Building the Library

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Just like with iTunes, in kJams all of your karaoke music is organized in a main Library. kJams treats the Library as a Playlist. From this library, you can search for music, build smaller playlists, and of course play karaoke. The library allows you to organize music that is on your system—that is, music that is purchased through kJams, as well as music that resides elsewhere on your hard drive—but it also allows you to include music that you don’t “own,” such as streaming music.

You have several options for building your library, and you can use any and all of them in combination.

You can:

  • Purchase downloadable karaoke music using the built-in kJams music stores. This is the way most kJams users obtain their music.
  • Download music from other music sites (including free songs) and index them into kJams.
  • Copy music from your karaoke CD-Gs into the kJams library. This is called 'ripping'.
  • Index karaoke tunes that are already on your internal or external hard drive into the library. (This includes sample songs that you downloaded during installation. This will also be the option you'll utilize most if you're converting from some other professional show hosting package, since you will probably have a large library of already ripped or purchased tracks.)
  • Add streaming songs to your library.

[ Note: I used the word “index” rather than “copy” because kJams does NOT COPY when you Add music to your library. It only makes a note of where the song resides on the internal or external drive and it then uses the original files right where they are. This can be a big problem for newbies who download music to their desktop and then add the files to the kJams library. Once the files are added, they think they can trash the file from the desktop. But in reality, this is the only file that exists. ]

If you are new to karaoke, you probably don’t have any tunes on your hard drive or any karaoke CDs to rip. No problem! To try out kJams’ features, you really only need to download a few songs. Free songs will work just fine. You can also go to the Chartbuster music store to find free streaming songs.

Before you start to build your library, I suggest you first:

  1. Set up your purchase preferences here: Setting Purchase Preferences Temp
  2. Read about meta data here: Understanding Tags (Meta Data)Temp