More on karaoke goes to Hollywood

Or should I say Carrie-oke (as in Carrie Bradshaw) goes to Hollywood?

Sex and the City 2 is due in theaters on May 27. Actually, the first showing in Milwaukee is at 11:59 PM on the 26th! My wife will be there. First in line. And I will be there, also. If it's anything like Sex and the City 1, I will be one of three guys in the audience. But that's cool. I enjoyed the series. And the male bonding in the theater? Priceless.

But... on to more important things. SATC 2 will have a karaoke scene! Complete with $50K in clothes. Pretty much the way my customers dress.

 

Here is a link to some clips.

They don't have the karaoke scene. The very last clip in this video starts just after they have sung. :(

I guess we can say that karaoke has finally gone mainstream. For more examples of karaoke in Hollywood movies, have a look at a previous post.

Rock On!

Karaoke and air guitars just kinda go together. What more can I say? Here I present a collection of pictures of people playing the inflatable air guitar while singing karaoke.

 

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So you wanna be a karaoke host? (Part 8: Watts and RMS and Ohms, oh my!)

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Matching amp and speakers
Years ago, when I was working my way through college working for Radio Shack, we made sure that the power handling capability of the speakers was bigger than the power output of the amp. This makes sense, right? Clearly if you feed 1000W into a tiny little 25W speaker, you will do some damage to the poor little speaker.

When I recently talked with Bob (my favorite sound guy), I got a totally different story. He told me that the important thing is that you make sure the amp is big enough to drive the speakers. Ideally, you want the amp to be able to deliver twice the power that the speakers are rated for.

This blew my mind. If I have speakers that will handle 250W, then I want to drive them with an that will amp will deliver at least 500W?

The folks at Musician's Friend agree with Bob. I quote from their PA System Buying Guide:

Make sure to buy an amp with plenty of power for your speakers plus enough headroom. Many speakers are damaged by getting too little power, causing clipped waveforms that will ruin your gear. You will probably want an amp with twice the wattage of your speaker's rated power handling to ensure clean power gets to them.

The buying guide is not clear on which watts are what. You have an amp, and it has wattage ratings in peak and RMS and it lists wattage for 8 ohms and 4 ohms and maybe two ohms. You have a speaker and it has peak and program and continuous and RMS... How to figger it all out?!?!?

Step 1: Determine the ohms for the speakers and how many speakers you will be plugging into one channel. Generally speaker, you will have one speaker per channel - one in the right channel and one in the left. And generally speaking, the speakers will be 8 ohms. But, just in case you have two speakers plugged into one channel, or just in case they are four ohm speakers, you need to figger out the ohms for the speaker combination. In case you forgot, I mentioned how to do this in the post on amps, under the heading "Ohms".

- Will your amp handle the ohms?  If your amp is only rated for 8 ohm speakers, then you can't plug in a pair of 8 ohm speakers, dude.

Step 2: Determine the RMS power rating of your speakers. I gave a very simple way to convert any of the plethora of speaker specs into RMS in the previous post on speakers:

If there is a spec for peak power, divide by four to get RMS power.
If there is a spec for program power, divide by two to get RMS power.
If there is a spec for continuous power, then multiply it by 1. Or divide by 1. Or add zero. The RMS power handling is the same as the continuous power handling.

Step 3: Find the RMS power per channel for the amp, using the ohms that you determined in step 1. The amp probably list different ohm values, 8, maybe 4, and maybe maybe 2. Pick the watts for that particular ohmage. If they happen to list a maximum power or a peak to peak power, ignore that inflated number.

Step 4: Compare the rating for the amp (from step 3) with the power handling for the speakers (from step 2). Ideally, the ratio will be 2.0. That is, the watts for the amp will be twice the watts for the speakers. Don't get anal about this... there is some leeway. To get a feel for how much leeway, let's look at some systems that were put together by the pros.

I turned to the Musician's Friend website and started looking for live sound systems. The first thing I found was an interesting tidbit. All their systems fell into one of two categories. Either the system included a powered mixer and passive speakers, or it included a mixer and a pair of active speakers. There were no systems that they offered that was all components, that is, an unpowered mixer, an amp, and passive speakers.

