Music Store/KaraokeCloud Pro

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<iimg>karaoke-cloud-pro.png</iimg>

Signing Up

When you sign up for the FREE account at Karaoke Cloud (so you can audition song previews, and also play the free-to-stream "Green" songs), it WILL ask for a credit card. The card IS required in order to get your free account established, however you will NEVER be charged anything unless you actually purchase something (a song, or a streaming subscription). Also note, unless you have manually changed your preferences, you can not accidentally purchase anything: kJams will always warn you before any purchase is made.

  1. Run kJams
  2. go to preferences
  3. click on stores
  4. make sure "Enable Checked Music Stores" and "Karaoke Cloud" is checked. (if they weren't, then check them and restart kJams, and come back to this screen)
  5. click to "Edit Music Store Settings"
  6. make sure "Karaoke Cloud" tab is selected
  7. click "Create Account…" button and follow the wizard
  8. If you like, click the "Subscription Tier:" pop-up menu and upgrade your service!

If you forget your password

  1. go to this page
  2. click "Login" in the top left to see the little log in panel
  3. click "forgot password"
  4. Enter your email address and click submit.
  5. you'll get an email, go find it, and click the link to reset your password.

Once you have done that, you should be able to go back to kJams and log in.

Streaming

There are over 3 thousand songs available for streaming, and most of them can also be purchased a-la-carte. There are also several free songs which are marked with the Green label (search for "label:2" in the store). You must create a free account with KaraokeCloud ahead of time to play the free songs, and of course you must purchase a streaming subscription to stream the rest. For home users, you must have an internet connection at the time you wish to stream. For KJs and fanatics, you can sign up for "Tethering", where you pre-download all the cloud data (encrypted), then you can "stream" from that, so you do NOT need an internet connection when you want to play any of the songs in the cloud library.

Currently there are three Tiers available: Free, Home, and KJ Tethering. Note that "Home" is NOT licensed for public performance, tho you're free to purchase it with the Pro version of kJams as long as you only use it at home. Note: If you are doing public performances then you must use kJams Pro and the "KJ Tethering" tier. Also note that "private" parties with more than 20 people are legally considered "public".

Tier kJams Lite kJams Pro Pre-Download Public Performance Price Expiration Auto-Renew Purchase
Free Free Never Built In! (Only 12 songs are free)
Karaoke Cloud: Home Streaming $10 1 Month in-app purchase
Karaoke Cloud Pro: KJ Tethering $99 1 Month in-app purchase

Note that these tiers are only for a single installation and its backup. If your business has more than one KJ running shows (ie: working for you), you will need a separate license for each KJ. Sharing your Tier is strictly prohibited. Note that these Tiers are monitored closely and will be audited if it seems there are shenanigans going on.

To be clear: kJams Lite and/or the "Home" Tier can not be used in a public setting due to the License Agreement. If you are doing a public show (or large private show) then you must use kJams Pro and either the "KJ Tethering" Tier or the "Free" Tier with purchased songs. You can of course use the Pro version for private shows.

Downloads for Purchase

There are over 3 thousand songs available for purchase / download (they can also be streamed). They are USD $1.99 each. Sort by price then scroll down a bit to see them all at once. To sort by some other column, search for "1.99" then sort however you wish. Purchased songs may be played in a public / commercial venue, as long as the KJ or Venue has membership in ASCAP.

Free Streaming Songs

There is also a set of about 8 songs that you can stream for free! I'm not sure if this set changes every month, so be sure to update your music store when kJams asks you to (or right before a show) to make sure you've got the latest list. These songs have been  Labeled (colored) with Green  so you can easily see them. To play them, you must have created a free account. To see the list in the music store, first show the "Label" column, then either a) sort by Label, then scroll down to the green section, or b) just search for "Label:2" (no quotes).

Voucher Credits

You can pre-purchase voucher credits somehow, I'm not quite sure where, but the code comes on a physical card. We'll try to get digital vouchers going soon. Update: they still have not enabled purchasing digital vouchers.

Karaoke Cloud PRO (aka: Tethering)

Tethering does not work in Tryout mode because one of the criteria for encryption is a serial number.

Tethering means that a copy of all the cloud data will be stored locally on your computer or external drive. The "tether" means that it is "tied" to your computer via your serial number and your username and password, so the database you have can't be used by someone else. What's great about having a local copy is that you do not need to be online in order to "stream" any of the songs! That means that when you operate at a venue that has no internet connection, you still have access to the entire streaming library. Another benefit is that if you ARE online, when you purchase a song, the song comes out of the local cloud data store, instead of needing to download.

If you opt for the "KJ Tethering" Tier, kJams will automatically start downloading the entire song database to your kJams folder, in a folder called "KaraokeCloud Tethered Database". It will take about 110GB of space, so be sure you have enough before you start. It will take a long time too, on a good connection it may take a day to get it all. On a slow connection, it may take a couple days. If there are hiccups part way thru, you can just (optionally force) quit kJams and run again, and it will pick up where it left off. Do not worry about the songs that don't sync properly, this sometimes happens with newly added songs, we're likely aware of it already and have a fix planned, they will be skipped and marked as "Missing" and the "Comment" will show why. (You can show the "Missing" and "Comment" sort columns if you like).

Tethering to External Drive

If you would prefer to use an external drive to store ALL your music, use the "Moving" procedure. If you just want to store the Cloud data on an external drive, follow these steps:

  1. quit kJams
  2. Go to your "kJams" folder
  3. if there is a "KaraokeCloud Tethered Database" folder already there, drag it to the external drive, then delete it from the kJams folder
  4. if there is NOT that folder there, then go to your external drive and create a folder called "KaraokeCloud Tethered Database"
  5. select that folder and make an alias (shortcut)
  6. Drag that alias (shortcut) back into the "kJams" folder
  7. rename it there so that it does NOT have the word "_alias" (or "_shortcut") at the end. Be VERY careful that you remove the space character (indicated by the underscore in the example here). The point is it must be named exactly "KaraokeCloud Tethered Database", so kJams will find it.
  8. you may now delete the alias (shortcut) from the external drive, as it is no longer needed

Now, when you sync the cloud data, it will go to the external drive.

No Lyrics

You can optionally show some songs that have no lyrics. These songs are colored GRAY.

Manufacturers

These manufacturers are available in the KaraokeCloud store:
DigiTrax Karaoke (formerly Chartbuster)