Downloadable Karaoke Songs

[Chad Slater]

You can also check out Karaoke-Version.com it is an excellent source of purchase to download.

[RandyMcCharles]

Karaoke-Version is good. They used to offer CDG format, but no longer. You can get audio only or .wmv with lyrics.

[SteveWalker]

Chad and Randy,

Thanks for your suggestions. I looked at the website and it appears to be extensive offering.

I have purchased a couple karaoke songs online to quickly satisfy special requests for private parties. However, I prefer to buy cd+g disks because they provide physical proof that I own and purchased the mp3+g files on my laptop. It's hard to prove ownership of mp3+g files that you download from the internet, isn't it? Showing your receipts that can easily be self-generated is not good proof of purchase.

I understand that most of the KJ's out there are purchasing hard drives full of thousands of mp3+g files for cheap but these are illegal pirated files. These so called KJ's would pay a huge fine beyond belief if they are proven guilty of this crime. So I stay away from downloading karaoke files.

Thanks,
Steve

[RandyMcCharles]

I also prefer to have physical CDGs. However, the industry looks to be moving toward downloads in order to complete. The cost of manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, and retailing physical CDGs is not insubstantial, as the lower price of downloads demonstrates. As music stores shrink and consumers move to iTunes, so the karaoke industry will follow. I think it is only a matter of time (decades) before we have iKaraoke. The move by KJs from CDG players to HD only speeds this transition as the tracks can come from either source. All that is missing is for the industry to agree on a iTunes-like protection system. I have to think KIAA at least is discussing this. They will then say that only iKaraoke enabled HD systems are legal. Getting an industry to agree on a format and who profits how much from it can take a long time, however.

[ddouglass]

The biggest problem I have with downloads is the format. MP3 is a compression format that tends to lose a lot of the depth and sound quality thay you get from a CD copy. That goes for any music in this format. I would hope someone could come up with a compression format that does not have all that loss befor ethey go completely to downloads.

[RandyMcCharles]

I know little about MP3 data loss.
I would assume that iTunes is using a format that provides comparable quality to CD. Karaoke downloads 'should' follow suit. I assume they will once downloading becomes more popular and competition increases. I think right now the quality of the instrumentation and background vocals is a differentiator among download sites that is obscuring the need for better sound quality.

[SteveWalker]

I sure you are right that the quality of the audio on a CD is as good as it gets but many KJ's have been using Hoster for years and seem to get by just fine.

As for the issue of downloading files, there may be some industry standard on the way to rescue this situation but I seriously doubt it will happen. The reality of today is that there are no standards and when you download the files, you cannot prove where they came from. The files could have easily come from your friends CD or hard drive and you have no real way to prove that you paid for the files to make it legal.

Does anyone here know how to adequately document that you paid for the downloaded karaoke files? The same thing is true for DJ's who may download music files and therefore don't have the CD's to prove ownership. Please offer an honest answer to my question.