Sound Choice :: the highest quality musical recordings for karaoke, ringtones, movies, TV commercials and more!

Those of you who have seen my most recent reviews now know that I consider myself a karaoke junkie. Up until a couple of months ago, my husband Bill and I would go to the officer's club at Fort Belvoir on Friday nights for karaoke. Bill, being the wonderful groupie that he is, would dutifully listen to me warble songs all night. Sadly, thanks to a new manager who is woefully out of touch with the wants and needs of his clientele, karaoke at the officer's club is no more. I do have my own karaoke machine, but part of the fun of doing karaoke is having an audience. On the other hand, while karaoke at the club was a lot of fun, I often ended up hungover the next day and Bill ended up financially poorer.

I discovered kSolo.com through my favorite karaoke disc manufacturer's Web site just a couple of weeks after karaoke at the officer's club ended. kSolo.com is a new Web based service custom made for karaoke junkies like me who love to sing and want to make their voices available on the internet for the whole world to hear. All you need to join in the fun, besides a computer and a monitor, is a microphone, a pair of speakers, and up to $9.95 a month. For those who want to try before they buy, kSolo.com offers a free seven day trial. I've been a member of kSolo.com since the first week of August and in that short time, I've noticed that kSolo's service is getting better and better. That's why I bugged Epinons' own Joubert to add the service for me. Thanks Joubert!

Setting up an account

So, if you're still reading this review, I'm sure you want to know how kSolo.com works. First, you have to set up your account. Setting up the account is very straightforward. You submit a personal profile and an optional photo, along with a nickname. I use the name knotheadusc on my kSolo.com account, but when I record songs, my real name, Jenny, and my age is displayed. Your profile also includes some optional information that you can choose to make public. Currently, I have recorded and stored 27 songs. kSolo.com allows users to store up to 50 songs. (UPDATE 9/27/05 kSolo.com now allows users to store up to 100 songs.) Once you get to that point, the system will start to delete the oldest songs. Please note that kSolo.com does not allow users to download songs to their hard drives, nor can users burn them to CDs. I'm pretty sure this is because of licensing issues; karaoke music manufacturers generally charge people fees for the rights to use their music on permanent recordings. kSolo.com also allows users to create a library of up to 200 songs. If you search the system and start finding songs that you want to record someday, you can put the song in your library for easy access.

Once again, you can try a limited version of kSolo.com for seven days. During that time period, you can record or listen to only a few songs per day. If you choose to subscribe to kSolo.com, the service is unlimited and you can listen to and record as many songs as you wish. You can pay $9.95 per month billed on a monthly basis, $8.95 per month billed quarterly, or $7.95 per month billed annually. There's also an option to record and pay for one song at a time for $1.99 each. kSolo.com accepts all major credit cards and your credit card information is stored in an encrypted section of the Web site.

A word to the wise-- subscriptions are non-refundable, so if you order the annual subscription and decide you don't like the service, you're stuck with it until it expires. Supposedly, kSolo.com will automatically renew your subscription if you don't let them know you want to cancel. Since I didn't know if I'd like kSolo.com, I chose to be billed $9.95 per month. Last month, my subscription expired, even though kSolo.com stated that it would automatically renew it. This wasn't a big deal, though, because all of my information was stored in the system. Re-subscribing was just a matter of clicking a button and all of the songs I had recorded were still in the system.

The music

Working in partnership with my favorite karaoke music manufacturer, Sound Choice, kSolo regularly adds new selections to its library. At this writing, 82 new songs have been added to the database within the past couple of weeks. This is a good thing, because one of the complaints I had about kSolo.com when I first joined was that there weren't that many songs available. It's good to see that new ones are regularly added and that they are the high quality renditions I've come to expect from Sound Choice. Because kSolo.com has to obtain the rights to put songs on its Web site, sometimes it can take awhile to get new songs added. Also, so far, kSolo.com only works with Sound Choice to get their music. As a karaoke enthusiast, I've found that while Sound Choice generally offers the best quality and selection in karaoke music, there are other manufacturers that offer songs that Sound Choice doesn't have. For example, Pocket Songs karaoke specializes in music from Broadway, standards, and jazz. Sound Choice offers less of a selection in that genre, but what they do put out tends to be of excellent quality.

kSolo.com has divided its music library into different genres, including rock/pop, country, standards, Broadway, novelty songs, duets, birthday songs, and love songs. Users can browse the library by genre, by song, or by artist. kSolo.com also groups the most popular songs, the latest arrivals, and kSolo's picks. So far, country and rock/pop seem to be the most popular genres.

