Managing duets/group sings

Is kJams missing a feature you need? Post it here! Note: if iTunes has it but kJams doesn't, it's a good bet kJams will have it, but that I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But go ahead and request it anyway!
captainswing
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Managing duets/group sings

Post by captainswing »

Another thing I've frequently run across when hosting karaoke evenings is the dreaded "I can't sing alone" effect, where a table full of people will hand in a stack of signup slips, with some of the slips containing different groups of two or three people, some of whom are also requesting songs as individuals.

In the interest of fairness, I try to limit each singer to a single appearance in each rotation, so duets and groups of people can really mess with my system--"Who is singing this time around? Have they sung already in this rotation? What about their friend who's only singing with others, and not by him- or herself?"

It seems there's really no elegant way at the moment to handle duets and groups. Currently, I create individual people in the venue's list, and sometimes I add duet partners to individuals' names in the rotation (and delete them afterward,) while other times I create a new "singer" for the duet, distinct from individuals' accounts. Pain in the butt, involves holding on to slips for reference and/or ignoring duets or individuals when they come up in certain rounds of singing.

In a perfect world, I'd like to be able to "link" individual singers to form duets/group units in the venue's list of singers, and in the KJ rotation--and then move the duet/group around in the rotation like an individual singer, and rearrange the rotation to move the individual members, if they've signed up for songs of their own, into the next round. I'd also like to be able to add the songs sung during duets and groups into each individual member's History, and perhaps even manage where in the evening the duet or group shows up by moving the duet/group song in individual members' playlists for the night, as well.

I was working through the various permutations of how this might work in real-life situations, and it got a little complex, so maybe we can discuss this offline. That said, would anyone else like to see something like this, as long as it wouldn't end up being hopelessly complicated and confusing?

lenskaraoke
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Post by lenskaraoke »

I agree, duets are a royal pain in the ass. What I do (thats not perfect) is to put duets into one singers file which means, that singer, if singing alone has to wait till the rotation brings them back to sing. It does mean they sometimes get annoyed because they haven't sung on their own but I would rather have just one annoyed singer, than a whole room full of annoyed singers just because they see that singer getting up more then the others are.
Something else I do is, if I notice a singer has one drink in front of them all night and not getting another, I restrict their singing, because, it's their buying of drinks that pay my wages
Tell the truth or lose the horse

dave
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:)

Post by dave »

yes i'll be adding "duet" capability to make it drag-and-drop simple to create a duet.

-dave

goateeguy
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by goateeguy »

(not wanting to kick a very dead horse... err i mean post... But I thought i'd keep it together)
Just wondering if there is anything happening with this... (I'm presuming i'm not blind, I haven't been able to find a duet feature...)

Also it wasn't on the "Future to do" lists either... =/

(Side note, one thing I thought would be cool in regards to this (interface wise)... If someone is adding a song via iPhone app... and it's flagged as a duet... it would ask "Who are you singing with? (Then a list would come up of all the singers singing tonight) and a "A singer not up yet" allowing the singer to create a new person for them to sing with, or attach themselves with another singer!.

As always... Your software is awesome, and thanks for all the hard work you have done on it ;)

dave
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by dave »

it's definitely "after 1.0", and probably pretty far after that.

DeusExMachina
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by DeusExMachina »

One work around is to use the "Singer Nickname" field to store the other singers' names. Then you can refer to that in the kJR and shift the rotation manually as needed. No need to keep slips.

dave
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by dave »

what he said

DeusExMachina
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by DeusExMachina »

Such a good idea, that Singer Nickname thing. :)

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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by DeusExMachina »

That said, would it be possible/easy/straight forward, maybe just as a stop-gap measure, to have another field, a "in duet with" or "singing with", that we could use in the same way?
(Sort of a scratch pad for keeping track of duet links.)
Not sure how it works in terms of the architecture, but it would ultimately be kick ass if the field could be associated with a singer's tonight list in such a way that it can be linked to specific tracks, just like tempo and pitch is now (maybe with a pop up populated from the venue list). That way it would change as appropriate each time through the rotation, or when a selection was changed.
The program logic for duets could then be off loaded to an external wetware processor until such time as the official duetting system can be architected. Once that is done, it could even make use of this same infrastructure.

dave
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by dave »

mmmyeah, i'm not going to invest in a stopgap, unless it takes literally five minutes and no testing and no repercussions. one day i plan to do real duet features.

DeusExMachina
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by DeusExMachina »

Well, my thought/hope is that something like adding another piece of metadata WOULD only take a short time, AND, perhaps more importantly, would actually not just be discarded later, but would easily be co-opted later to serve as the basis for any future Duetting feature.
It seems adding this field would be quick and straight forward, and that for the time being this field can just be used manually, while later this data can have some intelligence added behind the scenes to automate this rather important functionality.
(Since it is just a metadata field, I am assuming that there are no ramifications or testing needed.)

dave
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by dave »

the only thing i could do right now is add another text meta data column. you could put whatever you want in it. wouldn't be connected to anything or have any other functionality.

DeusExMachina
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by DeusExMachina »

Right, that is what I meant. When I said "The program logic for duets could then be off loaded to an external wetware processor until such time as the official duetting system can be architected," I meant that people would deal with it in their head!
So you're saying that it can't be populated via a popup restricted to that venue's singers (with Singers in Rotation at the top, just like in the playlists pane, or in the context menu when you click a track, even with New Singer at the top)? While that is unfortunate, having it at all is a plus. Would it still operate like the other fields that are with a given track for that singer, like tempo and pitch?
Even without all that, it would still make duets easier to track in the Rotation.

dave
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by dave »

okay, well i'll add that meta column. it's just text, and it's up to you to make use of it. not connected to anything.

DeusExMachina
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Re: Managing duets/group sings

Post by DeusExMachina »

Text with no constraints, or text restricted by a pop up populated by the currently active singers?
And will it follow that track for that singer, like Tempo or pitch?
Just figure that to make this something that just becomes legacy baggage, the above would socket into whatever implementation you eventually use.

Either way, though, it's a start.

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