Hmmmm... that makes sense. I guess? Having all components, you are of course more flexible. But combining one way or the other means less stuff to carry around. For a KJ, this is important.

Musician's Friend had a long long list of systems to pick from. I picked three of these to compare. All were around the $700 mark.I picked different brands to keep it interesting. I also just looked at systems with a powered mixer and a set of passive speakers. I chose this not because I am partial to that type of system (I am, by the way, but only slightly). I chose this type because you need to match amp and speakers with this type of system. If the amp and speaker are in the same box, the matching has already been done for you. 

The Phonic system

The Phonic system includes their Powerpod 1860 Plus powered mixer, coupled with the Phonic S715 speakers.

Step 1:  The speakers are 8 ohms. We will plug one speaker into each channel of the amp, so each channel of the amp will see 8 ohms. The amp has a rating for 8 ohm operation, so we are cool.

Step 2: The speakers have the following power handing: Power handling: 600W (Peak), 400 W (Program), 200W (RMS). Which spec do we want? Yes, of course, the last one, the RMS power handling of 200W.

Step 3: The amp has the following ratings:

260W per side at 8 ohms
400W per side at 4 ohms
800W bridged mono

We first note that the amp does say "per side", so they aren't pulling anything funny like combining the power from both sides. Since we determined that our speakers are 8 ohms, we choose the 260W number. Note also that they did not specify whether these are peak watts or RMS, so we will assume that the numbers are RMS. If we were actually buying this piece of equipment, we might want to take a close look at the manual to verify this.

Step 4: Compare the two numbers. The output of the amp (260W) divided by the rating of the speakers (200W) is 1.3.

So, is this good? My opinion, the speakers are perhaps a bit underpowered, but nothing to really be concerned about.

If I am figgering how big a crowd I could handle, I would use the wattage of the amp (260W). Since the amp has two channels (right and left) I would multiply this number by 2 to get 520W. In the section on amps, I used the conservative number of 10 watts per person. Based on all this calculation, this system should be ok with crowds of 52. Get that 53rd person in and you need to run out for another bucket of watts.

Well, no... I'm just kidding. You can go ahead and have 53 people.

The Behringer system

The Behringer system includes the PMP1000 powered mixer and a pair of VP1220 speakers.

Step 1:  The speakers are 8 ohms. We will plug one speaker into each channel of the amp, so each channel of the amp will see 8 ohms. The amp has a rating for 8 ohm operation, so we are cool.(Gosh that sounds familiar.)

Step 2: The speakers are referred to as Behringer EUROLIVE VP1220 800W 12" PA Speaker, so they must be 800W, right? Tricky folks. You have to read further down to get the spec that we want: 200 Watts Continuous / 800 Watts Peak Power. Continuous power is the same as RMS power, so we will go withe the 200W number.

Step 3: The amp has the following spec: Ultra-compact 2 x 250-Watt stereo powered mixer (500 Watt bridged mode). I'm gonna call this a non-spec, since they don't tell you whether the spec is for driving 8 ohm speakers or 4 ohm or what. You would think that maybe, since this is all sold as a system, that they would pick the spec that is relevant to the set of speakers that are in the system?

But, no. They make you work a little to get at the number that is really important. When I click on the "Spec" tab, I find all kinds of numbers. In particular, the 250W is clearly much larger than the number we want. First, 250W is peak power, not RMS. Second (I reach for my blood pressure medication), this number is the power when driving 4 ohm speakers. 

Peak Power, both channels driven:
8 Ohms per channel: 135W
4 Ohms per channel: 250W

The relevant number is considerably less impressive: 8 Ohms per channel: 90W.

Step 4: Compare the two numbers. The output of the amp (90W) divided by the rating of the speakers (200W) is 0.45.

Ouch. The speakers are pretty seriously underpowered. Remember, this number is ideally around 2.0. I'm not gonna recommend this powered mixer with these speakers.

But, let's say you decided to go with this system. How big a crowd could you handle? Each channel is 90W, so the total wattage is 180W. Figgering 10W per person, I put the crowd size at 18. Maybe 20? Definitely a small gig.

