Some karaoke tracks are good. Some take a good song and turn it into rubbish. Some are in the correct key, some are transposed up or down a step to make them easier to sing, and some are transposed into keys that bear no relation to the original. Some have normal intros/interludes/outros, some have abbreviated ones, and some have ones that are far longer than anything on the original recording.

What I would like would be a general database of karaoke disks and tracks which contains the following information:

- Running time (easy to figure)
- Key(s) (Not too hard to figure, but may require listening)
- Vocal range, minimal/full (some songs have high/low notes that can be substituted)
- Intro/Interlude/Outro lengths
- Blind starts (indicate whether any disks fail to give pitch/tempo/timing for the start of a song)
- Male/female/either/duet (MM/MF/FF/MX/FX/XX)
- Flavor (original/dance-remix/just-plain-wierd/etc.)

When I sing karaoke at places, I try to use recordings I can count on (DK arrangements are pretty consistent) but sometimes I get caught doing a song which is way off-key or off-tempo (like a version of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" which runs 5'27 or "Music of the Night" that runs 6'30). If there were a karaoke database I could have in my Palm, or that karaoke jockeys could use to add info to their songbooks, that would help avoid such embarassments.

[BTW, yes I know some level of embarassment is part of karaoke. But song arrangements that run 50% slower than they should add insult to injury by taking 50% longer to get over with.]
-- supercat, Aug 18 2002

DK Karaoke http://www.dkkaraoke.co.jp/
No, [thumbwax], it stands for DaiichiKosho, a maker of karaoke equipment and media. [jutta, Aug 18 2002]

//DK arrangements// By DK, you mean Dead Kennedy's?
-- thumbwax, Aug 18 2002


That's what popped into my head as well.. Jello Biafra does karaoke? The bar just cleared out...
-- Mr Burns, Aug 19 2002



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