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kJams turns your computer into a karaoke jukebox, allowing you to play karaoke tunes with a full-screen lyrics—quickly and easily. kJams Lite offers all of the functionality you need to enjoy karaoke in your home; kJams Pro offers additional functionality for the professional KJ. The best part is, kJams is simple enough for the newbie and awesome enough for the fanatic karaoke diva!

But don’t take my word for it. Try it out for yourself. It’s SHAREWARE, meaning you can download and use it for free in Tryout mode.

System Requirements

For Mac users: Mac OS X 10.4. or better For PC users: Windows XP or better QuickTime 7.1 or better

• An internet connection (at least temporarily) to the computer on which you plan to purchase and activate a kJams license
• 4 GB for less than 15,000 songs, other 6 GB or more
• 10GB free hard drive space, 250GB recommended
• 800MHz PPC CPU, recommend 2 or more Intel CPU at 2GHz each

To rip and/or burn, you'll need a compatible drive. Not all drives are compatible!

Suggestion --> One of the reasons I provide a Tryout version is so you can see if your drive is compatible. More on this in the next section.

Tryout Version of kJams

A Tryout (unregistered) version of kJams is completely free to download and use. This version contains most of the functionality of the registered version, and I recommend that you download and use the Tryout version first, before purchasing. This is especially important if you plan on ripping songs from discs or burning to a disc, as you will need to make sure your CD drive works.

kJams also has two plug-ins available (sold separately) for those who want to burn to CD or create their own karaoke songs. If you wish to burn CDs and you are a Mac user, you will need to download the Tryout version of Mac Burner. For Windows users, the plug-in is built in, so there is no separate download.

There is also a Tryout version of the Producer plug-in for producers of karaoke music. Producer allows you to create or edit existing CDG graphics, use Synced text from other programs to create new karaoke graphics, and add pictures (still images). For more information on Producer, click here.

Only a few limitations

There are no restrictions or time limits in using the Tryout version. However, you should be aware of its limitations.

The Tryout version of kJams Lite:

• Can't export more than 10 songs to QuickTime
• Can't add more than 3 songs to a any playlist (except for your library)
• Can't rip or play anything other than tracks 1, 2 and 3 on any disc

The Tryout version of kJams Pro:

• Has the same limitation listed above, plus it
• Can't add more than 3 singers
• Can't add more than 2 singers to the rotation
• Can't add more than 2 songs to a singer's "Tonight" playlist

The Tryout version of Mac Burner and Windows Burner:

• Can’t burn more than 2 songs on a disc
• This is important. Purchasing the burner plug-in alone (without purchasing kJams itself) will not resolve this limitation. That is because you have to create a playlist in order to burn a CD, and the Tryout version of kJams limits playlists to 3 songs. In order to burn more than 3 songs to disc, you must have both a registered version of kJams and a registered version of the burner plug-in.

In case you’re wondering if you can enjoy kJams without ever burning a CD—absolutely! In fact, most of my users never burn anything. The ability to burn discs is necessary only if you want to make backups or you want to create your own mix karaoke discs. For the Diva (and you know who you are), the burner plug-in allows you to create mixed discs of your favorite songs, which you can then take to any karaoke venue. But for most mere mortals, burning discs isn’t necessary.

The Tryout version of the Producer plug-in:

• Will have red X's in the lyrics of songs you burn to CD+G.

There are no other differences between the trial version and the licensed version of the software.

Using this Documentation

If you’re new to karaoke or a computer klutz, I recommend you follow the steps outlined in this documentation. I’ve tried to keep it simple, but let me know if something is confusing.

When you see a word or phrase hyperlinked, that means there is additional information available. Often this information is geared toward the techies and the karaoke fanatics, but not always. If you there is something you don’t understand, click on the available hyperlinks.

kJams menu options are described using this shorthand:

Click on Edit --> Preferences --> Stores

This means:

1. Find the Edit menu title at the top of your screen and click on it.
2. From the menu that is pulled down, click on Preferences.
3. In the list presented there, click on Stores.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Many of the kJams menu items have keyboard shortcuts, which are documented on the menus themselves. If you prefer using your keyboard, rather than your mouse, go ahead and learn these shortcuts.

For you techies, you can customize your own keyboard shortcuts here.

Downloading

Downloading kJams is simple. Find the version that you want at the top right corner of this page.

By the way, the download is the same for the trial version and the registered version. Why? Because you have to download the trial version first in order to purchase. This keeps it very simple in that once you purchase, there’s nothing more to do to get the registered version. You already have it!

For Mac Users It's drag and drop! Don't you think all applications should install that way?

1. Click the link of the version you want to download.
2. In the Finder, unzip it.
3. Drag it to your applications folder.
4. Don't forget to trash the zip file.
5. Drag it from your Applications folder to your dock. Now you can laugh it from your dock with a single click.

For Windows Users

1. Click the link of the version you want to download.
2. Respond Save to Do You Want to Open or Save this File?
3. Once the file has been saved, click on it to install kJams and follow the instructions.
4. The kJams icon automatically appears on your desktop and in your Start Menu.

If you want to rip from CDs

In order to rip a music file to your hard drive, it needs to be converted from the CD-audio format into a computer-file format. (This is known as “format shifting” or “encoding.”) This requires a specialized software library called an encoder. QuickTime (which you should already have on your computer) includes several built-in encoders that are quite excellent, so you don’t need to download an encoder unless you want a file format that QuickTime does not support.

If you are okay with AAC, AIFF, WAV, or AppleLossless encoding, then all you need is QuickTime.

However:

• If you want encode to MP3, then download LAME.

Translation for non-techy types: if you want to copy songs from a CD and have them end up as MP3 files, you will need LAME installed on your computer.

• If you want to encode to Ogg Vorbis, then also install XiphQT.
• Some formats require a QuickTime decoder:
  • ffmpeg for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 playback (free) Note: for MPEG2 you still need ANOTHER MPEG2 plug-in, below.
  • MPEG2 for Lion (OS X 10.7 or higher)
  • MPEG2 For Pre-Lion (Earlier than OS X 10.7) $20 required for MPEG2 playback, sorry
  • Perian for AVI, DivX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
  • Flip4Mac for KMA and WMA playback
  • DivX
  • AC3

Don’t forget--Your drive may not be able to read CD+G disks.

Other downloads

• If you are a Mac user and you want to burn CDs, download the tryout version of the Mac Burner plugin
• If you are trying kJams Pro and you want to be able to create new karaoke songs by syncing lyrics, download the Producer plug-in. (This applies to Macs only.)
• If you would like to download sample songs, click here.Sample Files. (This download includes Twist and Shout from Tricerasoft.)Once the songs are downloaded into the kJams folder, the songs are ready to be added to the kJams library.

UnInstalling

If you really want to utterly remove everything related to kJams from your system, just search for "kJams", and get rid of everything that is in the Application folder (Macs) or the Programs Folder (Windows). Don’t delete the kJams folder that is under your My Music folder, or you will end up deleting all of your music. for Macs, is it called My Music?