by Scott Allison

Created on: December 05, 2008

I've been in the karaoke business for a little over seven years and in the music business for almost twenty. I don't do too many bar gigs anymore, mainly private parties and such, but I'd like to offer my advice to the beginner trying to get into the business.

First and foremost, those new to the business have to understand the competition involved in the business these days. You may want to do some research to find out how much competition you'll be dealing with before you spend quite alot of money on equipment and music and find out you won't be able to use it. The average rate of pay in the business has gone downhill with so much competition as well and the overhead of this kind of work can be quite high. I'm not trying to scare anyone away from the business but point out the reality of competition.

As far as equipment goes, you don't need 800 watts of power in a sound system. My first rig was quite simple and only 80 watts. It was actually a little slack and I had to push the amp a bit too hard for larger gigs so I use a 200 watt 6 channell powered mixer now and it has plenty of headroom to keep it from being overworked. A complete pa system can usually be purchased for around 4 to $500 and you'll have plenty of sound for a karaoke show.

As far as music goes, I've ripped all of my cdg's to an external hard drive and run my show from a pc rather than have to tote around all of my cdg's and risk scratching them. There is some great software that can be purchased and used as a "skin" for your singer lineup but I've found it just as easy to use a pad of paper and pen to keep track of things and go to my hard drive between songs and find the next one. If you set up your hard drive in order of your songbook it's not hard at all. You will need some software to get your computer to read a cdg file. There are several different choices for this software so do some research to find the one right for you. If you don't want to set up your shows on a computer make sure you get a dual tray cdg player. That way you'll have a singer onstage performing while you're getting the next song cued and ready for the next performer. It will keep your show rolling with limited dead air and keep your rotation going as well.

Speaking of dead air, there are two routes you can take to keep it from happening. If you have a gift of gab and can talk your way through the pauses between singers, more power to you. But some of these folks will test your gift. Even if they know they're next, some

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