Hi Guys,
Im new to kJams but already impressed with it features. I have bee running karaoke shows for several years now, using paper slips to keep the queue. Now there is a rotation manager I am really loving using it.
I have a question about duets, how do you manage a rotation when you have two people who many have different positions in the queue wanting to duet together?
Does any one have a simple way to manage this, can you select more than one singer at a time when using the rotation manager?
I'd love to have peoples thoughts.
Many thanks
Paul
Duets
Good question!
I would like everyone's feedback on how you think it should work. It should be intuitive and obvious, at least once you understand it. No that's not a contradiction. How would you *expect* it to work? Anything is possible. Right click something? drag and drop something?
how does it work in practice for you guys? do you pull the other person out of the rotation for one round if they sing in a duet? do they keep their place? Please let me know so i can make a feature that will manage this for you!
how does it work in practice for you guys? do you pull the other person out of the rotation for one round if they sing in a duet? do they keep their place? Please let me know so i can make a feature that will manage this for you!
A coupla thoughts on this...
Strictly speaking, I don't have to know they're doing a duet before I call their name. If I do, I use a couple of guidelines to place the duet into the rotation. I try to maximize the number of duets and groups that sing because I want to create more value in my show by increasing the amount of stage time available during any given show. I generally stick to a philosophy of, "everybody gets a place in line and they can sing what and with whoever they want." Even if it's someone that's already been on stage that rotation for their own turn or for three other people's turn. As long as the person who's turn it is approves it.
If two people are only or mainly singing as a team all night long, I count them as one spot in the rotation. I have a couple of those couples, but not many. If they want to do individual songs at some point I usually add the other into the rotation right behind whoever's name they are already using.
I person A brings up a slip that's a duet with person B but person A has 6 songs in their list and person B has one, I just put that song in person B's list. If B brings me another song, I ask if they want it before or after the duet. If A has fewer songs or the same number of songs as B, I put it wherever it will play first, unless A wants it to be put ahead of other songs on their own list. If they want it ahead of songs on B's list, then B needs to confirm that.
I've always encouraged people to give me an "announce" name. I haven't played with the software enough to figure out how to use the custom meta data to account for this and for duets at the same time (because for a duet that I know about I announce both names), so I just keep the slip available for when those songs come up. But from what I read in the wiki, I think the custom meta data will let me do away with that, as soon as I take 15 minutes to figure out how it works.
Strictly speaking, I don't have to know they're doing a duet before I call their name. If I do, I use a couple of guidelines to place the duet into the rotation. I try to maximize the number of duets and groups that sing because I want to create more value in my show by increasing the amount of stage time available during any given show. I generally stick to a philosophy of, "everybody gets a place in line and they can sing what and with whoever they want." Even if it's someone that's already been on stage that rotation for their own turn or for three other people's turn. As long as the person who's turn it is approves it.
If two people are only or mainly singing as a team all night long, I count them as one spot in the rotation. I have a couple of those couples, but not many. If they want to do individual songs at some point I usually add the other into the rotation right behind whoever's name they are already using.
I person A brings up a slip that's a duet with person B but person A has 6 songs in their list and person B has one, I just put that song in person B's list. If B brings me another song, I ask if they want it before or after the duet. If A has fewer songs or the same number of songs as B, I put it wherever it will play first, unless A wants it to be put ahead of other songs on their own list. If they want it ahead of songs on B's list, then B needs to confirm that.
I've always encouraged people to give me an "announce" name. I haven't played with the software enough to figure out how to use the custom meta data to account for this and for duets at the same time (because for a duet that I know about I announce both names), so I just keep the slip available for when those songs come up. But from what I read in the wiki, I think the custom meta data will let me do away with that, as soon as I take 15 minutes to figure out how it works.
:)
can you translate that into an imaginary scenario where kJams does what you want? how would you do it? how do you imagine you should be able to use kJams to accommodate for that?
I added comments to the "rotation" screen, and I think I'm going to just add the "announce" name (or duet partners) there. As far as the placement goes, I don't know enough about database programming to do more than suggest a workflow. Perhaps if there were somehow a "duet" selection in the pulldown "add to singer" list and if you selected it kjams prompted me for the singers involved, maybe through a checklist, and then put the duet or group song in the earliest available slot, that might be cool.
Then too, I'm just one guy and my thoughts on duets might not be all that useful to everyone else. Some people do count duets as a turn for each person involved.
I'm going to try using "comments" in the rotation list on Thursday. I put it in "rotation" because I don't want that comment to stick to the song (or even to the song in the singer's history or favorites list for that matter) since it could change the next time they or someone else put up that song.
