Karaoke Forums

My experience was just the opposite! I have registered versions of both MDB and now Fasttracks and I find I'm able to update my books a lot faster with fasttracks. Especially my custom tracks, i pick the title from a drop down list and the artist is filled in for me!

Are you sure you're using the latest "registered" version of fasttracks?

flsinger,
if it's so darn great... do me a great service.. purchase me a "registered version" for each of the 3 companies that my group consults... for 1 year then if they like after 6 mos of use.. i'll contract for 2 years of it. personally for all of them.

Personally, I don't think it's worth my time to switch or yours. especially when I do 20 songbook updates every 2 months..

Can you really convince me on it.. I'm a businssman..

not necessarily to switch Brian, but for newbies, OR a second system!!!

I personally like the "Songbook" look to Chip's Speedbook software, and am willing to give it a sample try next printing (whenever that is)... but for the "newer releases" I'll probably go thru them for a couple months.

But this posting was started by someone that using such a tool would benefit.

I hear where your coming from Brian, but mostly, any type of songbook program wouldn't apply for anybody that's been in business for a long period of time.

Knight,
as many books as I do.. actually I could go into the business of doing them commercially.. heh heh heh! i live on these computers so much between the few shows i do, my consultant work, and recording & rehersals, & live shows.. I really wonder when I catually get sleep.. but it's amazing when i do.. but when ya have a system that works.. it really works!

Hey Matt, thanks for the kudos (and link) to my songbook

I'm a true lover of Speedbook, no doubt. And yes, it has disks in the purchased program db that instead of typing in all of your disks, you choose the disk and it automatically fills in the blanks. And he regularly updates his db (as do the users) and you can always get the updates FREE.

I choose not to enter new disks using this method BECAUSE I'd rather type my new disks in (like Matt said, it helps me to get to know the new music titles/artists). Also, with manufacturers referring to different spellings of things (Patsy Cline, Pasty Cline - Page or Paige, etc), I'm a little anal about all references being the SAME, so creating/maintaining my own db keeps me in check with myself. With the auto drop downs, etc it really makes it easy to do.

I still swear by Speedbook...any day!
The greatest thing about Speedbook is when you hit the "print" button....it actually saved me HALF THE PAPER. I was floored (and yep, I counted them!) HALF. That was a nice surprise, and although I've been accused (in another forum) about just wanting to be a cheapskate with my songbooks (HA!), I truly didn't know this advantage until I did hit that print key for the first time. I'm sold...and hooked!

I have the Airwer (sp?) program and have found a lot of errors in the database. Some disks have one or two songs wrong in the database. This is very frustrating when you have to keep printing new books.

Max

If anyone is looking for Music Books Deluxe, I just saw it on sale through a reliable source for $79. E-mail me for the site if you don't already know which one it is.

ahhhh, song books..... the good, the bad, the ugly
pet peeves that i have about song books from other KJ's books i have seen.
1. not typed- I kid you not... this female KJ had just photocopied the back liner cards from the CD in many instances, and in some HAND WRITTEN
ENTRIES, forget about sorting them

2. not sorted - sort the tracks by artist AND title too
3. UPDATE! - when ya buy new discs, please put em in the book. one host had not printed updates in going on 3 years, and i KNOW they buy new discs, cause i have seen them at the karaoke supplier buying them. Also put the date on the bottom of the page. I normally re-print my entire update section each time i add a disc, currently it is as 6 pages. Another host i did books for just prints what the new tracks are and leaves the last update section in there (kinda annoying, but i know by looking at the date on the page if it was updated or not)
4. limit the # of books - another numerb bragger claims to have 31,000 tracks. just to view her whole library it taqkes 5 binders (1 for title, 1 for artist, 1 for update by title, 1 for update by title, and 1 for the "newer that the update book" book) And ya wonder why your singers bring their own discs

#5 should be #1 peeve!!!
#5 NUMBERING SYSTEM!!! - if you want to have a song # like 001-01, fine, but can ya put the manufacture to the right or left of that #, I want to sing "Cheeseburger in Paradise" from SC, not TT or any other vendor.

When i bought my library the guy had the discs # a-01 to a-67 and the book he gave me was sorted by disc only

Since i am cheap, i used MS Access for my books, i typed a majority of the database by hand. It sucks the first time, but after that, adding a disc or two is not too bad.

I recently did another host's book in Access, out of 5,000 tracks i typed maybe 10.... I used the manufacturers spreadsheets, and catalogs and copied and pasted them