The Yamaha system
Finally, let's do a little spec check on a Yamaha system, which pairs the Yamaha EMX212S powered mixer with a pair of Yamaha A12 speakers.

Step 1:  The speakers are 8 ohms. We will plug one speaker into each channel of the amp, so each channel of the amp will see 8 ohms. The amp has a rating for 8 ohm operation, so we are cool. (Gosh that sounds familiar. Most speakers are 8 ohms.)

Step 2:  We have the following spec for the power rating on the speakers: 300W program handling (600W peak). Hmmmm.... program handling is twice the RMS rating, so the number we want is 150W.

Step 3: The amp is rated rather sparsely: Dual 200W amps. We need to dig further, since we have learned the the numbers at the front are not necessarily the ones we want. Unfortunately, Musician's Friend does not have the spec that we want.

To get that spec, I had to go to the Yamaha website. On this page we see the important number 130W+130W, which means 130W in one channel and 130W in the other.

Step 4: Compare the two numbers. The output of the amp (130W) divided by the rating of the speakers (150W) is 0.87.

Gosh. This is better than the Behringer system, but it still falls short of the magic value of 2.0. If I were considering this system, I think I would lean toward using the Yamaha EMX312C powered mixer instead of the EMX212C. This amp is rated at 190W per channel, which is a little better suited to the speakers. But... it costs $110 more.

Let's say we bought this system. How big a crowd could we host? We have 130W per channel from the amp, so the total power is 260W. When we divide this by 10W person, we get a maximum crowd of 26 people.

I have looked at three systems. Of the three, the Phonic system comes off the best in terms of matching amps with speakers and in terms of total wattage output. (Time for the weasel words) These specs are only part of the story. I have equipment from all three manufacturers and I tend to think of the Phonic equipment as the best value for a low end system, and the Yamaha as the better value for a slightly higher end system.

Copyright (c) 2010, John Seymour

unique orchestrations

For your delectation, I have a collection of unique orchestrations... remakes of popular songs with just a little different take. I hope you enjoy watching these videos as much as I have enjoyed collecting them!

The song Don't Stop Believin' by Journey has been kept alive with the cast from Glee. But even before Glee, it was one of the most maligned karaoke songs. (To see why I say that... catch this parody.) What better way to hear it performed than in one of the most maligned musical styles? Greenbrier performs a bluegrass version of the Journey hit. (The song really kicks out starting at 1:38.)

How about a sweeter version of it?  Here is the harp version by Camille and Kennerly.

Not bizarre enough? Don't Stop Believin' played on a violin would be cliche. How about two people playing it on violins?  Still not bizarre enough for you?  How about two people playing Don't Stop Believin' on one violin?

Sorry I couldn't find a video of this one, but the mp3 is worth it. Manhattan Transfer performs a sultry version of the top slow dance song of all time, Unchained Melody. Is it doo wop?  Or is it a polka?

Speaking of polkas, Weird Al has recorded the definitive version of Bohemian Polka. Not to be outdone, the Muppets' cover Bohemian Rhapsody. But the competition for the most bizarre version of Bohemian Rhapsody is fierce. How about hearing it on accordion and tuba?

This version of Toto's Africa by Perpetuum Jazzile quickly became my favorite. And strangely, this song was going through my head for a week solid. Well... maybe not so strange, since I was in Africa for a week solid.

This video of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as performed by a string septet is good, bad, and ugly. I love it.

When I think of the song "Smoke on the Water", by Deep Purple, I naturally think of Japanese orchestras complete with erhus.  Well, actually, I didn't until I heard this version of Smoke on the Water!  (If you happen to be wondering about where Deep Purple got their name, have a look my blog on the origin of band names.)

How about Michael Jackson's Billie Jean?  It's just begging to be performed on kazoo, right? If you can't find six other guys to sing a capella Michael Jackson songs, you just have to do it yourself. But if you play bassoon and like Lady Gaga, it certainly can't be that hard to find three other bassoon players? Here is "The Breaking Winds" performing a medley of Lady Gaga songs.

Send me your favorites!

