Need recommendation and advice...

[ddouglass]

Thanks Mark. I am getting too old to remember all these things.

[Harryoke]

I am not regretting my migration back to MTU either...so far so good. First night out, no problems. I did not push it too hard, and it was a quiet night, so I did not try importing singers discs while a singer was singing or anything like that. I still have my player hooked up just in case and am using an a/b switch to go between the laptop and the player if necessary, to keep any downtime down to a minimum.

I can say I feel comfortable not bringing my discs in with me any longer. My back and arms thank you.

Kneejerk reactions...I love the marquee option!!! I am not sure I love the singers rotation listing, as sometimes it is inaccurate...that is, if you have singers that dont let you know what song they are doing until they get to the stage, it can send out erroneous info. I will have to teach my attendees that what is on the screen is not gospel.

I love the ability to rip and use the new feature of the predictive title and artist...this makes things go quickly when ripping a disc not in a database.

THe manual and website seem to communicate things clearly if you have comprehension to follow orders. I had zero glitches on the first night...it felt more like getting acquainted, LOL.

I still am not 100% comfortable with having my library in the KMA format alone, but now with the improvements in Hoster it appears I have a tool I can work with. I will miss features on my other hosting program, most especially the ability to queue background bumper music and have it auto fade and cross fade between singers. That is a huge loss to me, but dealing with that for now is easier than re-ripping my library to mp3g files I suppose.

Looking forward to pushing it harder Th and Fr. Unless you hear complaints from me, assume that all is well.

THANKS.

[JNS02]

Originally Posted by Harryoke

Kneejerk reactions...I love the marquee option!!! I am not sure I love the singers rotation listing, as sometimes it is inaccurate...that is, if you have singers that dont let you know what song they are doing until they get to the stage, it can send out erroneous info. I will have to teach my attendees that what is on the screen is not gospel.

THANKS.

To get around this problem I took a song that never plays (it is a childrens song with vocals) and renamed it to "NEEDS TO PUT IN A SONG" so when someone forgets to give me a song my singers list reads 'Bill NEEDS TO PUT IN A SONG'.
Just a suggestion, someone else in this forum does that and I took this suggestion from them.

[Harryoke]

Originally Posted by JNS02

To get around this problem I took a song that never plays (it is a childrens song with vocals) and renamed it to "NEEDS TO PUT IN A SONG" so when someone forgets to give me a song my singers list reads 'Bill NEEDS TO PUT IN A SONG'.
Just a suggestion, someone else in this forum does that and I took this suggestion from them.

Great idea! I will do that, fo sho!!

[ddouglass]

Glad you like it. By the way the auto/cross fade is coming in the next release....sometime next year. Even now you can import your audio tracks into Hoster, so all you have to do is add then to the playlist.
I am not sure I would want my singers to wait until they come up on stage to tell me what song they want. That to me would slow things down even with Hoster. One way to keep your rotation straight on screen would be to create a dummy track (title it "Need song") with bookid that you could enter in place of their song, so it would hold their place in the rotation on screen.

[JNS02]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

One way to keep your rotation straight on screen would be to create a dummy track (title it "Need song") with bookid that you could enter in place of their song, so it would hold their place in the rotation on screen.

Isn't that what I just said??

[capnvic]

Just a bit confused, I know Jim has his shows around St Johns, and Flagler. When I am in Palm Coast or Ormond Beach, give me an idea where either of your shows are going to be in early December?

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by capnvic

Just a bit confused, I know Jim has his shows around St Johns, and Flagler. When I am in Palm Coast or Ormond Beach, give me an idea where either of your shows are going to be in early December?

Will do Vic, it would be great to meet you. I grew up the first half of my childhood in a place called Fairlington Vilages right up from the Pentagon in Viginia.

Jim

[capnvic]

Originally Posted by madjim

Will do Vic, it would be great to meet you. I grew up the first half of my childhood in a place called Fairlington Vilages right up from the Pentagon in Viginia.

Jim

I lived two years in Fairlington back in the early seventies. went to Abingdon Elementary Sch. Drive by it every day going to work.

