what should I upgrade

[gotrich]

I have my home PC which needs upgrading its a 900Mh AMD with 450Mb RAM a soundblatster live sound card and a 128Mb video card (9000 series Radon) I only have about 1500-1700 different song titles (normal in my area is 3000-8000) I have seen books with as little as 500...so sad! I have a mackie mixer and 2-400watt Crete speakers and 2 wired shure mics. Is there a magazine I could get to help me learn more?? I appreciate any help I can get!

[AllStar]

Hi gotrich

You have just opened yourself wide up

We've been doing karaoke now for numerous years and I would like to give you my humble opinion.

The problem is not your equipment. (I am not talking about the computer, read MTU’s specs on that!!) You seem to have good brand name sound equipment.

What I see 90% of the time we go out to a “karaoke” bar is some yahoo that bought a system for a $1000,00 somewhere, a handful of disks at Wal-Mart, and now believes he/she can run a karaoke show. Enough to make you scream!!! The sound mixing is awful, the microphones sound as if you sing with a pillow over your face and the bass is booming over it all.

My opinion is don’t invest billions in sound equipment. Spend some quality time with your sound, get to know your mixer. A good way to start is the following.

Setup your karaoke system in your house/room/basement.
Put your favorite CD in your hi-fi system (in the same room) and listen to it.
Now sing through your karaoke system. You have to mix your karaoke system until you sound like the CD. Here are some pointers.
Let somebody sing a song (unknown to you) and write the words down as he/she sings. If you can do that, your mic is set pretty good.
Listen to a CD, you will hear the vocals over the music, not the other way around.
If you don’t know the dynamics of an equalizer, don’t use it!!!
Start your mixer settings with everything in the flat position. Your karaoke CD&G was recorded in a studio, if you have a good sound system; you don’t need to enhance the CD&G. Of course, that doesn’t mean you won’t tweak your system, what it means is don’t go fully clock/anti-clock wise with your bass/mid’s & tops.

Good luck karaoke'ing

[gotrich]

Now that I have done a few shows I messed with some echo or reverb (onmy mixer its called delay) I had a few really good singers come through and give me tips on what to do with the mixer..One guy said hey you know what i like about you..I asked you once to set the reverb up for me and you set it better for everyone who sang your **** good man! That was cool. But I know there is always room for improvement..so are there little things or even big things I havnt seen or done? What else can I do? I even changed a few radioshak wires with higher quality I got from a Music equiptment store.

I also went and listened to my competition. I was amazed how much better my stuff sounded. Even my brother and People I knwo that came to my show that happen to be at the "OTHER GUYS" said Isounded better. NO ONE I visited that night used a mixer?? WHY even if only to adjust the mic vs music to balance...WHY

One guy had a cavs unit, mackie speakers, nice set up and he was ok but still no adjustment with sound, mixer, nothing...I was amazed. All I could think was I am gonna tear these guys up once my name really get around