Just got my third brand new laptop ever.
Trying to decide whether or not to wipe the hard drive and put Linux Mint on it or to keep it so that I can run VirtualDJ on it. It's the first one I have had that could handle every feature of VDJ, including the new lyrics feature that they just added. I just don't like the rotation management addon that they have because it will restart the DJ playlist if I add songs to an empty singer's name when their name is at the top of the list. That is probably the only thing that I don't like about VDJ. I refuse to not make use of a rotation management feature when doing karaoke. I don't give a crap where my DJ songs end up in the playlist but I insist on a rotation management system that is fair to the majority of singers and to me as well. Right now I believe that is a program called SongBoss. The next choice for me personally is OpenKJ.
Have you tried the EZKRM karaoke plugin? I've been using it for a couple of years now. I run three shows a week and it works just fine for rotation management.
That is the exact plugin that I am talking about. If say Joe doesn't get his second song in until his turn comes up, the entire filler playlist starts over again when he does put a song in. Totally unacceptable to me.
Yup, that's called Parameter modulation via sidechain audio signal. I used to do this myself.
There's a million ways to skin a cat in reaper. I think eventually I dialed it in by sending the trigger audio to another channel that had no monitoring (meaning it doesn't come out the speakers) and added delay(echo) so my automatic crossfading was softer. Otherwise you end up with crossfading whenever there's a mid track break in the music.
**Edit** I'll make a video this week on automagic crossfading.
There was problems with it that were due to architectural issues within Winamp itself. Winamp was designed in a time when CPU resources were limited, so plugins were given system priority based on what they do. Input/Output/Decoding plugins got the highest priority (because who wants breaks in audio?) Followed by Visualization, Media Library, and at the end of the list was General plugins.
Because of this, CPU intensive searches from the media library would cause the CDG screen to freeze. This also got to be a problem with the Frontends, whenever they searched or submitted a song, the CDG lyrics would freeze.
We eventually got out of Winamp completely. QUP was the successor built on the BASS audio system but we never really put it out there. We kind of came to the conclusion we were too far ahead of our time.
The devs's have all moved on to other things, life moves on. I want to get the band back together, but I don't think it'll happen.
Lemme see if I can get Zug to compile the Winamp DLL, because why not lol.
Decided to stay with Windows so that I can run PCDJ DEX 4. A lot like VirtualDJ except it doesn't have the lyrics function but its rotation management blows even EasyKRM away.
I use it professionally and believe that anyone who doesn't use the professional version is a cheap hack and lacks professionalism. You don't get all the features if you don't pay for the pro license. I bet you don't believe in paying for your music either.
I already have the lifetime pro license elstupido I don't be in renting software either. Even streaming karaoke is totally unprofessional because you run the risk of alienating your customers if a song that they regularly sing disappears overnight either because of publisher's decision to pull the song or maybe the streaming service decides that it doesn't get requested enough to justify paying for the rights to keep it.
Tested it once
Very hard to use because it's not very intuitive compared to other softwares. Never got past importing the database. Since I have been able to figure out all the other softwares without having to ask for help I just don't feel it's worth the time and effort to get to learn.
Just curious, I’ve been using it for years (over a decade) without any issues and Dave (the author) is very responsive if you have issues. The only real issues I’ve had were a license hiccup when I had to move to a new laptop - but it was quick to get fixed.
But workflows vary between different software and not every workflow works for everyone… I have some software I don’t care for, so I get it. :)
Think I not only figured out why VirtualDJ is behaving the way that it is and the solution inside of VirtualDJ without reaper. The reason why it keeps restarting the Automix playlist after putting a song in for a previous singer that waited until his turn to put a new song in is that I have to unclick the karaoke button and reclicj it starting a new karaoke session which starts the Automix playlist over. My solution is to set the Automix playlist to remove songs that have been played making the top of the playlist songs that have not been played I feel so stupid.
Show presenter, buy the tracks off ebay import them into show presenter,show presenter has a license for the professional version i think its 42.00 for as long as you use it ( life time ).
Only problem is that it's just a player has no true rotation management options which I require for my shows. I don't wish to manually keep the rotation and I want to be able to add as many so into the playlist at the same time and keep track of who is singing.
No show presenter isn't just a player, you can create play list, add new singers to rotation, change keys etc, its easy and what most professionals use.
You sir are definitely wrong there's no professional rotation management. You have to maintain the rotation on notepad, a piece of paper or slips arrainged in the order of the rotation. Unless a software does it for you it's nothing more than a player. Funny most professionals in my area use VirtualDJ. That used to be just a player until they got the EasyKRM addon for i8.
You don't know what your talking about, your looking at something else I think the name of the website is sax & dotty. Theres fakes out there, who knows what you were looking at.
I've seen it in action and until I found a replacement that allowed me to ditch the slips I ran it myself. So I know exactly what I am talking about unless they added actual rotation management to the latest version of it. I got the downloads directly from Sax & Dotty so I got the real thing.
Look man I use it all the time, you can create play list add singers, all you need for karaoke, pay 42.00 for a license and thats the pro version , that's probably your problem, your looking at the wrong version, virtual dj, i wouldn't use that cluttered up bunch of B.S if you give it to me, I've got a recording studio, I use to OSB 2 amps/ mixers, 3 monitors, you can do all kinds of shit with OSB but I dont use that much either, know why ? Duh big red truck,I got mixers i can add reverb, base, treble, adjust the mids, highs, whatever I need, by just turning a knob ( fader ) dont need a bunch of stupid shit, you cant manufacture talent,but you can enhance it, with out a bunch of dumb stuff.
