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 Post subject: Open KJ
PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:57 am 
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I've been using Winamp to do my shows for about as long as I can remember. It's been bulletproof, and God knows its simple... the later, a major requirement for me. If you've read many of my posts, you'll know I'm not very computer-literate, and that's an understatement.

Two or three years ago I tested several programs via their free trials, and ended up buying Just Karaoke 2.0 Not the brightest purchase I've ever made. I load it up from time to time, but always screw something up when I try to use it.

So... I see folks here talking about OpenKJ... It seems the program is reliable and simple, and can incorporate as many features as you may or may not want. Lately, I've been getting more and more singers asking me things like, what did they sing last week, or "pick one of my usual songs"... and so I thought this feature would be handy. And a better method of keeping track of the rotation would be a bonus.

So yesterday I downloaded and installed the latest 64 bit version.... then spent last evening figuring out how to add both karaoke and bumper data bases, a significant task for my limited computer abilities. This morning I loaded a few singers' names... and that's as far as I got. In attempting to simulate the start of a show, the program crashed... not once, but three times, and I have no idea why it happened.

However, I'm wondering if it's possible that I should have downloaded an earlier version of the program that might be more stable. If so, I'll delete this program and get what you might suggest. On the other hand, if you don't think that's the problem, I'd be happy to hear your suggestions.... as long as they're not spelled out in computer-ese.

I'm not interested in getting a different program, and if necessary I'll stick with Winamp... but since I have some time on my hands, I thought I'd give OpenKJ a try.

My apology for such a long-winded post.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 8:52 am 
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Their song history in my opinion is lacking. It won't show you their songs. When you add their names into the rotation or drops all of their songs into the que. Do yourself a favor and Google AutoKDJ download and use winamp.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 1:27 pm 
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Earl wrote:
So yesterday I downloaded and installed the latest 64 bit version.... then spent last evening figuring out how to add both karaoke and bumper data bases, a significant task for my limited computer abilities. This morning I loaded a few singers' names... and that's as far as I got. In attempting to simulate the start of a show, the program crashed... not once, but three times, and I have no idea why it happened.

However, I'm wondering if it's possible that I should have downloaded an earlier version of the program that might be more stable. If so, I'll delete this program and get what you might suggest. On the other hand, if you don't think that's the problem, I'd be happy to hear your suggestions.... as long as they're not spelled out in computer-ese.

Earlier versions won't help. Isaac Lightburn - a really nice guy - is aware that some Windows users are having issues. He's updating it all the time.

What will help -
The actual filenames of the audio files can not have any weird characters or punctuation marks in them. This also pertains to the Break music library.

It is also a good idea to run a File Error Correction program on your library, something like mp3Val. Unfortunately, this can not be done if the audio files (mp3 files) and cdg files are inside a Zipped Wrapper folder. I recently had a few threads on this - trying to find simple one click solutions for non-computer oriented people, such as (admittedly) yourself. Although receiving a lot of well intention-ed responses, they basically turned into horror stories (as will probably the responses to this paragraph).

OpenKJ is actually written for Linux. I think it's so good that I have it running on a dedicated laptop running Linux Mint as the operating system, where it seems to be dead nuts reliable. As great as this is (and it's all free), Linux is still not for the faint of heart.

Don't give up on it. I've learned a lot about it - feel free to ask.


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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:03 pm 
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Hey Earl. I'm only about 3 weeks ahead of you in switching over to OpenKJ, so I've just dealt with some of the things mentioned here.

At the download site, each version is clearly labeled as a stable or unstable release. Best to stick with the latest stable release while starting out -- then if anything goes wrong you know it's you and not (likely) the program. Right now I believe that's version 1.4.5-32b

Hyphens in your file names will not mess up importation of the library as long as those that are actual field delimiters (that being the dividers between artist, song, and song #) have a space before and after, and those hyphens that are part of an artist's name, song tile, or your own song numbers DO NOT have a space both before and after those hyphens.

