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November 19, 2005 13:43 - Welcome to Karaoke News From The Karaoke
Advisor
This is the Karaoke Advisor's blog bringing you news from around the world of karaoke. Here I will detail
developments in karaoke players, karaoke software and downloads. I aim to update the blog on a daily basis so be sure
to check back regularly or better still subscribe to my RSS feed by clicking on the orange RSS logo.
Happy Singing! The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 19, 2005 14:11 - Karaokeinfo
Just a quick reminder for anyone out there who has been living on Mars for the last few months - you can now
download unlimited free karaoke tracks and burn them to a disc which will play in your karaoke machine.
Click here to find out more
The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 19, 2005 14:17 - HP launches two new `karaoke' entertainment PCs
Just read this at Taipai Times
"Capitalizing on the booming digital home concept, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Taiwan Ltd launched two entertainment computers
bundled with karaoke packages yesterday.
We want to differentiate ourselves from our competitors by adding more unique applications, such as karaoke
solutions, for entertainment PCs," Dennis Chen, general manager of the personal systems group, said on the sidelines of the
product launch.
According to Chen, Taiwanese on average frequent karaoke lounges once every three months, with each spending
between NT$3,500 and NT$5,500 (US$105 and US$164).
Therefore, the company decided to bundle the new HP Pavilion M7270TW and M7280TW Media Center PCs with
karaoke packages, which will allow users to sing their hearts out with 3,000 English and Mandarin song titles, said Sherry
Lin (???), market development manager of the personal system group.
The number of available titles will be increased to 4,000 in January next year to provide home users with
more variety, she added.
By the end of the year, HP aims to sell around 1,500 units of these two PCs, Chen said, predicting that
shipments of entertainment PCs will account for 10 percent of its total home PC volume this year.Based around Microsoft's
Windows XP Media Center Edition, an entertainment PC is designed to help home users manage digital content, including photos,
television shows, movies or music stored on a hard drive.It features an interface that allows a user to control the computer
from the couch."
Won't be long I guess before others follow suit and such PC's are available in the west - check back here
regularly to get the latest developments. The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 21, 2005 21:06 - Chuck Berry sues US karaoke firms
Singer Chuck Berry has sued three US karaoke music distributors, claiming they sold sing-along versions of
his hits without paying royalties. He seeks several hundred thousand dollars for each of the songs including Johnny B Goode
and My Ding-A-Ling. The 79-year-old US rock and roll star names karaoke distributors UAV Corp, Madacy Entertainment and Top
Tunes Inc in his legal action. The singer also claims the firms failed to obtain licences to sell karaoke versions of his
songs, including the track Maybellene. Several copyright holders of lesser-known songs took similar legal action at Los
Angeles District Court on Wednesday. They seek royalties that have allegedly gone uncollected on more than 24 songs in total.
US karaoke record labels generate a total revenue of $50m (28m) per year, the New York Times estimated. The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 23, 2005 19:46 - Church and Young perform karaoke duet
Charlotte Chuch and Will Young reportedly performed a karaoke duet in a Welsh pub, surprising the locals who
were drinking there.
According to reports, the pair were in Cardiff for their appearances in the Royal Variety Performance and
decided to stop off at the Robin Hood pub, which is owned by Church's mother.
The pair reportedly performed a number of their own hits, as well as singing a duet. Young said afterwards:
"What a great little pub. I love it here."
A local, who witnessed the impromptu performance, said: "I couldn't believe it. For the price of a pint I got
to see two of Britain's biggest pop stars live." The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 23, 2005 19:49 - Who says kids get embarrassed by Karaoke
Came across this article - takes me ages to get my kids to sing karaoke!!
Yo, dude! 'Karaoke Revolution Party' an instant good time
BY JAMES AND LIAM GASCOIN
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:43 AM CST
James: If you can sing without neighbors calling the cops on you for disturbing the peace, try "Karaoke Revolution Party." It
rocks!
Liam: You can sing to more than 50 cool songs like "American Woman," "What I Like About You" and many more.
There are slow songs, rap, country, rock, pop. You can dance to them, too, of course.
James: We found out I'm really good at singing and Liam is the dance man. We'd go head to head in duets but
the game came with just one mike.
Liam: You play the game by singing along with the original lead vocals. You can create your own onscreen
character, too. You get to choose your body and make it look fat, skinny, strong or normal. I gave my guy spiky hair, a black
shirt, blue jeans and a wristband.
James: My guy had a mop of hair and wears a white T-shirt and jeans. Anyway, you pick a song and a place like
a music video set, Las Vegas or a beach. You do a sound check just like the pros. Then the lyrics scroll along the bottom of
the screen and you start belting. A color bar glows to show you how well you doing.
Liam: There's also a Crowd Meter that rates your performance. If it points to yellow, you're doing OK. If
it's flashing red, you're horrible and you're about to be booed off the stage. If it's green and flashing, the crowd loves
you and you rock. Once, at the beach party scene, I was doing pretty good and a plane flew by with a banner reading, "Marry
me, Liam."
James: You get points for good performances and can earn CDs: Gold, platinum and diamond. Then you can unlock
new songs and characters. I earned a big mama diamond CD on my third try. OK, maybe it was the 13th. It takes practice to go
gold. Even for a natural-born vocalist like myself.
Liam: Yeah, right. Anyway, when you play multiplayer mode you can do duets and face-offs with up to seven
friends. You can use a microphone or a headset.
James: I do believe I'll give this awesome game a 10 out of 10. I love singing and I'm not afraid to say
it.
Liam: I'll give it a 9 out of 10. It's fun.They just need some bands like Green Day, Linkin Park and Simple
Plan. See ya! The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 24, 2005 23:04 - Singers plan 110 hours of continuous karaoke
Singers plan 110 hours of continuous karaoke
By JAMES BROOKS
NET News Service
'Wild Bill' Stidham of Kingsport does his part in the attempt at 110 hours of continuous karaoke at the Red Room in
Blountville that started Wednesday. Tony Duncan photo.
BLOUNTVILLE - It was a cold morning to be in the landscaping business, and that suited Jeff Duncan perfectly.
His mowers were in the parking lot of the Red Room as he placed his 12th song slip facedown at noon Wednesday, earning him
and two other karaoke singers the title of stalwarts of song.
Duncan, Audrey Crain, Gary Coates and a Willie Nelson look-alike named Bill carried the ball during the first
morning of an attempt to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records for 110 hours of continuous karaoke singing.
The Red Room is located on Shipley Ferry Road, just off the Kingsport-Blountville exit of Interstate 81.
Larry Harr of A Blast of the Past Karaoke and his wife, Cyndee, are spinning the CDs for this musical
marathon.
"We got under way about 8:45 this morning, with six or seven singers," Harr said. "We're looking for that to
pick up tonight, and by lunch on Thanksgiving Day we should have a big crowd coming in."
In spite of a sophisticated karaoke setup, Harr doesn't consider himself to be a professional karaoke
deejay.
"I played in bands for years, and I like playing with the equipment," he said. "I came up with this crazy
idea. Usually somebody stops me when I come up with ideas like this, but this time nobody did."
In checking the Guinness Book of Records, he discovered that singers in China hold the current record for
continuous karaoke performance at 100 hours. As he began planning to break this record, word came in that a new record of 107
hours was set in California, so he set his sights on 110 hours - a quest that would end shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday.
The first glitch came when they discovered that their song listing books didn't jibe with the record numbers,
so singers were getting on the stage and discovering that they were looking at the words and music for the next song on the
list rather than the one they expected.
Continuous karaoke means no more than 30 seconds between performers, with no performer singing the same song
twice within two hours.
The CD+Graphics format projects words on a video monitor in synch with the instrumental, and sometimes the
vocal backup music being played on the sound system. The singer, microphone in hand, then must sing the lead vocal as the
words are highlighted on the screen. The rules don't say you have to be good.
In fact, should a song appear that the singer doesn't know at all, he can still talk his way through it. If
somebody chokes completely, the singer in the hot seat is required to jump in and take away the mic in order to qualify as
continuous performance.
Most of the singers that got the ball rolling are retirees from Tennessee Eastman, where Harr works.
"All you've got to do is enjoy music or singing," Harr said. "I've never seen anybody criticized for singing
bad, and you see some at karaoke that are as good as anybody on the radio or TV."
He suddenly bolts from the room when he doesn't hear a vocal outside the interview room, but quickly
returns.
"It was just the instrumental bridge," he said.
Crain took a day from her vacation to be here and brought along her personal collection of more than 300
discs.
Duncan pledged to sing until he got relief from fresh singers arriving.
"Everybody in my family is a little bit musical," he said. "Note that I said a little bit."
He was looking for the main evening crowd to come in some six hours away.
As we're talking Bill does "It's All in the Game" then whips off his cap and dons a red bandanna to do his
Willie Nelson imitation of "On the Road Again," playing the air guitar on the bridge.
Harr said he chose Thanksgiving weekend for the record attempt because more people would be off work
then.
"Everyone's invited to come when they can and to stay as long as they can," he said.
In addition to singers, official witnesses are also needed. Medical personnel are on hand to check on
individual performers and organizers as fatigue sets in.
A traditional Thanksgiving feast is set for today at reasonable cost, and on Friday - the big Christmas
shopping day - the theme is "Stop, shop and sing."
Several food and craft vendors will be on site then. Friday evening is the look-alike contest, and Willie
Nelson is expected to return to the building. There will be pajama parties on Friday and Saturday night, and starting Sunday
- two hours before the record is broken - the rotation will be by drawing, with a grand prize package for the person singing
when the record is broken.
The Red Room also will offer diversions such as darts, card games and board games, with football games and
movies on television in the back. Dancing to the karaoke is encouraged. Church and civic groups are encouraged to use the
event as a fund-raiser.
"Everybody wants to sing. It's just getting up there the first time," Duncan said.
The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 27, 2005 21:01 - Streaming21 Shows Off IPTV with Karaoke-On-Demand
Streaming21, provider of broadcast-quality streaming solutions, announced that it will demonstrate its new
H.264 streaming solutions & advanced IPTV/Triple-play applications at the IPTV Asia Forum in Hong Kong. Karaoke-on-Demand
(KoD) is another spotlight to be first introduced in Hong Kong.
Streaming21, provider of broadcast-quality streaming solutions, announced that it will demonstrate its new
H.264 streaming solutions & advanced IPTV/Triple-play applications at the IPTV Asia Forum in Hong Kong, using fully
integrated IP Set-top Boxes including ADB, Foxconn, NUMA, COMTREND, Yuxing and Sunniwell. Visitors will experience live demos
of end-to-end IPTV solutions for Live Broadcast, Video-on-Demand (VoD), and Karaoke-on-Demand (KoD) based on the H.264
advanced compression standards.
KoD is another spotlight to be first introduced in Hong Kong. With this unique KoD system, people can now
enjoy singing with family and friends in the privacy and convenience of their own homes. Streaming21 has recently deployed
the worlds first commercialized sing-along on demand service for Chunghwa Telecom (TAIEX: 2412, NYSE: CHT). The service is
expected to reach 200,000 subscribers by the end of this year and 1 million subscribers in three years. KoD is believed to be
a killer application for the future of home entertainment in Asia.
The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 27, 2005 21:03 - Karaoke record attempt tunes up
In Blountville Tennessee the world's longest continuous karaoke party reached the halfway point at 3:45 Friday afternoon, and
according to head deejay Larry Harr, it's gathering steam toward inclusion in the Guinness Books of Records.
"The old faithfuls are getting us through the nights," Harr said, before heading home for a shower, while
wife Cyndee spun the platters.
A bleary-eyed Jeff Duncan was snatching a cigarette outside the Red Room, off Shipley Ferry Road, while
waiting for his next turn on stage.
"It gets rough late at night," he said, brandishing a stack of song slips. He has done more than 75 songs
since starting the karaoke marathon on Wednesday.
Inside, Bill Allen of Colonial Heights was going through the songbooks and filling out slips for a couple
more songs to add to the five he had done so far.
Wife Loretta is there to lend moral support.
"I like to sing, but I'm too nervous to get up here," she said.
She is not too shy to dance while Bill sings his next one, however.
There are about 14 singers for the afternoon shift, and the balance is heavily toward country.
"That's my dad," said Katie Cook, gesturing to a singer warbling through "Unforgettable" up on the stage.
"I'm probably not going to do anything, though."
Teresa Herbert is here to give emotional support to husband Ed Herbert, whose tenor goes against the country
tide with songs like "New York, New York."
Country couple Sandra and Joey Todd are professional-quality singers. He does the raunchy tune, "It's Hard to
Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your A** All Day." Sandra follows with "Long Time Gone."
Jeff's daughter, Hannah Duncan, called her daddy on the first day and said, "Take me out there." She's been
singing for three days and has done about 10 songs, she thinks.
Rebecca Templeton got up and went shopping at 5 a.m., came to The Red Room about 7, did five songs and went
shopping again. Now she's back for another run.
"There are no Christmas bargains out there this year," she said.
Asia is the place in the world where karaoke has reached the level of madness, but it is fitting that the
Guinness World Record comes to East Tennessee, just a few minutes away from the birthplace of country music in Bristol.
This is not a place of shrinking violets when it comes to singing. It is part of the mountain heritage, and
whether the song is derived from the ballad tradition, or gospel music from singing in the church choir, people here just
naturally express themselves in song.
Most of the singers here are dedicated karaoke performers with their personal collections of hundreds of
discs they bring with them. Larry and Cyndee Harr have a sophisticated disc retrieval system and a songbook with perhaps a
thousand selections. Yet another personal collection on a side table, packed in Moon Pie boxes, has even more songs.
Other singers are coming out of the shower for the first time.
Harr was passing out Performer certificates to everyone who took microphone in hand, whether polished or rank
amateur.
The Guinness rules for continuous karaoke performance require that there be no more than 30 seconds between
songs, and if the next performer isn't ready to step up on the stage, the previous performer might get to sing a brand-new
song. That happened to Sandra Todd, and it was a song she didn't know, but by following the music she was hearing, the words
on the screen and calling husband Joey up to join in a duet, they went through the final chorus like they'd been singing it
for years. "It's gaining momentum," Harr said. "Now that the media has discovered us we are getting new performers all the
time. I think we will bust the record if Cyndee and I just get some relief from spinning the discs."According to everyone at
The Red Room, by 11 p.m. Sunday, Blountville will be the "karaoke kapitol" of the world according to Guinness.
The-Karaoke-Advisor.com
November 29, 2005 20:31 - Antony wins 5 stars in karaoke trial
More prime time karaoke exposure
Antony won five stars out of eleven for his efforts in the latest Bushtucker Trial.
The former Blue singer was picked for last night's Scar-E-Oke challenge. He had to sing along perfectly to
classic karaoke hits.
"It was inevitable that I was going [to be chosen] to do it," he told Ant and Dec. "I was in a band so people
at home were going to say 'Let's see if he can really sing'."
Though he stuck to the songs impressively, Antony was fazed by the other aspect of the game. He was
repeatedly showered with exotic creepy crawlies, making it hard to keep concentration.
He sung his way through Bee Gees, Tom Jones and Monkees tunes before bailing out moments from the end of
Sweet Caroline.
"Did I do all right? I did bad, didn't I?" enquired the traumatised star. "I just heard this 'Brrrrrr' [of
machinery above me] and I thought here we go, here come the rats or whatever - it was the fear of what was coming next."
"I was getting into it as well," he added. "I did my best and everything. I'm just a bit embarrassed really
because I thought I could have done all right."
Sheree summed up the I'm a Celebrity mood optimistically, saying: "He did really well. He seems happy and
everyone is really pleased with him."
November 30, 2005 20:30 - My Voice Is NOT Karaoke software
I have just stumbled across this reveiw by CRAYTON HARRISON of the The Dallas Morning News
"The beauty of karaoke is that you can sing like a rock star in front of strangers. Anonymity (and often
alcohol) shields you from embarrassment. Rare is the karaoke singer who wants to hear a replay of his performance the next
morning.
But if you're so inclined, try My Voice. The $30 karaoke software by French company IPE Music can preserve
your performance for prosperity.
The software uses digital filtering to get rid of the vocals on any music CD, allowing you to replace them
with your own.
The filtering works, sort of. On the three songs I tried - selections by Dwight Yoakam, Beck and the Smiths -
the singer's voice sounded more suppressed than erased, reduced to a ghostly backing vocal."
That says it all! My voice is simply voice cancel software and as you may know from my thoughts on such
notions - it doesn't work - not even "sort of" - if you are serious about karaoke get proper karaoke tracks! Rant over! See
the Jargon Buster for a proper explanation.
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