Any LaserKaraoke fans out there? I was part of the LaserKaraoke scene when it hit the USA in the early 90s. Always looking to share stories, talk about the format.

Has anyone figured out an easy way to dump tracklists from the LDDB for your owned discs? I started contributing box art, tracklists as I look to catalog the large collection I picked up last year - hoping to be able to dump a list of songs with disc "locations" for easy retrieval and reference.

Thanks! Look forward to contributing more as I go through my discs.

actually, LaserKaraoke players were available to the U.S. market as far back as late-1988, in the form of the 3030/99S chassis-based CLD-V190;

I misspoke. I'm actually putting together a documentary on the subject (amazing how few artifacts of media are available from that era) -- I was in Orlando, Florida in 1988/89 and that's when Babe's Entertainment flew to Japan and started working to bring karaoke to the masses. I actually performed in one of his first big locations there.

I remember talking to Babe himself about it and he said he was sort of the 'east coast' distributor and there was someone doing something similar in L.A. but all of this is damn hard to dig up info on.

These LaserKaraoke machines are friggin' amazing pieces of hardware from a DSP point of view. They produce a very distinctive sound. Sigh. Such memories.

I’ve never been into ‘oke and somehow don’t own a single disc but I’m interested in the subject for sure.

Karaoke itself is unremarkable (IMHO). LaserKaraoke has some really neat nuggets in its history!

Sounds great, look forward to seeing the documentary, I had a few but someone else has them in their collection now

Thx again,

I'm looking forward to it too ... I get bursts of energy to work on it, then I realize how much work something like this is .. can't get "stock" royalty free footage or find endless YT videos to reuse-with-credit.

It is essentially a three act thing; the history of karaoke (which IS interesting), the history of LaserKaraoke (of which I was really lucky to be part of in those early days) and finally, a breakdown and look at these incredible DSP-backed karaoke LD players that are honestly still amazing TODAY with what they can do in real time.

I got the first two acts produced. Just need to do the hands on stuff (which is the most fun anyway).

It does seem that a lot of markets where laserdisc otherwise failed to make an appearance on a consumer level still offered professional laserkaraoke to establishments.

I don't actually ever remember seeing one, but then, I also didn't also tour a lot of bars when I was pint-sized.

No but for some reason there is alot of Karaoke players here in NZ.
Guess they got sold off here cheap at some stage.

Definitely haven't been into "Laserkaraoke" as long as you have, but I do enjoy it a bit.

There was a karaoke bar near where I used to live in NJ, called "Cherries" and they had one of those massive multi-tower LD changers and a phonebook sized list of songs to choose from (including Japanese artists and songs since it was also a Japanese restaurant.) Had a lot of fun nights there with friends and one of my jobs had our Christmas party there one year. They closed up in the early 00s. I should have inquired about what they were doing with their large amount of karaoke LDs and/or equipment, but it never came across my mind, nor did I have a whole lot of money at the time to blow on anything like that.

Some 15 years or so ago, I decided to start getting karaoke LDs and then a dedicated karaoke player so I can bring it by when my friends would have large gatherings and we could belt out tunes and what not. I probably hauled all the LDs and CD+Gs out to friends' places about 30 times or so and many hours of drunken fun was had. I only have like one really funny instance where I have all my karaoke LDs and CD+Gs cataloged in a Microsoft Access database and print out 2 lists of songs alphabetized one by song title and one by artist (along with what disc it's on and the track/chapter number.) Hardly ever did any of my friends check to see what disc it is actually on.

So one time this one female friend asks for "Somewhere Out There" from the movie An American Tail and asks if I'd sing it with her (since it's a duet.) I oblige but fail to tell her that this particular song is on the Playboy Karaoke Vol 1 LD that I have. So we start and there's this naked female in the background of us singing this song from a family movie and she's immediately like "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!!?" while everyone else is laughing their butts off.

I act completely non-plussed and say "what's wrong? Just sing the song!" and start singing my part. She eventually starts laughing too and singing, but keeps cracking up from time to time when there's a close up of the woman's b**bs or butt for no good reason other to titillate (which when you think about it, how does that make any sense on a karaoke LD?!?!?)