First night...WOOT!

[jfbiii]

Went very VERY well. Nobody mentioned the flicker on my screens and I couldn't see them from my setup to even tell if they were still doing it, so I quit worrying about it. I only really messed up three times with the program:

1. I did the first song like I normally do to check levels and mics. Ouch. A lot to adjust for the first time live while trying to sing. I should have put someone else up first as the guinea pigs. It would have been a lot smoother and I would have gotten to enjoy my song instead of missing half of it trying to adjust kJams/computer/mixer/mic levels all at once.

2. I didn't hook up the mouse right away. I've been using multi-touch a lot and mostly like it. But it's not suitable for running shows. Too sensitive. I accidentally hit the next button scrolling around to do something else. And then didn't realize that I could back up to the song I screwed up with the previous button. But the guy was ok with it and it was near the end of the song instead of the beginning. The mouse took care of that error for the rest of the night.

3. I let the last song of the first rotation actually end instead of pausing it with slip in hand for the next person. I just couldn't get them added before it finished. Spent the rest of the night adding new singers and then moving them up in the rotation to be in front of me so they wouldn't get skipped. I'm not sure that being able to back up even after the last song in a rotation is done wouldn't be a good thing. What if I accidentally hit "next" on the last singer instead of "play"? I'd have to pull the same trick with adding the singer and adjusting them in the kj rotation so they were in front of the real start of the rotation all night long.

Similarly, is there a way to deal with skipped songs that I'm just not finding? For instance, someone tells me that they have to step out for a minute and can I push them back a few songs. Normally I would just hold their disc until they get back, let them sing, and then put them back in the rotation where they were originally...which works in kJams by adjusting the kj rotation so long as they're not at or near the end of a rotation.

Anyway, the night was a huge success. People were suitable impressed with being able to just tell me what they wanted to sing instead of always filling out a slip. I was impressed with the time saving features that I did find for finding a song and assigning it to a new singer with a right click (or an existing singer) instead of using the target mode all the time.

We ended up with 29 people in the rotation (25 on the first go-around) which is a huge rotation for this show, and a nightmare to keep up with using my old method, effective as it was for me. This is just soooo much less hassle.

Great job, Dave. I've been dreaming of doing karaoke your way from the first show I did 5 years ago. Can't wait for the kJams Server!

[dave]

3. I let the last song of the first rotation actually end instead of pausing it with slip in hand for the next person. I just couldn't get them added before it finished. Spent the rest of the night adding new singers and then moving them up in the rotation to be in front of me so they wouldn't get skipped. I'm not sure that being able to back up even after the last song in a rotation is done wouldn't be a good thing. What if I accidentally hit "next" on the last singer instead of "play"? I'd have to pull the same trick with adding the singer and adjusting them in the kj rotation so they were in front of the real start of the rotation all night long.

I am quite sure i have completely not understood what you are saying here. Perhaps we should get on the fone.

re: skipped songs? what does the KJ Rotation reordering NOT do that you want it to do, exactly? You can just push that person down a couple songs (or if they're say the second to last and you need to push them down 2, then drag them to the top, after the first, they'll still show up 2 songs later if you look in the "Rotation" list)

[jfbiii]

First, I just realized I had a typo. I meant to say 29 people in the rotation instead of 25.

I think I see what you're saying about the skipped songs. If I'm on the 20th singer and the 21st isn't going to be there and is the last song of the rotation I can adjust them before their song is queued to be, say, number 2 or 3 in the rotation, and it won't change their queued song. And then I can move them back to their proper rotation place after they've made up their song and their next selection will be the correct one. I didn't think about that, but it seems like the right way to handle that situation. I'll try it that way.

Thanks for the idea. It probably would have taken me weeks to try that on my own.

[dave]

can you elucidate the point number 3 from above? i still don't get it.

[jfbiii]

Yeah, I've been thinking about how to explain that one better...

The last person in the rotation was singing and I got a slip from someone new. Before I could add the new song/singer into the rotation, the song playing (last in the rotation) finished completely.

Now, I have slip in hand for the new last singer in the rotation, but my name is the first on the kj rotation and the regular rotation. What I tried to do, was put the new song/singer at the end of the kj rotation and then hit the previous button to back up to their song. Because that's the digital translation of what happens when I'm just pulling discs and keeping my rotation manually.

But that didn't work, you can't use the previous track button to back up past the first song in the current rotation. It acts like the current rotation is the beginning of the show, in other words. At the beginning of the show, there was no "previous" song. Just the first one.

The work around I used, was to not start my song (the first of the next rotation; then add the new singer and their song; then move the new singer to the top of the kj rotation, placing them in front of me.

However, once I did that, I had to reposition every new singer in the kj rotation to be before my place in the rotation after I added them so that they appeared in the rotation where they belonged the next time around.

I'm sure the problem is I haven't played with the application long enough to figure out the easy way to do it.

[dave]

The work around I used, was to not start my song (the first of the next rotation; then add the new singer and their song; then move the new singer to the top of the kj rotation, placing them in front of me.

that is the correct thing to do

However, once I did that, I had to reposition every new singer in the kj rotation to be before my place in the rotation after I added them so that they appeared in the rotation where they belonged the next time around.

i think that, after they sung, you then want to move them down to the bottom of the list. new singers then go at the end as they should. so you just move that one person, and then don't need to move anybody else.
does this make sense?

note: this is rather an edge case, and i expect does not happen very often.