Disc Mfg And Series - Rate Them!

[TraxMasterDJRob]

Hi All!!!
It's great to see actual people reading this. I'm very impressed with everyone!!

Kudos to the SC people. I was reading some bad stuff about SC. I know even SC can mess up occassionaly, but overall it is the best. The other brands are basically hit & miss,
Except DK!!! Horrid (did I spell that right? Horriffick, Horrible, Horrendous, Holy Cow...They get money for that junk???) Ha Ha

Admin note - Since March 1996 providing Karaoke software tools, I have never before heard anyone say anything bad about DK. They were the first, and they licensed all their songs from the original record labels. When they closed their USA business, they sold the rights and assets to Sound Factory, who now distributes the DK series... to my knowledge. Our feedback does not sustain your negative rating of DK. In fact, many Microstudio clients bought it to backup their "valuable DK discs" as they often say.

[SteveWalker]

George,
Sorry about the snide remark as I do believe what you're saying. Thanks to all for the information concerning the quality problem with Sound Choice media. I'll check out the other threads to see if this problem could affect me.
Steve

[danny_g]

I will still list them as good in my book. I happen to own the billy joel disc and It's stuff beats all the other billy joel discs out there and has excellent quallity as far as I am concerned. personally I would rather have the original DK collaection over Pioneer anyway as DK's rendentions are closer to the artists that they advertise. Handy Man, You've got a friend, How Sweet It Is (to be loved by you) are all listed by Pioneer as James Taylor. They are actually the original versions as done by the ones who wrote the songs. You don't know how many people at other shows have complained about it not being the right version- They were expecting James Taylor. Fellow KJ's please if you have the Pioneer versions of these songs take the time to edit the artist name in your program to indicate the version actually used. I do it and have yet to hear - That's not the version your book says it is. I guess my plug is I list the right Artists so you can sing the right songs.

[TraxMasterDJRob]

Wow, I've never heard of that. That's really wild, never thought about that. That's good info. Thanks

[George]

Steve,

Might help you narrow your search. I believe the reports regarding SC's poor media started coming in late last summer or early fall. Start with Microstudio around Aug.2001 and work forward. I believe the bulk of them were there. There was at least one bad one posted out of the mainstream, but I can't recall where. Only takes one horror tale to get the picture anyway.

I'd conclude the problem is chiefly with those who are sliding their discs in and out of carriers and choose to use originals at shows rather than chance running afoul of the law, and does not affect the casual user, or the owner of a high capacity cd player.

I quit buying S.C. not for that reason, but I'll not finance their use of Media Clog and have it wind up industry wide. I agree that their arrangements are some of the best around, but am willing to forgo that temporarily if boycotting them will make an example of them to the rest of the industry. Just my feelings on the subject, which I'll express at every opportunity, and to which I am entitled to.

That's why they have chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

Hope this helps

George

[admin]

From a nightclub owner in TX: Bought the Sound Choice Foundation set - 30 discs. Took 14 days to listen to the 30 hours of audio. All of the discs were properly silk screened including the unique disc part number. However, three of these contained no audio/karaoke at all - only silk screening. He called the factory (where he had bought them) and was told: 1) the warranty is 10 days, 2) send in the 3 blank discs, 3) send in $150 with them! Under any stretch of the law, SC did NOT deliver what they advertised, yet because this busy man reported the blank discs 4 days "out of warranty", he was required to pay... not $30 a disc that he originally paid, but $50 a disc for replacements. He called me 1 hour after talking with them and getting this demand.

From a bar owner in Arkansas: Bought the SC foundation set. 17 days after he had it, one of the discs had become so scratched that the lyrics were now out of sync. He held most of the 30 discs up to the light and could see right through them. This is indicative of very low quality media.

From a Karaoke host: One of his SC discs got wet on the screen printing side and the printing and next layer peeled off. The disc was totally useless as it would no longer play.

[George]

And those aren't even the ones I was eluding to that started surfacing on the Microstudio Forum sometime last Sept. or Oct.

[SteveWalker]

I spend about 3 years around 1992 commuting to Ft. Lauderdale as I worked an engineering job during the day and at night I spend time singing in the local clubs and got to know the local karaoke scene. In those days laser disc was still the predominant format and Pioneer and DK was at the forefront and DK was used more in Ft. Lauderdale than anywhere else I'd been.

I believe as I still do that Pioneer was the best format in the beginning but they fisseled out and Sound Choice took their place. However, DK laser discs were sometimes very good because DK used good studio musicians and had good sounding music. The problem was that many of their arrangements were hit and miss (if not weird) and the key was often way different from the original. As a result I have very few DK CDG's.

At least DK provided good quality music instead of the crap I hear on most of the CDG's nowadays which resort to cheap MIDI tracks and poor musicians to cut costs. It should be no surprise that quality CDG's costs us more because it costs them more to make! I suggest that we support these good manufacturers to ensure they can keep on providing us a quality product. The difference in the price per song doesn't justify purchasing and supporting the low quality media.
Steve Walker

[SteveWalker]

I suggest that we all convert these files to WMA+G as soon as possible and also make CDG backups.