[Harryoke]

Originally Posted by capnvic

Just a bit confused, I know Jim has his shows around St Johns, and Flagler. When I am in Palm Coast or Ormond Beach, give me an idea where either of your shows are going to be in early December?

Palm Coast and Ormond are where I do most all of my shows, so when you are heading to the area, check my schedule at www.harryoke.com. I usually gig 6-7 nights a week.

[capnvic]

Originally Posted by Harryoke

Palm Coast and Ormond are where I do most all of my shows, so when you are heading to the area, check my schedule at www.harryoke.com. I usually gig 6-7 nights a week.

Will do, Sometimes I go down there to play golf February and early March.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by capnvic

where either of your shows are going to be in early December?

Vic,
I just booked two Christamas parties the fisrt two weekends in Dec. so I'll have to catch you an a later trip.

Jim

[capnvic]

Originally Posted by madjim

Vic,
I just booked two Christamas parties the fisrt two weekends in Dec. so I'll have to catch you an a later trip.

Jim

I just booked a Chirstmas party and New Years Party as well as my two normal parties. So it looks like its going to be a wonderfully busy holiday season!

[billyo]

Originally Posted by Harryoke

I am not regretting my migration back to MTU either...so far so good. First night out, no problems. I did not push it too hard, and it was a quiet night, so I did not try importing singers discs while a singer was singing or anything like that. I still have my player hooked up just in case and am using an a/b switch to go between the laptop and the player if necessary, to keep any downtime down to a minimum.

I can say I feel comfortable not bringing my discs in with me any longer. My back and arms thank you.

Kneejerk reactions...I love the marquee option!!! I am not sure I love the singers rotation listing, as sometimes it is inaccurate...that is, if you have singers that dont let you know what song they are doing until they get to the stage, it can send out erroneous info. I will have to teach my attendees that what is on the screen is not gospel.

I love the ability to rip and use the new feature of the predictive title and artist...this makes things go quickly when ripping a disc not in a database.

THe manual and website seem to communicate things clearly if you have comprehension to follow orders. I had zero glitches on the first night...it felt more like getting acquainted, LOL.

I still am not 100% comfortable with having my library in the KMA format alone, but now with the improvements in Hoster it appears I have a tool I can work with. I will miss features on my other hosting program, most especially the ability to queue background bumper music and have it auto fade and cross fade between singers. That is a huge loss to me, but dealing with that for now is easier than re-ripping my library to mp3g files I suppose.

Looking forward to pushing it harder Th and Fr. Unless you hear complaints from me, assume that all is well.

THANKS.

this is just me, i don't let someone give me a song slips without any songs written down, if they do i put it at the bottom of the list, until they figure out what song they wanted to sing..do what a lot of us do , run a mock-up show on your free time , play a song and import a disc as a singers disc, that's the only way if your cd/dvd drives is working and if importing a disc while playing a song will give you problems..

[Harryoke]

Thanks guys!

As to the slip issue...many of my singers dont use slips. Yes it can be annoying, but, it is my job to keep things moving. I found that the more rules you impose on people, the more they resent it...so I do appreciate the ones who fill out slips then stick to the program, BUT, the reality is, I work in an alcohol fueled environment where common sense, ability and the skills of reading and writing dont always work. Rather than get frustrated and buck it, I go with the flow. This works better for me, and the singers seem to appreciate it. After doing it for 10 years this way, they keep coming back, LOL.

There is always that singer that changes the song when they come up. I would rather have a rotation full of singers who told me what they were singing when they came up than have people change it after I took the time to queue it up. Would rather work hard once than to do it twice, LOL. Yes, there are those that would penalize a singer for doing that, but by not doing it, and busting my butt to get the singers changed out, I feel as though I have earned loyalty from my following, and carved a little customer service niche out that other shows arent offering.

Discs or hoster, I can find a song and queue it in a 10th of the time that the customer can, LOL. I found in the time it took for me to explain procedure, argue or penalize a singer, I could have just fixed the song and got them singing faster. That is the route I take for now.