So you wanna be a karaoke host? ( Part 7: Speakers - getting those karaoke vibrations going)

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As a karaoke jockey, you are much more likely to get a two-way than a three-way. Maybe at home, you may have a three-way, but you probably have a two-way at your gigs.

I am talking, of course, about speakers. Specifically, the number of speakers per cabinet. A two-way speaker has a woofer (for the low notes) and a tweeter (for the high notes) in a single cabinet. A three-way speaker will add a midrange speaker to this. Almost all PA equipment will have a woofer and a tweeter in a single cabinet.

Woofer and tweeter

Active versus passive
In a previous section, I described various ways that the pieces of a karaoke system are combined. In particular, I spoke about integrating the amp into the speaker to form an active speaker, which is also known as a powered speaker. The standard speaker (with no internal amp) is referred to as a passive or unpowered speaker.

My examples in this section are largely aimed at the unpowered speakers, although most of the concepts apply whether there is an amplifier in the speaker cabinet or not. 

What do you get with a bigger woofer?
The bigger the woofer, the better the bass. To give an idea how this works, let's look at a series of speakers from Phonic. These low end speakers are sold in a 10", 12", and 15" versions. You can see in the table below that the 10" speaker goes down to 65 Hz, the 12" goes down to 60 Hz, and the 15" goes down to 50 Hz.

Phonic S710         10"    65 Hz to 20 kHz      $70 each
Phonic S712         12"    60 Hz to 20 hHz     $100 each
Phonic S715         15"    50 Hz to 20 kHz     $150 each

Unfortunately, the size of the woofer is really what dictates bass response, and ultimately, the size of the woofer drives the cost, the size, and the weight of a speaker. If you want a good thump coming out of your system, the speakers will be big, heavy, and expensive.

But my earbuds have excellent bass response, and they aren't anywhere near 15". What's up with that?

The difference has to do with the fact that bass notes just don't travel that well. If you put a tiny speaker (as in  earbuds) very close to your ear, the bass will be much louder than when you pull the earbuds away from your ear. If you hold the earbuds even a few inches from your ear, the sound becomes very tinny. 

Watts - peak, program, continuous, RMS
The wattage ratings on speakers are probably the most confusing and most abused spec.

The power handling spec is the number of watts that are safe for a speaker. It indicatives how much power you can pump through the speaker before you start damaging it.

Note that this is different than the wattage ratings that we put on light bulbs. If I compare a 60W bulb with a 100W bulb, I will see a change in brightness. If I replace a 60W speaker with a 600W speaker, there will not be a big increase in volume. But there will be a big difference in how loud I can turn the amp before the speakers self destruct.

Wattage for a speaker could be reported as "peak", "program", "continuous", or "RMS" wattage. How confusing.  The "peak" power handling is the highest of the numbers, indicating the hypothetical level of a quick "pop" that could blow out the speaker. "Program" power is generally about half of that number, and "continuous" or "RMS" numbers are generally half of that number.

So... if you want to compare the power handling of two speakers, you need to first make sure that the numbers are expressed in the same units. I'm not sure any of the units are better than any others, so I will just say that I am going to work with "continuous power".

If there is a spec for peak power, divide by four to get RMS power.
If there is a spec for program power, divide by two to get RMS power.
If there is a spec for continuous power, then multiply it by 1. Or divide by 1. Or add zero. The RMS power handling is the same as the continuous power handling.

Sound pressure level
I said that a higher wattage rating on a speaker doesn't necessarily make the speaker louder. It's not just the watts, but also what the speaker does with them. The "SPL" (sound pressure level) is a measure of how efficiently a speaker deals with those watts. The speaker is hooked up to an amp delivering a standard amount of power. A sound level is measured at a standard distance from the speaker. The result is called the SPL.

The SPL of a speaker is measured in dB, with typical numbers in the high 90's. SPL ratings can be a bit deceptive. The range for the SPL might be only a few dB, but a difference of 3 dB represents a doubling of the amount of sound. 