[TraxMasterDJRob]

Did I make you mad? Do you work for DK? just kidding. Seriously though, I have only heard 1 song that was pretty good musically, from DK. You can't justify crappy music with "They were first" and lower cost. I didn't like their Laser discs either. Plus, I have read negative postings about DK, so please don't assume they don't exist.
I am glad people post the problems they've had with CD-G's, (any brand), as that makes me aware of potential problems.
Thanks for that ALL!!!!!!!!! (you too, Admin) Later

[Flipeoke]

Well, I'll add my comments to the list, hold on this could take awhile... ALL manufacturers are hit-or-miss... From what I have found every maufacturer has some songs that more closely matches the original song... While some are more consistant in quatily (i.e. Sound Choice, Top Hits Monthly) they rarely have entire discs that are perfect... You give me any manufacturer and I will give you an example of a really bad track...IMHO (as I don my flame retardant suit) disc manufacturers intentionally use less than perfect renditions for some of the songs on their discs. A good example of this is Sound Choice... SCG8207-3 Faithfully (one of my personal favorites to sing) good sound quality, good lyrics and timing... but if you happen to get the Journey disc from Sound Choice, SCG2269 you would think that the same version is used on both, not so, while the music is the same, there are wrong lyrics, and poor timing on SCG2269. I feel this is so SC can sell more discs to those of us who desire the best quality for the songs we have... however if they put all of their best tracks on the one disc, I would only buy that one disc... Aside from this, getting back to the original topic at hand, I don't rely on any one manufacturer to have the best versions of songs, nor do I rely on 2, 3, or 4, I am one of the lucky people who can go to my Karaoke distributer, and listen to the discs/songs before I buy them...and most of the time get the best version of a song... and while I do quite often end up with multiple versions of a song on different manufacturers discs, when you have done this long enough, you get to know which version most closely matches the original artist. The majority of my discs come from Sound Choice, and Music Maestro, yes MM, while some of their songs really blow chunks, many of them are very close to the original song. Others that I use are as follows in no particular order:

Top Hits Monthly
Pop Hits Monthly
Pop Hits Today
DK
Pioneer
Backstage
Pocket Songs(good for broadway stuff as well as others)
Top Tunes
Monster Hits
Sweet Georgia Brown
Legends
Nikkodo
Sunfly
StarDisc
Chartbusters
Priddis
NorthStar
Dangerous
All Hits
Amerising


and probably a few I am forgetting... While some of these manufacturers I only have 3 or 4 discs from them, I feel my selection would be lacking without them. I guess what I am saying is this: every manufacturer has good songs and bad songs, some have more good than bad, others have more bad than good, but their good ones are usually superior to other manufacturers... I miss not having the Pioneer laserdiscs... many of those were some of the best versions around...

Peace...

Mike

[Lauraine Graham- with the Lord]

I know what you mean about the Pioneer laser disc renditions. However, there is a solution. USE KHP3.

It is a WONDERFUL and easy-to-use program. All you need do is record the backing from your favourite laser discs and put the graphics on and, hey presto, you have your preferred versions. If you already have it I apologise for mentioning it, because you must have already considered this and rejected the idea. However, if you are not the proud possessor of this genius piece of software, I do highly recommend you consider purchasing it. I promise you won't regret it.

Good luck and regards from

[Flipeoke]

Thanks for the tip, I do have KHP3, but I no longer have the laserdiscs... my former employer had them before my partner and I went and got our own discs and equipment... since laserdics are scarce, we didn't purchase a player for them...our former employer wanted to sell us the laserdiscs and player for a price, but many were in bad shape, scratched and such, not worth the trouble...

I agree with you that KHP3 is definately worth the price...

Thanks,

Mike

[danny_g]

Originally posted by Flipeoke
Well, I'll add my comments to the list, hold on this could take awhile... ALL manufacturers are hit-or-miss... From what I have found every maufacturer has some songs that more closely matches the original song... While some are more consistant in quatily (i.e. Sound Choice, Top Hits Monthly) they rarely have entire discs that are perfect... You give me any manufacturer and I will give you an example of a really bad track...IMHO (as I don my flame retardant suit) disc manufacturers intentionally use less than perfect renditions for some of the songs on their discs. A good example of this is Sound Choice... SCG8207-3 Faithfully (one of my personal favorites to sing) good sound quality, good lyrics and timing... but if you happen to get the Journey disc from Sound Choice, SCG2269 you would think that the same version is used on both, not so, while the music is the same, there are wrong lyrics, and poor timing on SCG2269. I feel this is so SC can sell more discs to those of us who desire the best quality for the songs we have... however if they put all of their best tracks on the one disc, I would only buy that one disc... Aside from this, getting back to the original topic at hand, I don't rely on any one manufacturer to have the best versions of songs, nor do I rely on 2, 3, or 4, I am one of the lucky people who can go to my Karaoke distributer, and listen to the discs/songs before I buy them...and most of the time get the best version of a song... and while I do quite often end up with multiple versions of a song on different manufacturers discs, when you have done this long enough, you get to know which version most closely matches the original artist. The majority of my discs come from Sound Choice, and Music Maestro, yes MM, while some of their songs really blow chunks, many of them are very close to the original song. Others that I use are as follows in no particular order:

Top Hits Monthly
Pop Hits Monthly
Pop Hits Today
DK
Pioneer
Backstage
Pocket Songs(good for broadway stuff as well as others)
Top Tunes
Monster Hits
Sweet Georgia Brown
Legends
Nikkodo
Sunfly
StarDisc
Chartbusters
Priddis
NorthStar
Dangerous
All Hits
Amerising


and probably a few I am forgetting... While some of these manufacturers I only have 3 or 4 discs from them, I feel my selection would be lacking without them. I guess what I am saying is this: every manufacturer has good songs and bad songs, some have more good than bad, others have more bad than good, but their good ones are usually superior to other manufacturers... I miss not having the Pioneer laserdiscs... many of those were some of the best versions around...

Peace...

Mike

I'm sorry mike but the Sound Choice version of Faithfully while it has the best Audio quality it leaves a lot to be desired in lyric accuracy. So far the only perfect lyric quailty on Faithfully has been the one put out by Priddis.

[Flipeoke]

[Louieoke]

Someone had mentioned that DK went out of business. I have seen the DK Millenium set advertised and wondered if it was the same as the original DK series? I'm assuming someone bought the rights and is reproducing them under the DK name. Can someone answer this before I spend a ton on this set? Thanks!

Also, just wanted to add that I bought the Chartbuster Essential 450 set and it is wonderful. I have around 3000 songs and seem to play these particular discs at least 30%-40% of the time. 2 Thumbs up for me!!!!

[danny_g]

Originally posted by Louieoke
Someone had mentioned that DK went out of business. I have seen the DK Millenium set advertised and wondered if it was the same as the original DK series? I'm assuming someone bought the rights and is reproducing them under the DK name. Can someone answer this before I spend a ton on this set? Thanks!

Also, just wanted to add that I bought the Chartbuster Essential 450 set and it is wonderful. I have around 3000 songs and seem to play these particular discs at least 30%-40% of the time. 2 Thumbs up for me!!!!

Song Factory bought them out. I have one of their discs that were made after the mellinum set and am not impressed with it. but that doesn't mean that the set offered isn't the original Millenium set. It is slitly different than the original DK 1-99 series though. But not that much different.

[SteveWalker]

Originally posted by Flipeoke
................I miss not having the Pioneer laserdiscs... many of those were some of the best versions around...Mike

Flipeoke,

I agree with you that Pioneer had the best quality. The Pioneer CDG's use the same music as the laserdiscs.

You said: "ALL manufacturers are hit-or-miss...". I agree with this also but some manufacturers such as Sound Choice are more accurate as a percentage of their overall work. Others are just the opposite.

Although Sound Choice is not perfect they're still the best choice that we have to choose from since Pioneer quit.

Steve

[Louieoke]

I have a few questions for some of you more knowing folks out there willing to help out a newbie like me.

1. I have 5 or 6 Pioneer CD+G discs, very good music quality, but it seems that the volume on them is much lower than others. NuTech seems to be the same way. Anybody know why? It seems to create feedback (at times) when I have to crank my CD volume up so high on the board, almost all the way up sometimes. Please advise. Also, you can still find them online, are these the same as the ones you are speaking so highly of? Just curious.

2. Sound Choice - I agree that a boycott would help all the KJ's out there. I have a few of them currently and would buy a few more for songs that are hard to find by other manufacturers, but I don't know how to tell which one's are protected. Can someone explain this to me how to tell which ones are safe to buy so one could make back-up's?

3. Lastly, DK Rocks. I don't care what any one person says about them. My question is this: I bought the DK Millennium set (as I haven't been on the KJ scene all that long) is there a difference in the Millennium set and the original DK cd+g's?

Any information would be most appreciated and I apologize if this topic is already been covered elsewhere on this site.

Thanks again guys! Look forward to hearing from you!

Louie

[mlepine]

Louieoke,

I'm glad you started a new thread, I've been wanting to write my opinion on this forum but I felt it was getting old!

I'm not a KJ but I own about 125 cdg's from different brand and I will agree with flipeoke, all brands all capable of the best and the worst.

I own DK Encore 1 set, Hot-Stuff 1 set, over 30 BMB/Nutech and many more (No Sound Choice).

My Preferences:

1) DK
2) Hot-Stuff
3) BMB/Nutech
4) Party Tymes (For Disco)
5) Legends

I know you guy's will say he doesn't know anything by ranking BMB/Nutech so hight, well the arrangement are not at all like the original and it's the reason I like it plus the key is always good, from the Beatles to Air Supply to Elvis...

I don't agree with someone that said it sound like a Midi File, I don't know the equipment you're using but it's not thru. The volume is in fact low but with a good console you just need to boost the volume of the music!

Sometime with the DK album I find that the guide for the vocal is to loud & you always hear it in the back while I'm singing.

Oh yes, Backstage? It's a joke!! The album 8817 from Engelbert...
one song is the EXACT arrangement I have on a VCD album in mono!! My friend has a Backstage album and it show Nutech on the screen!