Thanks again guys!

[billyo]

Originally Posted by Harryoke

Thanks guys!

As to the slip issue...many of my singers dont use slips. Yes it can be annoying, but, it is my job to keep things moving. I found that the more rules you impose on people, the more they resent it...so I do appreciate the ones who fill out slips then stick to the program, BUT, the reality is, I work in an alcohol fueled environment where common sense, ability and the skills of reading and writing dont always work. Rather than get frustrated and buck it, I go with the flow. This works better for me, and the singers seem to appreciate it. After doing it for 10 years this way, they keep coming back, LOL.

There is always that singer that changes the song when they come up. I would rather have a rotation full of singers who told me what they were singing when they came up than have people change it after I took the time to queue it up. Would rather work hard once than to do it twice, LOL. Yes, there are those that would penalize a singer for doing that, but by not doing it, and busting my butt to get the singers changed out, I feel as though I have earned loyalty from my following, and carved a little customer service niche out that other shows arent offering.

Discs or hoster, I can find a song and queue it in a 10th of the time that the customer can, LOL. I found in the time it took for me to explain procedure, argue or penalize a singer, I could have just fixed the song and got them singing faster. That is the route I take for now.

Thanks again guys!

please dont take this the wrong way,this is not in any means a critizicism of your show.this is just for the sake of conversation, lets say you have someone singing, and you have people lined up that are ready to sing some with song slips and some without how do you go about putting them on your playlist, and with that much people around you isn't that kinda distracting to the singer..please dont take this the wrong way

[Harryoke]

I never take anything the wrong way unless it is intended with malice, LOL! If we dont talk , how do we learn, right??

The way I deal with it, is I do not and probably will not rely on a computerized rotation or play list. I had over 40 singers last night, and used Hoster, so this got put to the test. I keep my rotation on a legal pad next to me, in ink. I put as many songs on the playlist as I can...the people who let me know what song they want by telling me or using a slip. Slips do not hold their place in the rotation, the list on the legal pad does. That never gets lost, blown away or crashes.

Last night, there were a lot of people changing their songs, or letting me know last minute. I merely put their songs at the bottom of the Hoster rotation system (keeping the rotation on the legal pad accurate, in the correct order of singing). I kept the playlist sorted from top to bottom, then when things got really busy or the singers changed their songs, I would just play the song from the bottom of the playlist on Hoster, which then does not show the next singer. As I got to a field of several singers that were queued in the proper order, I would drag the playlist to that point in Hoster. Far less confusing that way, and keeps the show moving.

These policies and how you handle it depend on how many singers you get I suppose. If I had 7-10 singers a night, I would have more time to be anal about rules, but then again, there would not be that much attention to downtime. 10-20 singers, your time gets taxed, and people get more antsy about when their turn is. 30-40 singers or more, you just try to keep things moving, keep people happy, stay fair, eliminate downtime where possible and not demand too much of the customers who are drinking and not studying
"my rules", LOL.

Even with that chaos, I can keep the show moving as fast as it takes for the singer to grab the mic. If I can keep them communicating, I can still queue the songs fast enough that no one notices.

[Harryoke]

PART 2...distraction to the singer: I generally try to set my stage up with a clear stage for the singer, then a route for those who need me. For example, last night I set up against the wall stage right. Singers have stage left with TV, monitor etc..., and anyone who needed to address me, would come up the right side, away from the singer. Occasionally hard heads walk up in front of the singer, but that happens no matter how you set up.

Again, chaos depends on how many singers. 10 singers, you never have that many people needing you. 20 or more, you get inundated with the "when am I up" people. 30-40 or more...it is just damage control, LOL!

[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

[psinkiws]

The two additional desktop image handling features that Vista added are: (1) Maintain Aspect Ratio so that the full picture will take up as much of the screen as possible without being distorted (extra space on either vertical or horizontal borders is black); Crop To Fit which eliminates all black borders but instead crops the centered pictures edges so as to take up the whole screen.