If you can get a list of your file names into a text document (this is what I ended up doing) you can then just open that list in Wordpad and do a search on " - " (search for space hyphen space) and if you find any in the wrong places, then you've identified a file that needs renaming before you try the library import again. Hyphens between letters rather than spaces don't need replacing, as in "Newton-John, Olivia" -- that's fine the way it is. But "Newton - John, Olivia" will blow up the library import process for that song.

I'm liking the program quite a bit. Done 4 shows with it so far. I did get one freeze that crashed it, but when I restarted it the whole rotation was still there, just where I left off! That impressed me.

Not switching for my own purposes. I'm happy with the old-fashioned point at a file and double click to launch method, and prefer keeping my rotation on paper. But I'm training a couple "employees" to start running one of my shows for me, and they really need it for help with the rotation process and filler music. They're loving it so far.


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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:53 pm 
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Earl, contact Isaac Lightburn, he wrote it and will help you far more than any of us can.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 6:56 pm 
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Thanks for the comments folks....

I dumped the latest 64-bit version and downloaded an earlier 32-bit stable version, and ... so far, so good. It's a big learning curve for me, and if I get too frustrated, will probably just revert to Winamp... but for now, I'm learning.

So far, I've managed to load my library data-base, a bumper music data-base, a half-dozen sound effects, and although I don't have a DB of my regular singers, I've come up with something like 153 that I can think of.

So now, it's back to actually reading the instructions. I'll do a progress report in a couple of days.

Thanks again.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:12 am 
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To be honest to do the history thing, JustKaraoke is the better choice. It's a very simple program if you can remember to find the song, double click on the song, assign the singer either by entering it, clicking on the name below the entry box or clicking on the box beside it to get the name of one of your regulars. You can even click on the history and choose the singer and one of their songs that they have already sung in the past. Program is pretty bullet proof. Make sure you have the right codecs installed.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 11:19 am 
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DannyG2006 are you drunk? Justkaraoke is better? ? ?

Not even close.


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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 1:05 pm 
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karaokeniagarafalls wrote:
DannyG2006 are you drunk? Justkaraoke is better? ? ?

Not even close.

It's easy to use. And hands down the history is better than OpenKJ. When I was using OpenKJ, the regulars feature, I refused to use because I have to waste my time deleting the songs from their history that they didn't want to sing. What if there's 50 songs in their history? Would you want to have to delete 49 songs just to keep one in the playlist? I know that I wouldn't. I prefer being able to choose that one song and only have to select the songs that they want to sing like all of the other programs. The only real problem is that JustKaraoke doesn't have any support behind it since Tricerasoft went under but it really doesn't need it because of how rock solid the software is. I have never had any reason to get support on it even when Gai was still in business and guess what, it plays KV MP4s perfectly.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:25 pm 
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What if there's 50 songs in their history? That means they either sang 50 songs or you added them. And why would you delete them? I have singers with over 1500 songs in their history.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 8:18 pm 
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Lonman wrote:
What if there's 50 songs in their history? That means they either sang 50 songs or you added them. And why would you delete them? I have singers with over 1500 songs in their history.

They wouldn't be deleted from the history just from that show's playlist. You wouldn't want to weed through all 1500 songs to get to the song they want to sing. You would rather just place that one song they want to sing and leave the rest in their history.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 11:13 pm 
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Why would you put them into the playlist, just pick the one they want and that one. If OpenKJ adds everything from their history to the playlist, then yes that is a problem.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 12:35 am 
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Lonman wrote:
Why would you put them into the playlist, just pick the one they want and that one. If OpenKJ adds everything from their history to the playlist, then yes that is a problem.

That appears to be the case, but then I've only worked with it a few times.

One of the fill-ins I'm training just showed me an extremely useful trick I didn't realize it has. Once you look up a song, you can just drag it to the singer's name and it goes in that singer's que -- you don't have to open the singer's que first to add to it at all -- duh.

There's lots to love about this program.

The one thing I don't get, and I don't know if this is true of hoster programs in general because I've avoided them all, is how the heck do you know when you've taken enough songs 'til the end of the show? Open each singer's que one at a time, and count the unsung songs? That's rather awkward! When the rotation is a deck of slips in my hand, I can always count how many I'm holding in an instant, glance at the clock, and I know how many more I can take.

Do any hosters have something like a countdown clock, where told the end time of the show it can just display the number of songs you still have room for? (Yeah, I'll ask Isaac about that one!)


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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 8:38 am 
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karaokeniagarafalls wrote:
DannyG2006 are you drunk? Justkaraoke is better? ? ?

Not even close.

Danny also thinks that VocoPro mics are better than Shure.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 8:47 am 
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Elementary Penguin wrote:
Lonman wrote:
Why would you put them into the playlist, just pick the one they want and that one. If OpenKJ adds everything from their history to the playlist, then yes that is a problem.

That appears to be the case, but then I've only worked with it a few times.

One of the fill-ins I'm training just showed me an extremely useful trick I didn't realize it has. Once you look up a song, you can just drag it to the singer's name and it goes in that singer's que -- you don't have to open the singer's que first to add to it at all -- duh.

There's lots to love about this program.

The one thing I don't get, and I don't know if this is true of hoster programs in general because I've avoided them all, is how the heck do you know when you've taken enough songs 'til the end of the show? Open each singer's que one at a time, and count the unsung songs? That's rather awkward! When the rotation is a deck of slips in my hand, I can always count how many I'm holding in an instant, glance at the clock, and I know how many more I can take.

Do any hosters have something like a countdown clock, where told the end time of the show it can just display the number of songs you still have room for? (Yeah, I'll ask Isaac about that one!)

Unfortunately there's only been one winamp front-end that has ever had that ability. You can still find it for download. AutoKDJ. Well that actually shuts down the request taking system. Siglos tells you exactly what time a show will end provided you go straight through the rotation without any breaks or having to wait for singers to get to the Mic. Hoster will give you how much time is being used by the accumulated time in the playlist.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:24 am 
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DannyG2006 wrote:
Elementary Penguin wrote:
Lonman wrote:
Why would you put them into the playlist, just pick the one they want and that one. If OpenKJ adds everything from their history to the playlist, then yes that is a problem.

That appears to be the case, but then I've only worked with it a few times.

One of the fill-ins I'm training just showed me an extremely useful trick I didn't realize it has. Once you look up a song, you can just drag it to the singer's name and it goes in that singer's que -- you don't have to open the singer's que first to add to it at all -- duh.

There's lots to love about this program.

The one thing I don't get, and I don't know if this is true of hoster programs in general because I've avoided them all, is how the heck do you know when you've taken enough songs 'til the end of the show? Open each singer's que one at a time, and count the unsung songs? That's rather awkward! When the rotation is a deck of slips in my hand, I can always count how many I'm holding in an instant, glance at the clock, and I know how many more I can take.

Do any hosters have something like a countdown clock, where told the end time of the show it can just display the number of songs you still have room for? (Yeah, I'll ask Isaac about that one!)

Unfortunately there's only been one winamp front-end that has ever had that ability. You can still find it for download. AutoKDJ. Well that actually shuts down the request taking system. Siglos tells you exactly what time a show will end provided you go straight through the rotation without any breaks or having to wait for singers to get to the Mic. Hoster will give you how much time is being used by the accumulated time in the playlist.

You know, sometimes when I read your posts I think that this is a joke... that you can't be for real. I mean, are you fricken serious? You need software to tell you what time a show is going to end? This is so unbelievable. I'm sure that everyone here can end the night just fine all by themselves. I'm sorry Danny but I've never seen anybody make an issue out of such insignificant stupidity as the way you do.

Oh and by the way... if you ever find a software program that can tell you when you can take a bathroom break, please let me know. I'd be interested in that since I can't think for myself.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:23 am 
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Alan, to be fair to Danny, I don't use Compuhost either. I have tried the demo version and I struggled with getting to know how to use the program from the start. Maybe I just need to spend more time figuring it out, but I just don't really see the point. I also don't want to go through each and every file I have simply to make sure that the name is perfectly formatted. I made mistakes in how I ripped discs many years ago and now have to live with those mistakes. I don't want to spend that much time in re-ripping or renaming. I used "JustKaraoke", and still do, for my program. It doesn't care how the files are named, nor even if they are different from zips. I don't need a song history to know that a song gets played over and over. It has key adjustment, singer history, "next" singer scrolling, background music (filler), plus a few more features that I don't use. Compuhost has features that I would never use, nor care to learn. From the beginning of this thread, Earl stated he is a little lacking in computer skills and was looking for something that was simple to use without all the bells and whistles that make learning a program more complex. Maybe OpenKJ is the answer for him and Danny, I could not say, nor should anyone press their own personal choices onto others, nor belittle someone who is less skilled. All we should do is offer advise when asked. I am sure Danny has his reasons for his choices, whether they are good choices is not up to us.

Now, to Earl. Have you figured anything out yet?


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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:13 am 
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mrscott wrote:
I don't use Compuhost either. I have tried the demo version and I struggled with getting to know how to use the program from the start. Maybe I just need to spend more time figuring it out, but I just don't really see the point. I also don't want to go through each and every file I have simply to make sure that the name is perfectly formatted. I made mistakes in how I ripped discs many years ago and now have to live with those mistakes. I don't want to spend that much time in re-ripping or renaming.

I had a lot of errors in my file names and if you want to be a "professional" you need to do the work. I used Karaosoft KJFileManager and fixed all the naming problems. It took several weeks of sitting and checking and rechecking, still they are not perfect, but very close. The best thing about getting the naming of the files fixed is the book size goes way down, and searches are way easier to navigate.


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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:26 am 
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mrmarog wrote:
mrscott wrote:
I don't use Compuhost either. I have tried the demo version and I struggled with getting to know how to use the program from the start. Maybe I just need to spend more time figuring it out, but I just don't really see the point. I also don't want to go through each and every file I have simply to make sure that the name is perfectly formatted. I made mistakes in how I ripped discs many years ago and now have to live with those mistakes. I don't want to spend that much time in re-ripping or renaming.

I had a lot of errors in my file names and if you want to be a "professional" you need to do the work. I used Karaosoft KJFileManager and fixed all the naming problems. It took several weeks of sitting and checking and rechecking, still they are not perfect, but very close. The best thing about getting the naming of the files fixed is the book size goes way down, and searches are way easier to navigate.


Being "professional" was not, nor is not my goal. It's about creating a fun experience. The singer couldn't care less if the host's files are named properly or not, all they want is to be able to sing the song they choose. As hosts, what we do is to make the experience fun for the singer, and if we can make it more streamline and efficient for us, then bonus, but the singers do not care if the dot or dash comes before or after the name or title or manufacturer. They will not think any less of the host if the name shows up "weird" on the screen, as long as the song plays for them, then all is well in Oz. The only people who care about how naming of songs, or programs used to host,,,, is the host. I am fine with using JustKaraoke. It does exactly what I need it to do. It wouldn't make my shows any "better" if I spent the time in fixing the errors. I am not that anal.


Last edited by mrscott on Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Open KJ
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:32 am 
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mrscott wrote:
Now, to Earl. Have you figured anything out yet?


I'm still plugging away when I get a little extra time.. Putting together my list of singers... both regulars, and the infrequent and have come up with 252 so far, of which about 35 have no surnames attached (yet)... There's Dennis (the menace), Glen (the shuffle board guy), Marlene (that friend of Joanne's) and Jen (who always arrives late)... but that's another subject in and of itself.

The instructions keep referring to .xml files of which I'm not familiar.. So, I googled it and came up with a bunch of Greek mumbo-jumbo, so there's another step on the learning curve.

At least, I know more today than I did a week ago, and will know more tomorrow than today. Whether I ever actually get to use the program... only time will tell. In the meantime, it's good mental gymnastics for an elderly old fart like me.

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