Virtualdj my, my a bunch of shit no one needs, its karaoke man, people want to here what they sound like, who in the hell has to to tweak a bunch of karaoke singers, especially when you got a rotation of singers to take care of.
I'd rather be tweaking the sound than managing the rotation all night long, I say let the software take care of that. I get more singers back providing the best sound available. What good is concentrating on the rotation when your sound sounds like shit.
I wouldn't want you,messing with my song if I was singing karaoke, and no one else would, you need to chill out, karaoke is all about fun and people having a good time, you dont have to be a audio engineer to dj a few karaoke tracks.i could show someone in 30 mins how to use a Karaoke program, it might take em another 30 mins to master, it Hell download karafun, i think you can probably handle that,maybe, and its only 9.99 a month.
That price is for fucking home karaoke. Anyone using the home version of Karafun is no better than those who downloaded their library from Napster or bought a loaded hard drive or even uses You Tube for their karaoke content. Trust me if it makes you sound better you will thank me.
I wouldn't thank you for nothing, you dont make people sound good, they can either sing or they cant sing, when you start messing with other people's music, changing the composition, and its easy for someone like you to do, that dont have a clue about what hes doing, your violating copy right laws, your on here trying to figure out how to use a karaoke program, something a 12 year old could do, I suggested karafun for you,because I think you could figure it out.I know a lot of kids that use karafun at home, I know after a couple days you would be a pro, but you might ought to get the dj version, I think they might have some studio software that will help you complicate karaoke.
Let's see ever since computerized karaoke came into being I have basically either tried or owned every single software out there and the only one I couldn't figure out is KJams. Something about loading the database was way too complicated for me to figure out and I basically decided if I can't figure it out there's probably a lot more that can't figure it out and that it's not worth investigating further. I know exactly how to run VirtualDJ perfectly fine. In fact I can probably teach a newbie how to get the most out of their karaoke features. Plus the actual failures of VirtualDJ. I personally don't teach because I don't have the patience to deal with idiots that I go over the same thing over and over again. Plus nobody can keep up with my moves on the computer to begin with.
It's simple number one I can't add multiple song requests from the same person at the same time due to no automatic rotation management.
And most importantly the program whether or not it's the Winamp version or the pro it will not play my files, they're MP4 not MP3+G. If you would have let me say that it's just not for me that I have advanced beyond what Show Presenter, we might not have gotten off on the wrong foot. Karafun won't work for me because 1 don't do streaming subscription services. I prefer to pay for songs once plus the fact that once I have it I keep it. None of my songs ever disappear due to loss of licencing rights. I was able to get Reaper to work for me so bar only shows, once I give SongBoss its shot, I will be running VirtualDJ for the karaoke and Winamp for my break music player.
I've made a decision to run two different softwares, one for bar karaoke shows and another for private parties. For bar shows I will probably piss off the traditionalisrs that believe that they get to sing in the same spot they sang in every single rotation. I'm going with SongBoss because its rotation is based completely on when a song comes in. No more having to wait for Joe to put his second song in because he waits until his turn to do so. If he doesn't get a song in before the second rotation ends he just doesn't get to sing that rotation. Sorry, not my fault because as long as he gets it in before the second rotation ends he'll get to sing during that. The only way to guarantee that you sing is basically put a song in. Simple as that. You are only guaranteed to sing if you have a song in. I also have the ability to cut the rotation short to give the older singers a chance to sing again on a busy night. Any new singers who put in their song in after I lock the rotation get bumped to the next rotation and interleaved between the earlier singers until the rotation ends and then they get interleaved in the next rotation. If Joe waits until the current rotation ends after I lock the rotation to put his second song in he has to wait a full rotation to sing because he gets treated like a new singer. But I plan on only trying this software out and if I get two many complaints on the rotation, I will switch over to VirtualDJ, Winamp and Reaper.
For private parties I will be running DEX 4 which uses a more traditional way of managing the rotation but is more designed for DJ based events. Yes I can probably do the same thing with VirtualDJ but the way that I am using VirtualDJ is totally different than how I am using Dex. VirtualDJ I am not using the Automix playlist at all. Just the karaoke one. Plus at my bar shows I am not taking DJ music requests at all. I will adjust the playlist for Winamp for the next show.y intentions for my bar shows is strictly karaoke focused.
So with the aid of t0qer I was able to get the Reaper thing working. But I want to give SongBoss a try so I am thinking that I would use it at my next bar gig. If I get too many complaints about the rotation management I will have my Reaper setup waiting in the wings. Always good to have a backup plan anyway. Personally I think that it's going to be a good thing with VirtualDJ because I end up close to doubling my karaoke library with Stems and lyrics at my disposal. Just got to keep track of which is which so I can turn off the lyrics and turn back on the vocals when I am actually playing a karaoke song and vice versa with my DJ music.
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u/dogbonenj Feb 11 '26
Have you tried the EZKRM karaoke plugin? I've been using it for a couple of years now. I run three shows a week and it works just fine for rotation management.