You can choose to listen to or record any song in kSolo.com's library. The system allows users to hear an instrumental version, a demonstration version with professional vocals, or a member's version. I assume that when people choose to listen to a member's version, they hear the highest rated version of the song. The system will also show a list of the people who have recorded the song, though, so that listeners can choose which members' versions they want to hear. When you want to record a song, you're given five seconds, counted down, to get ready. Of course, if you mess up, you can choose not to save the song and either delete it or record it again.

One thing I have noticed about the music on kSolo.com is that sometimes it's hard to hear because the volume is too low and there's no way to make it louder. I have written to kSolo.com's customer service department about this issue and from what I understand, the system is eventually going to be revamped so that it offers an overall better experience for users. From what I've seen so far, kSolo.com is living up to its promises.

Rating, feedback, and top performers

What fun would karaoke be if performers couldn't get feedback from others? Or would you rather not make your performance public? kSolo.com caters to shy folks who don't want to know what others think of their performances as well as competitive diva types. After you record a song, you can make it publicly available to receive feedback and/or ratings from listeners around the world or you can make it private so that only you can hear your performance. You can also make a song available for feedback but not ratings and vice versa. Songs are rated on a scale of 1 to 10 stars. kSolo.com ranks the top performers and gives the top ten a special spot on its home page; as far as I know, that's the only prize for being a star on kSolo.com. For a couple of weeks, I was even in the top ten performers!

The ratings system is another area where I think kSolo.com could use some work. For one thing, the ratings are all done anonymously and can be submitted by anyone. Those who are in the top ten are given a prominent spot on the home page, so its easy for users to purposely downrate in order to knock people out of their spots. I know of one user who is consistently in the top five performers and who could easily be a professional singer that gets ridiculously low scores from jealous folks who want to knock her out of contention. I've been a victim of this practice myself, such that I've actually made most of my songs unrateable. It's no fun to work really hard at recording a new song only to have some jerk give you a rating of .5 just out of spite. I'd much rather have feedback than a score anyway. I wish kSolo.com would either make the scores visible only to the account holder or make the identities of the raters known like Epinions does (as of October, ratings are no longer hidden).

It does no good to erase and re-record songs, either. For some reason, kSolo.com has made it so that if you try to re-record a song, you're still stuck with the ratings you got before you erased. I don't like this aspect of kSolo.com, because quite a few of my songs that were originally given a good score got knocked down by mean spirited trolls. I'd like to be able to re-record songs and start with a fresh score and am hoping that it will soon be possible to do that (as of October, songs can be erased and scored from scratch).

The community

If you happen to find people on kSolo.com whose performances you consistently admire, you can mark those people as favorites. Then, whenever they record new songs, you will be able to easily access their work. I haven't yet used this feature, but I think it's pretty cool. There are some truly talented people on kSolo.com who are a pleasure to listen to... and of course, like any other karaoke outlet, there are some folks on there whom you'd hope wouldn't quit their day jobs.

kSolo.com does not yet have a user's forum, which I think is a real pity. A group of us on the site did form a Yahoo Group and that's allowed us to get to know each other, but I think it would be very helpful for kSolo.com to offer a forum so that users can connect with each other and customer service more easily. At this point, the only way for users to get to know each other via the kSolo.com Web site is through leaving feedback on songs. Unfortunately, users can't answer feedback left on their songs, that makes it tough when people want to connect. (UPDATE 10/17/05- kSolo now allows users to answer their feedback.) One time, someone asked me what kind of microphone I use. I couldn't tell him because there was no way to do it. The folks I've gotten to know on the Yahoo Group are all very friendly and supportive, but they only represent a few of the users on kSolo.com. I'm hoping that the service will soon include a forum for all users.

