Running a show

There are two major categories of people who might want to use software like kJams: professional show hosts (whether you're being paid or not, whether you're mobile or working in a fixed location)... and everyone else.

This page is for professional show hosts.  :-)

I'm going to cover everything you will need to do, in roughly chronological order, to set up for and run a "professional" show; one that's out in public, with singers who are not necessarily your personal friends, and probably an employer who expects you to Just Do It.

THIS WILL BE A WORK-IN-PROGRESS until I take this line out; you shouldn't have seen it anyway unless you prowl Recent Changes (Hi, Dave :-), since it's not linked from anywhere.

Prerequisites

We will assume that you've already installed and updated the program, and imported your main library and/or ripped your discs. We'll also assume for the moment that you're running kJams 2, and you're running it on a Mac, mostly because I am.

You also need a way to get audio out of your computer, as well as video -- and for a pro show, that needs to be a secondary video adapter. Most laptops have dual video adapters; some desktop machines do and some don't.

I said "get audio out". You won't need to get audio in, since for a professional show, you should not be sending your mic(s) through your computer; you really need an external mixer. You'll need one that can mix stereo sources, and possibly more than one stereo source; the more you need, the harder a good mixer is to come by.

One example of a serviceable mixer for karaoke is the Mackie DFX-12. I call it the "DFX-8", since it only has 8 input channel faders; the last 4 are all stereo, which amounts to 12 inputs. I picked this mixer for those 4 stereo inputs, which allows a KJ mic, mics for 2 singers, and a spare input, plus line-level inputs for the laptop, a separate source of background/fill music, if you do that, a commercial CD+G or CAVS player, and a spare input on the stereo/line side as well. They can be had pretty inexpensively on the secondary market.

As for the mics themselves, save up the money (if necessary) and just buy Shure SM-58's.  :-) NO SWITCHES.