Then too, I'm just one guy and my thoughts on duets might not be all that useful to everyone else. Some people do count duets as a turn for each person involved.
I'm going to try using "comments" in the rotation list on Thursday. I put it in "rotation" because I don't want that comment to stick to the song (or even to the song in the singer's history or favorites list for that matter) since it could change the next time they or someone else put up that song.
I think that 2 scenarios should do it, so maybe it can be a toggle/option to select the option you require:
Scenario A (a-la jfbiii message):
Singer A takes their turn in the rotation as normal but asks to be accompanied, Singer B can be added to singers A slot so both names are announced. Singer B's rotation slot is not effected
Scenario B
Singer A and Singer B both get their names announced together, and both have their rotation spot reset as if they had just both sung individually
This would work very well for me as I definatley have both types of duets, I have the A's as people who will only sing if a mate joins them, these are my singers who go for a laugh.
I also have quite a few who take it very seriously and are also very mindfull of their place in the rotation, so scenario B would be perfect for them.
It might help if we could assign names to this behavior, for lack of inspiation why not have scenario A as Companion mode and Scenario B as Collaberative mode - does that help?
Paul
Scenario A (a-la jfbiii message):
Singer A takes their turn in the rotation as normal but asks to be accompanied, Singer B can be added to singers A slot so both names are announced. Singer B's rotation slot is not effected
Scenario B
Singer A and Singer B both get their names announced together, and both have their rotation spot reset as if they had just both sung individually
This would work very well for me as I definatley have both types of duets, I have the A's as people who will only sing if a mate joins them, these are my singers who go for a laugh.
I also have quite a few who take it very seriously and are also very mindfull of their place in the rotation, so scenario B would be perfect for them.
It might help if we could assign names to this behavior, for lack of inspiation why not have scenario A as Companion mode and Scenario B as Collaberative mode - does that help?
Paul
flexible
I'm with Paul... from reading other karaoke forums, I know that different KJs treat duets differently.
I imagine the desired method can even vary in the same night depending on how big the rotation is.
Any KJs ... it would be nice to hear how you treat duets.
Also, I think what Dave is asking is how you visualize it would work in kJams... drag a name, or click a button, or highlight 2 names and click a button, etc. etc.
I imagine the desired method can even vary in the same night depending on how big the rotation is.
Any KJs ... it would be nice to hear how you treat duets.
Also, I think what Dave is asking is how you visualize it would work in kJams... drag a name, or click a button, or highlight 2 names and click a button, etc. etc.
:)
yes exactly. what do you imagine the UI would be? if it could be just so easy and simple, what does that look like? I want to support both kinds: 1) glom two singers together "permanently" (for the night) or 2) just for one song, leaving the 2nd singer in the rotation in their normal spot (which could be moved to a spot using the existing UI)I think what Dave is asking is how you visualize it would work in kJams... drag a name, or click a button, or highlight 2 names and click a button, etc. etc
For me I think I would like the UI to be able to select more than one singer from the offset, be it one, two, or ten. On selecting more than one singer than it should ask which mode you want companion/collaberative. it would determine the rotation based on the first singer. So in companion mode any additional singers would not have their rotation spot altered, in collaberative mode, all singers would have their rotation spot reset.
off the top of my head, I think however it works, we need their choice of mode as no one mode works for all.
Paul
off the top of my head, I think however it works, we need their choice of mode as no one mode works for all.
Paul
The simplest I can think of would be a "duet" option underneath "new singer" in the right-click pop-up menu after you've located the song.
If you select duet, you get a dialog that asks which duet option you want to apply to this song, and under that maybe a pull down for singer 1, a pull down for singer 2, and a "+" if you want to add someone else from the rotation (like the little "+" that comes up next to "save" after you do a search in a Leopard finder window).
The last option would be to add to a specific singer's tonight list or to add to the earliest free spot in the rotation for any of the singers.
If there was a way to do that from a single dialog I think it would be easy for users.
Here's what I picture it looking like:
If you select duet, you get a dialog that asks which duet option you want to apply to this song, and under that maybe a pull down for singer 1, a pull down for singer 2, and a "+" if you want to add someone else from the rotation (like the little "+" that comes up next to "save" after you do a search in a Leopard finder window).
The last option would be to add to a specific singer's tonight list or to add to the earliest free spot in the rotation for any of the singers.
If there was a way to do that from a single dialog I think it would be easy for users.
Here's what I picture it looking like:
:)
okay cool, when i get around to doing this feature i'll keep all this in mind, thanks!