Karaoke Song Book Arrangement
 

My books I bring to shows are arranged by a title section and an artist section.

You should of had a combined book as well in the poll. I used to have 1 book that had both title AND artist. Now it's separated into 2 separate books.

Same here.
8 books by artist and 4 by title. The title books rarely get used.

One of these days I'm going to import all the vocal versions I have as well and create a separate book for those. So far I've done a good job of talking myself out of it.

Sam

Really? Now I grant you the artist is probably primary, but I get asked for title listing books probably just as much as artist books. Strange.

Yes, that was what was actually meant by that "third" category; artist and title in same book.

Apparently, it's being taken as "separate books, one for artist, and one for title"

Yeah, ppl around here seem to say more of "What's that song by so and so, can't think of the title". That spurred me into having all my books eventually(when they get too thick for both) to be just Artist. But I will always keep one master that contains both for that rare one who needs to look up a title.

When I first split up my books I went from 15 combined to 10 & 10. After spending many nights watching the artist books get depleted while the titles barely get touch I cut the title books down to 5 and then 4 on the next reprints

I number all the books and keep them in numerical order to help determine how many of each are getting used (cuts down on cleaning too :) ). Most nights 4-6 artist books go out and between 0 and 2 title books go out. Most of my singers are regulars with their saved songslips so that could possibly skew my results and like Bryant most folks who ask about a song, know who sang it they just can't remember the (exact) song title.

Sam

Artist Only
 

I see I'm the only one who uses "Artist Only" in my books. I used to list Artist in the front and Title in the back of evey book but they got WAY to big and heavy (10,000 plus songs). The reason I decided not to have any books listed by Title is so all of them are the same, one less thing for folks to complain about. If they want to find a song by title they ask me and I do a quick search.

I print my books with a double column using Hoster's settings. Are any of you guys making changes to the setting in your word progam to get more songs per page? If so, what are they?

Thanks

Jim

The lack of an answer to my question leads me to believe that you guys are using a different program to create your songbooks.

I looked at other songbook programs and it seems like alot of work creating and maintaining another database just to make my books lighter BUT THAT'S JUST ME. :g

I've been using Hoster's songbooks for years and my singers like them. The only thing I would like to be able to do is print them without BookID numbers, ARTIST AND TITLE ONLY (or visa-versa). I've hesitated to request this feature because it seems logical that Hoster will alow me to do it in the future.

It would be nice if Hoster let me to choose a different songbook format or modify the present format alowing me use fewer pages but it's no big deal.

I'm sorry if I stepped on "unholy ground" and took this post in a different direction.

Thanks Again!

Jim

I just use MS Access. Yes I type everything in manually, which helps aide in possible spelling errors, if a disc changes a track listing, etc. It also helps me to know what I have in my library. Everything is double columned and font size 11 pt Narrow Arial Bold.
I've played with the Hoster book (actually really like the output) & I thought you could adjust the margins in Word, top & bottom to allow a few more per page.

Adjusting the margins won't eliminate enough pages to alow me to include "By Artist" and "By Title" in the same books. If somebody with 10,000 plus songs was getting both listings in one book using Hoster's songbook I was courious to find out what settings they were using. This was the orgin of my question. :)

Thanks Again

Jim

Gotcha. Why I went to separate artist & title. My combined books were using 3" binders - too big!

i'm in the process of re-doing my books, just added a bunched of songs..i have 2 separate books 5 books for just the title and 5 for the artist ,diff. book colors blue for the artist and black for the titles i get asked all the time what book is the title and what is the artist, thats the reason for 2 diff. colors

If they want to find a song by title they ask me and I do a quick search.

"Me Too" My singers hardly ever look up a song anyhow.

That's pretty much how I do it shadow?

Same here.

Jim

Books
 

I'm going to have to go to title and artist in diff. book or carry 3" binders
prob. do 5 of each.
Dick:)

Good idea goon, stay away from anything larger than
two inch if you can avoid it.

That's my advice, anyway.

I do only artists books at 1 1/2 inch; works great. have eight of them as such.

I've used a bunch of different things including hosters book. I still hate numbers so here is what I done. Using KJ pro, I exported my book to excel got rid of the track numbers col, description, disc id and reimported to KJ Pro. Once done, you have a book with no numbers, after you delete duplicate tracks your book shrinks substantially. KJ pro has a feature in print where you can eliminate a lot of pages by adjusting the lt, rt, and top and btm. My books now have only one listing per song, when I type it in for one of my singers I pick the best version on the hard drive. Or a version they want. Do wish I knew how to get rid of KJ Pros crap at the top of the pages. Or at least shrink it so I could get a couple more lines per page. Two col books with artist and title fits into a 2 inch binder easily. I have 14000 on my hard drive and around 9500 in the books with no repeats. Hope I have helped some others still using kj pro. Presently I'm using #11 font size.

Amazing, swany, once again, you do pretty much as I do.
I use KJpro, have about 10,200 unduplicated songs with about only 12,000 in the HD. Most of my ppl aren't too fussy about the versions. Once in a while I'll dig up another one for someone.

My disc ID's are only 7 letters at most, and are the same as the disc and track number in my kjpro database. I renumber every new disc, for example, I am at 691 now.
When I purchase another disc or two It will be of 18 songs from disc ID 69201 to 69218. I call them Various 692 as brand name.