Customer service

I've sent a few emails to customer service and found them to be very prompt and friendly in their communications with me. As a matter of fact, I recently sent a long email to them about some changes I'd like to see made on kSolo.com and customer service actually thanked me profusely. They also thanked me when I asked them to provide a logo so that kSolo.com could be added to the Epinions database and I could tell the world about their service. kSolo.com's customer service really seems to encourage feedback from users and that's a definite strength.

At this point, kSolo.com does not have a toll-free telephone number. I've only communicated with them by email and so far that's worked out fine. Bear in mind, though, that if you should need to call kSolo.com, you will have to do it on your own dime. I imagine that once this service gets going, a toll free phone number will be forthcoming.

*UPDATE*

As of today, September 22, 2005, kSolo.com DOES have a toll free customer service number-- 1-877-GokSolo or, for those who are challenged by dialing by letters, 1-877-465-7656.

Other cool stuff

kSolo.com allows users to make musical greetings for friends and family. If you want to email a couple of songs to a friend or two, you can record any song in the kSolo.com, pick out a corresponding picture, and write a brief personal message. Just to try out this feature, I made a musical greeting for my husband, Bill. He got it with no problem.

If, like I do, you have your own Web site, you can make your recorded songs available to visitors to your site. kSolo.com offers HTML coding that can be cut and pasted onto your website. Visitors click on the recorded songs they want to hear and are taken to the kSolo.com site.

What are you waiting for?

I've really enjoyed being a part of the kSolo.com community. It's not quite the same as singing live for a rowdy group in a bar, but I find that I can work on my technique and satisfy my addiction for hamming it up at the same time. As people catch on to kSolo.com and the service grows, I expect that I'll have even more fun! If you like to sing karaoke, I encourage you to drop by kSolo.com and give it a whirl!

