Pinned KARAOKE ENTHUSIAST CHAT

[BJtheDJ]

BACKSTAGE was another of those 'not quite' legit budget labels, I don't have the full set, but what I have I am uploading to MEGA for those who are interested....

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. Upload Complete - 1,005 tracks, on 71 Discs. (4.07GB)

Backstage were/are deffo legit - sub-division of NuTech, I purchased a complete

set from the USA via eBay some15-20 years back on and they were/are handy in

the xtreme.

 

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has this to say about Backstage (not quite sure what's happening with

Karaoke Shack, their membership has been closed for a few years now - until the site updates,

whatever that means):

 

Backstage Karaoke Series

 

Firstly, Backstage karaoke discs are a bit of a collectors item nowadays. Indeed, they did produce some

decent karaoke tracks according to our feedback. But, never given too much credit in the karaoke world.

 

Furthermore, Backstage Karaoke was an arm of

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Indeed, Backstage did rely on many

Nutech karaoke tracks to fill up their discs sometimes. There are also a few

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discs

available which are basically Backstage clones.

 

So, if you have the Backstage, you may want to give the Hot Line a miss if finances are short. Likewise, the

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discs and the

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discs are Backstage clones too.

 

With this in mind, more research is necessary to ensure karaoke collectors do not duplicate their

collections. For this reason, we welcome more input on this subject. However, we have listed some of the

AKA discs next to the main ID’s. In other words, BS6617 is AKA SO208.

 

In general, as far as collecting karaoke discs goes, the Backstage series are very cheap to buy. For example,

on ebay, we saw individual Backstage discs going for £2.50 post free ($3.20 US) ($4.10 Aus).

 

In effect, with around eighty four discs that exit, Backstage Karaoke has done really well. Just to point out,

the disc ID’s mainly end in the number 17. However, with only 4 numbers, this is not a problem. But, it can

make them slightly confusing when working with them.

[BJtheDJ]

When I said 'not quite'. I meant it in the way they were marketed/created, not in the manner of Xtreme...

 

There was a period of time that Nutech issued the same discs under different guises to different outlets and markets (Homestar, Nikkodo, Sound Images, Standing Ovation etc.) which the more mainstream producers frowned on, considering it exploitation of the market.

Unlike (say), ChartBuster with their multiple series all with multi-duplicated songs,

or Pop Hits Monthly with their many different songs and series, again with multiple dupes,

or Top Hits Monthly who were exactly the same,

or even Pocket Songs (my favourite despitetheir sometimes non-existent graphics) who had

Just Tracks, Screen Tracks, Singers Dream and Stage Stars as well with vast duplication of

content; all of those were major "mainstream" karaoke production houses.

Working in the industry at the time, their marketing model was one of flog it cheap and flood the market.

Hmm, almost exactly what VocalStar do exept that their motto is flog it expensive and try to

flood the market with multiple near-identical discs with covers that change every year or so

to make them look lkie new issues

As you say, complete sets were sold in one region, while in others their over-run pressings were put out as single discs; rebranded discs were marketed to outlets such as Walmart etc. as 'own brand' items (even Currys/Dixons (DSG) in the UK marketed the Homestar range for a while as a tool to sell karaoke machines at one time).

I have many of the HomeStar discs and there are a fair number of tracks that appear nowhere

else - please don't ask for examples cos my examination of the HS, GSW and SFHS (SunFly bought

their entire stock when they went out of business) disc is a long time and many hard drives in

the past.

Also confusing was the manner of coding of their Discs. the Nutech line of SAV discs had a dual channel coding on their cdg sub-code which caused issues with cheaper karaoke players including the BMB 'Ninja' portable karaoke player, such that they would 'double up' the display (also an issue in early cdg rips to mp3+g!), which was not present on their other 'brands'. This played on the fact that the decoders in the more 'upmarket' CD+G players would manage the secondary channel in a different way to the cheaper decoders in the budget brands.

Yep, SunFly (and Fat Cockerel as well come to think of it) had issues with their anti-copying efforts;

remember those long hours copying at one-speed with a Yamaha F1 and laetr on the Plextors ??

They also dipped their toe into the CAVS 'SCDG' format for a short while, which was introduced in competition to RSQ's NEO-G format (both putting a laege number of CD+G style tracks on a DVD disc) for use in dedicated players. This didn't really take off when hosts soon realised that if a disc became damaged, then you lost a sizeable chunk of your tracks in one hit and replacing the disc was quite expensive unlike the odd CD+G disc with it's limited number of tracks lost and cheaper replacement cost.

I have a couple of the NEO-G machines in my garage, most likely unusable by now, I simply didn't

have the patience to transcode to the correct format to make my own discs.

 

It seems only yesterday that we carted thousands of discs in bulky "wallets" the size and three times

theweight of a Technics turntable and still didn't have all of the songs that we were asked for - now,

a laptop with an in-pocket bootable USB stick with the essential programs installed on it (twice I've

had a computer crash during a show) and a duplicate karaoke drive - and we still get asked for songs

that we don't have

[BJtheDJ]

Hey, new question for everybody out there

 

In these days pf carrying thousands upon thousands of songs, do you have any particular

song that you can never ever find, because you just can't stand it ??

 

I have many songs that irk me greatly just through the sheer repetition of them by struggling

singists - although the 90s spate of Irish boy bands and Oasis etc has almost passed us now.

 

But the bane of my life has always been Kelly and Ozzie murdering 'Changes'. I mean, I

know that the customer is should always be right but I just can't find when asked.

 

OK I must admit that I've found it a couple of times, but it always turns out to be the

Davis Bowie song that has somehow been mis-labelled

 

What's the one that you hate ??

 

The song that every time you see a particular singer coming up you know what they're

gonna sing, badly ??

[BJtheDJ]

That's an easy one for me mate, I got you babe - The adult version. The women always want to sing it with me!!! Yogi bear is the other. Kills any kind of mood instantly. I go for the originals if I don't like the cover version. That covers any Boyzone song, especially We've got tonight. Bob Segar all the way.

I'll take your 'originals all the way' with one major exception.

 

For karaoke I always play Geri Haliwell's 'It's Raining Men' although when playing disco

I'll use the Weather Girls' original.

 

The WG version has too much talking and too many asides for almost any singer

to follow, and they get in a real mess.

[landan9]

Hi. Could someone please hit me with Tina Turner Proud Mary. Tiau