Need recommendation and advice...

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by Harryoke

I still am not 100% comfortable with having my library in the KMA format alone,

Last night, there were a lot of people changing their songs, or letting me know last minute.

Hey Harry,
We all develope different ways to handle our playlists. I do not supply slips and pens. My books are numberless, I don't use any numbers. I do not keep a paper list or use a note board or even a program (notepad or wordpad) to keep a list. The playlist in Hoster keeps my rotation and my list, here's how I do it.

Once I am set up I enter everybodies request on the Hoster playlist, this sets my rotation for the night (of course I add folks as they come in ). When a singer is finished I have trained them to wait and tell me their next song after I get the next singer started, which will be entered at the bottom of the list. If I know they will sing again but get distacted (pretty girls do it every time) and they don't give me a song, I just pick one from thier singer database list and enter it on the playlist to keep them in the rotation. (If they are not in your databse yet you can move the played song to the bottom of the playlist to hold their place in rotation BUT it will not show the time they will sing since the track has already played. I don't do this but it works. )

Also I run my show in manual mode and do not let Hoster delete a song from the playlist, I stop every song and delete them manually. This way if I need to remember the singers name to say "Good Job" it's right there in front of me. Also it keeps their name until I get their next song entered on the playlist. I just enter their next song, copy and paste the name to the new song, then delete the old one and carry on. (Once the singers are in the singer database, I don't cut & paste their names, I just select them from the Singers drop down menu before I enter their song on the playlist. )

Changing a song is NEVER a big deal to me. I just stay on the mic (tip your servers ect...) and pull up the new song in the search window, enter it on the playlist, move it below their old choice and hit play! I can get this done is seconds. Once they start singing, I cut their name from the old song, paste it to the new song then delete the old one and carry on.

If I call somebody and they do not come up, I just call the next singer, select their song and hit play. This will keep the folks who do not show up at the top of your playlist. If they don't show up within an hour they get deleted and loose the slot. If they were driving somebody home, in the bathroom or the such, I will move them from the top into the "next" postion below the present singer. Moving somebody that did not come up to the bottom of the list interupts the rotaion. I find it is much better to keep them at the top and run your show below them until they are back in the rotation or deleted.

I hope this helps.

I'll be entertaining (guitar & tracks) at The Parker House in Cresent City Sat. Nov. 29 if you have the night off.

Jim