Web site: http://www.kSolo.com

Recommended:
Yes

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Those of you who have seen my most recent reviews now know that I consider myself a karaoke junkie. Up until a couple of months ago, my husband Bill and I would go to the officer's club at Fort Belvoir on Friday nights for karaoke. Bill, being the wonderful groupie that he is, would dutifully listen to me warble songs all night. Sadly, thanks to a new manager who is woefully out of touch with the wants and needs of his clientele, karaoke at the officer's club is no more. I do have my own karaoke machine, but part of the fun of doing karaoke is having an audience. On the other hand, while karaoke at the club was a lot of fun, I often ended up hungover the next day and Bill ended up financially poorer. I discovered kSolo.com through my favorite karaoke disc manufacturer's Web site just a couple of weeks after karaoke at the officer's club ended. kSolo.com is a new Web based service custom made for karaoke junkies like me who love to sing and want to make their voices available on the internet for the whole world to hear. All you need to join in the fun, besides a computer and a monitor, is a microphone, a pair of speakers, and up to $9.95 a month. For those who want to try before they buy, kSolo.com offers a free seven day trial. I've been a member of kSolo.com since the first week of August and in that short time, I've noticed that kSolo's service is getting better and better. That's why I bugged Epinons' own Joubert to add the service for me. Thanks Joubert! Setting up an account So, if you're still reading this review, I'm sure you want to know how kSolo.com works. First, you have to set up your account. Setting up the account is very straightforward. You submit a personal profile and an optional photo, along with a nickname. I use the name knotheadusc on my kSolo.com account, but when I record songs, my real name, Jenny, and my age is displayed. Your profile also includes some optional information that you can choose to make public. Currently, I have recorded and stored 27 songs. kSolo.com allows users to store up to 50 songs. (UPDATE 9/27/05 kSolo.com now allows users to store up to 100 songs.) Once you get to that point, the system will start to delete the oldest songs. Please note that kSolo.com does not allow users to download songs to their hard drives, nor can users burn them to CDs. I'm pretty sure this is because of licensing issues; karaoke music manufacturers generally charge people fees for the rights to use their music on permanent recordings. kSolo.com also allows users to create a library of up to 200 songs. If you search the system and start finding songs that you want to record someday, you can put the song in your library for easy access. Once again, you can try a limited version of kSolo.com for seven days. During that time period, you can record or listen to only a few songs per day. If you choose to subscribe to kSolo.com, the service is unlimited and you can listen to and record as many songs as you wish. You can pay $9.95 per month billed on a monthly basis, $8.95 per month billed quarterly, or $7.95 per month billed annually. There's also an option to record and pay for one song at a time for $1.99 each. kSolo.com accepts all major credit cards and your credit card information is stored in an encrypted section of the Web site. A word to the wise-- subscriptions are non-refundable, so if you order the annual subscription and decide you don't like the service, you're stuck with it until it expires. Supposedly, kSolo.com will automatically renew your subscription if you don't let them know you want to cancel. Since I didn't know if I'd like kSolo.com, I chose to be billed $9.95 per month. Last month, my subscription expired, even though kSolo.com stated that it would automatically renew it. This wasn't a big deal, though, because all of my information was stored in the system. Re-subscribing was just a matter of clicking a button and all of the songs I had recorded were still in the system. The music Working in partnership with my favorite karaoke music manufacturer, Sound Choice, kSolo regularly adds new selections to its library. At this writing, 82 new songs have been added to the database within the past couple of weeks. This is a good thing, because one of the complaints I had about kSolo.com when I first joined was that there weren't that many songs available. It's good to see that new ones are regularly added and that they are the high quality renditions I've come to expect from Sound Choice. Because kSolo.com has to obtain the rights to put songs on its Web site, sometimes it can take awhile to get new songs added. Also, so far, kSolo.com only works with Sound Choice to get their music. As a karaoke enthusiast, I've found that while Sound Choice generally offers the best quality and selection in karaoke music, there are other manufacturers that offer songs that Sound Choice doesn't have. For example, Pocket Songs karaoke specializes in music from Broadway, standards, and jazz. Sound Choice offers less of a selection in that genre, but what they do put out tends to be of excellent quality. kSolo.com has divided its music library into different genres, including rock/pop, country, standards, Broadway, novelty songs, duets, birthday songs, and love songs. Users can browse the library by genre, by song, or by artist. kSolo.com also groups the most popular songs, the latest arrivals, and kSolo's picks. So far, country and rock/pop seem to be the most popular genres. You can choose to listen to or record any song in kSolo.com's library. The system allows users to hear an instrumental version, a demonstration version with professional vocals, or a member's version. I assume that when people choose to listen to a member's version, they hear the highest rated version of the song. The system will also show a list of the people who have recorded the song, though, so that listeners can choose which members' versions they want to hear. When you want to record a song, you're given five seconds, counted down, to get ready. Of course, if you mess up, you can choose not to save the song and either delete it or record it again. One thing I have noticed about the music on kSolo.com is that sometimes it's hard to hear because the volume is too low and there's no way