What the specs don't tell you
Power handling is only part of the story. Sometimes loud is all you really want. Like if you are trying to scare squirrels out of your attic. But usually, you want good and loud. Just because 100W does not damage a speaker, it doesn't mean that it sounds good. Unfortunately, there isn't a spec for how good a speaker sounds. Sorry.

I have gone through the immense trouble to compile a list of specs on a number of 12 inch speakers.

    Speaker                Freq. resp        Power hand.       SPL      Wt      Cost

Gemini GSM-1260  50 Hz-20 kHz     100W RMS       ??        24  lbs     $70
Phonic S712            60 Hz-20 kHz       75W RMS      95 dB    ?? lbs    $100
Behringer 212XL     65 Hz-18 kHz     200W RMS      95 dB    24 lbs    $150
Peavey PR 12          54 Hz-21 kHz     200W RMS      97 dB    33 lbs    $170
Yamaha BR12         65 Hz-20 kHz     125W RMS       97 dB    35 lbs    $250
JBL JRX112M        60 Hz-16 kHz     250W RMS       99 dB    43 lbs    $320

What to conclude?  It would seem from the specs listed that the Gemini speaker at $70 is just about the equivalent to the Yamaha at nearly four times the cost. Like I said, unfortunately, there isn't a spec for how good a speaker sounds. 

Copyright (c) 2010, John Seymour

More origins of band names

A friend of mine, Adam, read my previous blog on band names, and suggested two other bands from the 60's who had names with suggestive origins. Both names perhaps relate to a certain "special sauce" that guys make when they are doing special things with the special woman in their life. I decided to investigate.

10cc
There is some controversy regarding the origin of the band name 10cc. As one story goes, the name came to Jonathon King in a dream. King ran UK Records and had signed the band. King dreamed of seeing a marquee at a theater that said "10cc The Best Band in the World". Snopes states that both King and Eric Stewart (of the band) agree with this story. No one commented as to whether King's dream was dry or wet, by the way.

Another band member, the aptly named Lol Creme, has a different story. "We were racking our brains for a suitable name, one that really captured our style and image, and Jonathan King, who'd signed us to his U.K. label, said, '10cc - because it's the average amount of semen ejaculated by a healthy male!' Well, naturally, we thought it was perfect." 

Ten cubic centimeters is perhaps a bit optimistic. It's kind of on the upper end. One could easily make the case that they were striving to be a little better than your average band?

Believe what you will.

Lovin' Spoonful
The name brings up the question: a lovin' spoonful of what? Does the band name also have sexual connotations? Or maybe the name has to do with cocaine?

Wikipedia begs to differ with both stories. Mississippi John Hurt wrote a song called "Coffee Blues". The lyrics inspired the name for the Lovin' Spoonful: 

"Wanted her to cook me some good Maxwell's House.
You understand, if I can get me just a spoonful of Maxwell's House,
do me much good as two or three cups this other coffee...
I wanna see my baby 'bout a lovin' spoonful, my lovin' spoonful"

So. The lovin' spoonful that the name Lovin' Spoonful refers to is coffee. Go figger.

Maybe Mississippi John Hurt was really talking about special sauce? I think it's a pretty fair guess that he had some innuendo going on. But, I also think it is clear that the singer of the song (a male) is hoping to receive some lovin' spoonful.   

Cream
The name of 10cc band member (Lol Creme) reminded me of another band. Where did Clapton's band Cream get their name? Was that another naughty name?

The name "Cream" did not arise from a certain euphemism about a male becoming excited. Instead, the name came from the recognition that the band members (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce) were the cream of the crop.

Cream, incidentally, recorded the song "Spoonful". The song is summarized by the line "just a little spoonful or your love would satisfy my soul".

Pearl Jam
I quote from a website from someone who claims to know the salacious origin of the name of the band Pearl Jam:

"It means semen. Be warned that there are plenty of dumb stories, some even put forward by the band..."

This claim is unsubstantiated. The author produced no references to back up his claim. There are, however some interesting things about the name. Originally, band member Eddie Vedder said that the group got its name from his native American great-grandmother, Pearl, who made a jam with peyote in it. Later, he admitted that this was all garbage. The story that came out later was much less exciting. I quote Wikipedia:

Ament and McCready explained that Ament came up with "pearl", and that the band later settled on "Pearl Jam" after attending a concert by Neil Young, in which he extended his songs as improvisations of 15–20 minutes in length, a practice known as jamming.


