Great help files

Thanks Sharon,

There are a bunch of us on this forum who have been wrestling with running a professional show from computer. I am going into my second year, and the learning curve continues.

I think it is the best way to run your shows. It is very versitile, and lets you do things you can't with a disk system. I continue to add stuff to mine to "flash" it up, and improve my shows.

It is a bit of a challenge to set it up and get it working consistently, because computers don't particularly like an environment with 1000 watt amplifiers and the like.

good thread people, nice to see so many different replies, i have been thinking of switching to computer to run show, i don't kj a lot i have a weekly slot on a saturday, thinking of doing a resident wednesday slot, the thing is the money aint to great over here in the valleys, another problem i got is that i dont drive myself and rely on taxis- yes they cost a fortune, by the way whats your thought of drinking on the job?

No drinkin on the job.Only my opinion cos i dont touch the stuff but think you should refrain from drink until after ure gig has finished:p

Drinkin on the job can make u end up a bit limp hun so go for the soft drinks.

:beer: makes u limp

got to keep ure self up and ready.

:gabby: :hdspin:

yes ive gotta agree , theirs a lot of pubs i work in where you get knobheads and pisspots screaming down the mike , i had one tonight twice...same pillock , thought he was clever showing off too his mates trying to piss me off.......so i just faded his summer of 69 into girls alouds jump and grabbed the mike off him and simply said........koff !......he then went to the landlord whinging that i had a bad attitude in an attempt to get me in bother , but what he didnt realise is that the landlady was watching everything.....she booted him out with his little knobhead mates ......i then found out AMAZINGLY ! from someone who knows them that they were purposly sent in by another karaoke kj would you believe to start trouble with me to see if i got fired by the landlord for KICKING OFF with this arsehole and his little sheep !!! this other dj/ kj is that sad he cant get work he has to try steal other k j's nights by offering to work friday and saturday for wait for it....................50 quid....lol......he's got one gig a week for 50 quid and he wants my friday gig which is double that price and is only 300 yards away from his gig ........we are full every friday......theyre dead .......nuff said !.........in the hope your reading this you t@@@er ! i'm onto your shite tricks you sad b@st@rd !

perhaps the most sickening thing about this is the fact i helped to set him up, printed all his books with kslc for him and even got him the bleeding one gig he has now .....it makes me so bloody mad that people stoop so low

does anyone else have tossers to deal with trying to nick your work ????? or am i just unlucky and living in a crap town full of cnuts !

yeah when i first started i had a poblem similar to yours, a pub up the road sent a few of it's regulars down to sample the night, shouting and balling all night, disrupting the singers, saying out loud the karaoke was crap lol should have told it to his missus she didnt seem to mind it or me eyeing me up all night lol, the sad thing is i think from time to time we all have the same kinda problems, someone see your doing well sees a chance to make a few quid and trys to cash in

yes i agree, but someone you helped to get going by giving him advice and selling him a set of speakers cheaply AND printing the sods books doing this to me is kinda hard to take in at the moment !

hi
please be aware of what you are discussing as the ts are monitoring this forum, do not say anything that may leave you open for problems @ a later date ,do not give out to many details about your gig details etc.
just trying to help

nice to no im not the only one who gets gip after 20 years as an entertainer it still pees me of at least im not on my own now yipppeeeeeeeeeeeee

20 yrs as an entertainer and your only a junior member lol just kidding

me i'm a truck driver that likes a pint and even though i can't sing i like to give it a go especially after 10 pints of carlsberg,i just use the kids karaoke machine hook it up to the tv and surround sound and hey presto when the friends and family come around the party starts.I don't think the neigbours are to impressed though!and the kids karaoke machine has had some use as every blummin week it's at someone elses house as they are having a party.The price of a night out is so exspensive these days i guess it makes sense to stay in and have a karaoke night, but not good for u KJ if no one turns up at the pub!!
ste

Just starting as a KDJ got any tips as to what games to play. cheers

i tried kamakazee karaoke recently in one pub...5 girls pay a quid to be drawn out to sing a guys song .. 5 guys pay a quid to be drawn out of the hat to sing a girlies song the audience votes.... top up the dosh to 20 quid ( landlord usually does it ) top girl 10 quid top guy 10 quid its a laugh coz the girlies try to get all rocky...and the guys try to sound like abba cyndi lauper aqua etc try it ive done it about 6 times int last 2 year it keeps them in all neet !:tup: