Karaoke Forums

Hi all, I've searched the forums and can't find the answer. I'm sure this is something simple I'm missing, but:
I bought Karaosoft Song List Generator last week. After running it the first time I realized what a mess a lot of my ripped filenames were, so I bought KJ File Manager and cleaned everything up. It all imports now into Song List Generator with no exceptions.
When I first looked at the list I thought, "Wow, I have a LOT of duplicates." Then I saw that there were two entries for each and every song, exactly the same. For example:
DK082-14 - 10cc - I'm Not in Love
DK082-14 - 10cc - I'm Not in Love
I first thought, "That one must not be zipped [not all of my tracks are], so I'm seeing the mp3 AND the CDG." But no, that track is actually zipped. I've skimmed through the list and it seems that every single song is doubled like that, while some of the files are zipped and some are CDG+mp3.
So then I thought, "Surely when I generate the song book it will suppress the doubles." But no, my Song Book has every song doubled also. I can "fix" the song book by choosing the option to, "Combine multiple versions of songs into single line", but I really want to be able to have the song list/database (not the song book) just show one entry for each song. I don't understand why it's looking into the zip files and pulling both the CDG and the mp3.
Is there something in the Import Titles menu I'm missing? For the Import Format template I'm using "DiscID - Artist - Title (Standard Karaoke Format)", and I don't see that any of the other options would give me anything different.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Mike

Go to Generate Song list
Layout
under:
Combine multiple versions of songs into single line.
generate Song list:
Versions Column
Check : Show preferred versions first then put in the order of the versions.
then the number of versions
then hit generate.

Kirk, thanks for taking the time to help, but I already knew how to do that for the Song Book/List. What I want to see in the actual program, or database, or whatever you want to call it, is just one entry for each song. For a zip file it seems like that ought to be the default. I could see if the two files weren't zipped why it would make two entries. In the meantime I'm training myself to just see them as pairs, which isn't terribly hard, just not what I want the program to do.
I think it's also misleading because it tells me at the top left that I have x number of songs, but it must really be half of that (though I haven't tried counting).
Thanks,
Mike

Which format are you using to import. I've never gotten results like that using the standard Karaoke format (disk id - Artist - title) The program sees a non zipped file as a different file then a zipped file with the same file name. I use Ver 5.0.4

Using KJFM sort files by file type and then "Export" the mp3+g files to another folder. Then all you have left will be your zipped files. Latshaw recommends (and so do I) that all files should be in 1 big folder named "Karaoke" or "Karaoke Zips". Then point your Song List Generator to your folder containing only the zips. If that doesn't work then I don't have a clue.

You could also try unzipping all your zips and rezipping them. Have you ever run the "Test Zip Files For Corruption and Synchronize Contents" when importing the files?

Thanks for the insights, some good ideas here to try. I have all my karaoke files in a parent folder named 'Karaoke', but then under that I have a folder for each of the manufacturers I have: Sound Choice, Sunfly, Dangerous, Priddis, etc. And within each of those I tend to have sub-folders like SF000s, SF100s, etc. Then each disc in its own folder: SF001, SF002, etc. Do we think the program could be balking at that? It seems to have found everything, but are you saying I should have each track/file in one giant folder?

Some are zip files and some are two files: the cdg and the mp3, both with the same name, except for the extension, of course. As I was importing them into KJFM to fix the naming I did see the recommendation to "Test zip files", and I was doing that, but it was taking a while so I stopped. I was also Exporting non-zipped files into zipped format, but that was taking a while too. I figured that when I got done getting all the names right then I'd import all and test the zips, then export all to zips. Maybe that'll fix my Song List problem. Thanks.

Get rid of ALL subfolders and export all songs to ONE big folder. Also Zip or Unzip all the files and don't have some of one and some of another..... be consistent. If Exact duplicates exist then they will not export the duplicate file and the duplicates will remain in subfolders. Then get rid of (move) the subfolders because they contain only duplicates. I have all mine unzipped...... but zipped is fine. Any change you make in KJFM will rename the zip contents.

Keeping 10-15k of karaokes in one directory is absolutely nuts!!!!!!!!!!! YES! I OWN THAT MANY PHYSICAL DISKS WORTH OF SONGS..
That's over 120gig with NO duplicates. I use the same Masterlib, with subs for each manufacturer and series. KSL works fine for me.
There must be a setting in there that needs to be tweaked. There are also limits in 32 bit Windows on how many files in a directory.

FYI, I also keep a MasterlibALT directory. When sorting, I keep the best (I hope) version in the MasterLib directory and move the next best over to the ALT directory. I create lists only from the MASTERLIB and INTERNATIONAL lib. This way I have my go do show directory,
and an alternate directory to load in show only so I have a backup version available. All the other song dups are dumped in a reservelib folder and not really dealt except for the off chance someone really wants pan flute off my DK's..

Another possibility, is subtle differences in the title or artist. You mention 10cc. That was one I has issues with as well as there were capitalization differences and additional unnoticed spaces in the title/track. Having consistent naming standards will help a lot.
Example, 10cc, 10Cc, 10CC, 10 CC, 10cc . etc etc. This is especially a pain on titles as I find many different versions of the title depending on brand and even within the same brand on the same song, on two different series disks, with the same track but slightly different graphics, printed on the case and disk differently than the actual track.... I've come across a couple that the CDG was spelled different between two different disks for the same song in the on screen graphics!! It's a tedious process.

_________________
Purple Frog Karaoke Cuz we all feel odd and love to "croak"

WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KJFM does not have undo.. Make sure you have your files backed up.
It processes much faster with unzipped files. Do use the test zips setting.

_________________
Purple Frog Karaoke Cuz we all feel odd and love to "croak"

No it's not, but I'm curious....why do you think that?

I keep mine in 4 different folders so that I can create my songbooks by 4 different categories. I have all mine unzipped. By "Soft Pop" I mean no rap and no headbanger stuff. I actually have many more songs but they don't fit my style of hosting and my type of venue. Also some songs are in another folder called Special occasions

>YES! I OWN THAT MANY PHYSICAL DISKS WORTH OF SONGS" and then some.

Not true. It has to do with the file system you're using and nothing to do with 32 or 64 bit version of windows. If you're up to date, you should have all of your drives formatted with the NTFS file system, which has a directory limit of over 4 billion files. If you buy your external drives and just leave them with the old FAT32 file system, yes, you're limited to just over 65,500 files, but who would do that?

Taking the time to organize your files into subfolders is a waste of time. Just throw them all into one folder. There is no down side. If you want to lookup a specific disc from windows file explorer, just search for the disc number in the windows search bar at the top of the windows file explorer. Once you throw all of your files into one folder, all of the access to those files should be with another program anyway.

Since I print songbooks by genre it makes lots of sense to have folders.... especially since I just drop new songs into the correct folder, point SLG (Song List Generator) at each folder and reprint a new up to date book. Easy Peazy

My singers that sing only country or only oldies love grabbing a much smaller book and not having to search through a lot or artists/songs they have no interest in.

Because I'm still adding and replacing as I fine tune... Example is PHM and THM... I have all the THM and most of the PHM but am finding I like the THM rock tunes better now. So, I simply swap the CDG disk directories around the libraries manually rather than use an external program. At the end of the day I can quickly isolate a disk that needs reripping, or can be dropped into the for sale pile.
Just the idea of thousands of files on one directory without subs makes me personally uncomfortable from experience in hand painting thousands of frames of mattes when I worked in special effects. Personal preference and I don't lose sleep over the possibility I or the software may have screwed up. I've had drive crashes on $$$$$ projects I was able to save most of due to not using the std "only one directory" approach. Some people prefer all their eggs in one big basket, I just don't.

I stand corrected on the directory limit by the way... I forgot about that. Gettin old.

_________________
Purple Frog Karaoke Cuz we all feel odd and love to "croak"

Songbooks by genre? That makes no sense. Sorting music by genre only makes sense when browsing iTunes or back in the days of record stores. That's because when you're purchasing music for yourself, you can present yourself with music that you may like, considering the fact that you're most likely looking for music that is NEW to you and you've never heard before. When picking a song to play or sing out of a DJ or KJ's collection, you're then picking songs you already know. In which case, you already know the title and the artist for those songs. The most commonly used book is the single book of all songs sorted by artist. Everyone knows what artists they like, and can quickly access all of the songs by that artist. Virtually all singers find songs this way when browsing books.

I can only imagine a table of singers at your venue when their taste in music varies among all of them. During the course of the night, they would have to keep trading various genre books like a group of old people trading sections of the newspaper on a Sunday morning. "I'm done with the sports section, can I now borrow the business section?"

I have to agree with Mr. Ian. Makes zero sense to split books by genre. The ONLY things I can think of having separate books for are duets/group songs (even that is stretching it) and maybe one for title and one for artist, but that's pretty old school, and if you're printing books, it's a waste of paper. I just add the duets and groups section to my book. Maybe 10-15 pages.

_________________
DJ Don

That is exactly what I do but I have taken it one step further. I have removed all the artist that are not of interest to them. How do I know this? My singers and listeners are mostly 50 and older and have very little interest in music after the 90's. I have, amongst that group, a large number of singers that sing only country, old and new, so I have a "country book" by artist and by song for them. I won't go on because you refuse to see the logic.

Well Don, if you were part of the older (50 to 70 ) crowd you would know. Most all folks of that age will not look though 15,000+ entries to find their songs. If they can't find it they leave or don't sing.

Kirk, really? Older people grew up in an age where they had to look up people in phone books. Remember them? A book with tens of thousands of names, and yet they were able to quickly find the person they were looking for. How were they able to do this incredible task? The same way they can lookup a song in a book, because IT'S IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. It doesn't matter if there are 5,000 songs or 50,000 songs. The ability to look up something quickly doesn't change, and older people are actually better at this than younger people because they grew up in an age of having to look things up this way.

If anything, you're more likely to confuse a younger person with a book than an older person.

It's not that I refuse to see the logic. It's that its just not there. In the same point I made above with Kirk, you're treating old people like they're incompetent, when in fact, old people are experts at looking things up that are in alphabetical order. Even if you chopped your entire book into 5 separate genre books, it will take someone more time to physically find and grab the "correct" book than the time you think they save by having a smaller book.

If you don't believe me, do a test. Put all of your separate genre books on one table, and then a single book of all songs on a different table. Take two people, and tell one that they can use the single book, and tell the other they have to use the separate books. Then, tell both to lookup a specific song and see who wins. Do it multiple times with multiple people just to be sure, but I think you'll come to realize what I've been trying to tell you. Even if you put all of the separate genre pages in one book and separated them by tabs, you STILL won't increase the speed at which someone can find something.

If your theory was correct, then all the top engineers at the phone book companies would have made phone books split by race. "Gee, I know Juan is Latino, so I better first find the Latino phone book".

If you really think your logic is still correct and the most efficient, I suggest you quit your day job and start lobbying a lot of phone book and catalog manufacturers to sell your new patented way of lookup efficiency, because I'm sure there's a fortune to be made. Such a radical discovery may even warrant a Nobel Prize. You never know