to make it louder. I have written to kSolo.com's customer service department about this issue and from what I understand, the system is eventually going to be revamped so that it offers an overall better experience for users. From what I've seen so far, kSolo.com is living up to its promises. Rating, feedback, and top performers What fun would karaoke be if performers couldn't get feedback from others? Or would you rather not make your performance public? kSolo.com caters to shy folks who don't want to know what others think of their performances as well as competitive diva types. After you record a song, you can make it publicly available to receive feedback and/or ratings from listeners around the world or you can make it private so that only you can hear your performance. You can also make a song available for feedback but not ratings and vice versa. Songs are rated on a scale of 1 to 10 stars. kSolo.com ranks the top performers and gives the top ten a special spot on its home page; as far as I know, that's the only prize for being a star on kSolo.com. For a couple of weeks, I was even in the top ten performers! The ratings system is another area where I think kSolo.com could use some work. For one thing, the ratings are all done anonymously and can be submitted by anyone. Those who are in the top ten are given a prominent spot on the home page, so its easy for users to purposely downrate in order to knock people out of their spots. I know of one user who is consistently in the top five performers and who could easily be a professional singer that gets ridiculously low scores from jealous folks who want to knock her out of contention. I've been a victim of this practice myself, such that I've actually made most of my songs unrateable. It's no fun to work really hard at recording a new song only to have some jerk give you a rating of .5 just out of spite. I'd much rather have feedback than a score anyway. I wish kSolo.com would either make the scores visible only to the account holder or make the identities of the raters known like Epinions does (as of October, ratings are no longer hidden). It does no good to erase and re-record songs, either. For some reason, kSolo.com has made it so that if you try to re-record a song, you're still stuck with the ratings you got before you erased. I don't like this aspect of kSolo.com, because quite a few of my songs that were originally given a good score got knocked down by mean spirited trolls. I'd like to be able to re-record songs and start with a fresh score and am hoping that it will soon be possible to do that (as of October, songs can be erased and scored from scratch). The community If you happen to find people on kSolo.com whose performances you consistently admire, you can mark those people as favorites. Then, whenever they record new songs, you will be able to easily access their work. I haven't yet used this feature, but I think it's pretty cool. There are some truly talented people on kSolo.com who are a pleasure to listen to... and of course, like any other karaoke outlet, there are some folks on there whom you'd hope wouldn't quit their day jobs. kSolo.com does not yet have a user's forum, which I think is a real pity. A group of us on the site did form a Yahoo Group and that's allowed us to get to know each other, but I think it would be very helpful for kSolo.com to offer a forum so that users can connect with each other and customer service more easily. At this point, the only way for users to get to know each other via the kSolo.com Web site is through leaving feedback on songs. Unfortunately, users can't answer feedback left on their songs, that makes it tough when people want to connect. (UPDATE 10/17/05- kSolo now allows users to answer their feedback.) One time, someone asked me what kind of microphone I use. I couldn't tell him because there was no way to do it. The folks I've gotten to know on the Yahoo Group are all very friendly and supportive, but they only represent a few of the users on kSolo.com. I'm hoping that the service will soon include a forum for all users. Customer service I've sent a few emails to customer service and found them to be very prompt and friendly in their communications with me. As a matter of fact, I recently sent a long email to them about some changes I'd like to see made on kSolo.com and customer service actually thanked me profusely. They also thanked me when I asked them to provide a logo so that kSolo.com could be added to the Epinions database and I could tell the world about their service. kSolo.com's customer service really seems to encourage feedback from users and that's a definite strength. At this point, kSolo.com does not have a toll-free telephone number. I've only communicated with them by email and so far that's worked out fine. Bear in mind, though, that if you should need to call kSolo.com, you will have to do it on your own dime. I imagine that once this service gets going, a toll free phone number will be forthcoming. *UPDATE* As of today, September 22, 2005, kSolo.com DOES have a toll free customer service number-- 1-877-GokSolo or, for those who are challenged by dialing by letters, 1-877-465-7656. Other cool stuff kSolo.com allows users to make musical greetings for friends and family. If you want to email a couple of songs to a friend or two, you can record any song in the kSolo.com, pick out a corresponding picture, and write a brief personal message. Just to try out this feature, I made a musical greeting for my husband, Bill. He got it with no problem. If, like I do, you have your own Web site, you can make your recorded songs available to visitors to your site. kSolo.com offers HTML coding that can be cut and pasted onto your website. Visitors click on the recorded songs they want to hear and are taken to the kSolo.com site. What are you waiting for? I've really enjoyed being a part of the kSolo.com community. It's not quite the same as singing live for a rowdy group in a bar, but I find that I can work on my technique and satisfy my addiction for hamming it up at the same time. As people catch on to kSolo.com and the service grows, I expect that I'll have even more fun! If you like to sing karaoke, I encourage you to drop by kSolo.com and give it a whirl! Web site: http://www.kSolo.com Recommended: Yes

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