So apparently none of these band names were inspired by special sauce. Still, they make for a good story.

Read the next blog post on origins of band names

Running dual sound cards

I discovered something useful. You can run two sound output devices from a single computer. Lemme 'splain why that might be useful for a KJ. Or for a DJ, for that matter.

When running karaoke, it is really good to fill the dead air between songs with background music. Most of the sophisticated karaoke hosting programs support this feature. But to my knowledge, none of them really support it well.

They all give you some means to add in a bunch of songs that will be brought up when a singer finishes, and that will fade out before the next singer starts. They also have the option of starting each time with a different song which is kinda nice.

As fabulous as this feature is, they don't offer the kind of playlist tools that you get with a normal mp3 player program. For example, they don't allow you to import playlist from another program. They don't allow you to search mp3s from within their program. They don't allow you to randomize the playlist. For me, these would be great features, but I realize that the folks doing KJ programs have a pretty limited market, so they can't have a really huge budget for progammers. We have to accept what we can get.

But I still want the feature.

My first approach was to bring along my iPod. I would plug it into the second stereo input from my mixer, and just leave the iPod playing all night. In between singers, I need to remember to fade out and fade in. Ehhh... I got used to it. The dead air reminded me if I happened to forget to start the music up.

But this meant that I need to bring my iPod, and that I had to plan ahead with the proper playlists on the iPod. It made it a bit awkward to add songs on the fly --- if I got a request, or if I thought there was a great song to slip in.

Then I discovered something kinda neat. You can get two sound cards to work at the same time on your computer.

I started by adding a USB sound card to my laptop. I bought this one from my good friends at TigerDirect. As I write this, the price is $25.

Sabrent USB SND8. I suspect that there are numerous similar devices that will allow the same functionality.

When you plug this into your USB port it becomes the default sound device. When you start a program that plays music (like your karaoke hosting program), the music will be fed out this device. So, a cable from this USB device will go into your mixer as the karaoke channel.

The laptop's normal sound output (the headphone output) can still be selected by other programs, though, provided they have the smarts to allow you to select an output device. Winamp is one music player that can do this. And the basic price for Winamp is very reasonable. It's free. (If you plan on doing any ripping or burning of regular CDs, then pay the $20 for the Pro version.)

Here is how to configure Winamp to avoid the default sound output device (which will be the USB device whenever it is plugged in) and switch over to the normal laptop device:

If music is playing, stop it.
Click on "Options" in the WINAMP box. Select "Preferences".
On the left hand side, scroll down under the heading "Plug-ins" and select "Output".
On the right hand side, select "Nullsoft DirectSound Output".
This will bring up a box. Select the "Device" tab (it will probably already be selected. At the top, just to the left of "Refresh", there is a pull down menu. Click the little triangle at the right of this box to see the options.

One option will be "Primary Sound Driver". This is whatever default device you have. As I said, when then USB device is plugged in, this will be the default.

A second option will have the word USB in it. On my computer, this says "Speakers (3- USB Multi-Channel Audio Device". This would allow Winamp to play sound through the USB device. This is not what we want, since the karaoke program will default to this.

A third option for output will be the native sound output device for your computer. On mine, it says "Speakers / Headphones (IDT High Definition Audio Codec".  This is the one you want. Select this one, and the music that Winamp plays will be sent to the normal headphone jack of your computer. Connect this to a second channel on your mixer, and now you can use the mixer to select between Winamp and your karaoke host program.

I don't know what other programs will allow you to select the sound output device. There may be karaoke hosting program that would allow you to select, there may be other sound players.

If you are a DJ, and are switching over to a laptop library, you could use this same sort of setup. You could use one music player (iTunes or whatever you want) to feed the club music and the other music player (Winamp?) to run your headphones. This way, you can preview the music before starting it with the first player. Yeah... not quite all the functionality of full scale DJ software... but it's a cheap start.

I hope this was useful.  :)

John the Revelator