Hey r/karaoke, I'm Paul (u/pkircher). I'm a KJ in the Philly area and I build Auto-KJ. The mods asked creators to make their one post count, so everything's in here.
Disclosure
- I built Auto-KJ and I sell it. It's a supported commercial product, not open source.
- The Free version is a real free version, not a timed demo.
What it's for
All the stuff hosts end up arguing about at 11pm: "you skipped me," the singer with five songs queued, duets eating two turns, walk-ins, the same song twice in half an hour, and bar Wi-Fi dying mid-show.
Watch one full night (5 min): https://auto-kj.com/blog/one-karaoke-night-paul-from-philly.html
It follows one night from pre-show setup through singer requests, social features, rotation, Break-Wave and end-of-night analytics.
Quick version (60-second demo): https://auto-kj.com/blog/auto-kj-60-second-demo.html
The features
Anything marked (FV) needs the Full version. Everything else is in Free too.
Rotation tab: the Fairness Engine
This is where you run the show. The line is on the left: #1 is on the mic, #2 is on deck, and a group shares one numbered turn. On the right you get the selected singer's Active Queue, History and Favorites, plus song search and the player.
Every singer gets one seat per round, and extra songs wait behind it. Late arrivals take the first open seat that doesn't push anyone back. You decide how newcomers join: names move (to the end of the line), or numbers move (paper-sheet style, at the end of the current lap). There's also an optional new-to-returning ratio (1:1, 2:1, or favoring returning singers) that survives reloads.
Duets, trios and four-person groups use the group button: one singer per mic, an optional band name, and the song only becomes ready when it reaches the top of every member's queue. Then it plays as one turn. Skips close the gap, pauses don't take the stage, and changing a song keeps the singer's seat.
You can still override anything. Drag singers around, Mark as now, Mark as on deck, Play now, pause a singer, or ban someone for the night. Key and tempo changes are saved per singer and per song, so next time it's set the way they like it. Picking an alternate version can become the default for future requests. Auto-remove empty singers tidies the line near closing while keeping everyone's identity and history. Show applause and Show singer photos are toggles.
The singer app (singer.auto-kj.com) (FV)
Singers don't install anything. They scan the QR on your screens, or go to singer.auto-kj.com in a phone browser, pick a stage name, and they're in. The first phone to claim a name keeps it all night, and names reserved by tonight's DJ are protected. They can join as a guest or make a free account (display name, email, password) so it remembers them from show to show.
- Finding your show: the join screen asks for the phone's location and lists gigs within 50 miles, marked LIVE NOW or UPCOMING. Tap a live one to join, or tap an upcoming one to check in early and browse that show's songbook. Singers can also type the show code, scan the host QR, or join over the venue's local network if the internet is down. If the cloud drops for 15 seconds, the phone offers to rejoin on the venue Wi-Fi. Within 100 m of the venue, a "Check in, you're at the venue" button shows up.
- Browse Before You Go: with a venue poster QR or venue code, anyone can search your song list with no login and no live show, then tap "Find this show." You switch this on in Settings.
- Search and requests: singers search the songbook you actually have, and songs already taken tonight are greyed out. They pick 1 to 4 people for the mic and type in the other names, or choose a friend, who gets a yes/no invite. The song doesn't enter the line until the friend says yes. If a song isn't in your book, there's an "Ask the DJ to buy it" form with an optional tip. If requests are closed, songs go to their Setlist and can be sent in with one tap when you reopen.
- Place in line: Home shows their spot as one big number. Queue shows the whole line ("#5, 4 singers ahead, ~12 min wait") plus their own songs, which they can reorder, remove, or change the lineup on. There's a Pause Me / Unpause Me button for when they step out. The opt-in "Notify me when I'm on deck" alert buzzes at #2 and again at #1. With the app closed, that needs a signed-in cloud show, and on iPhone the app has to be added to the Home Screen. On LAN shows, alerts only show while the app is open.
- Applause: everyone gets ten 👏 taps per song for whoever's on the mic. The crowd screen counts them live, and they go toward the singer's lifetime applause.
- History and Favorites: for signed-in singers, every song they've sung through Auto-KJ is saved with times sung, total and average applause, and the last venue and date. One tap puts it back in tonight's line or adds it to favorites. Songs not in tonight's catalog get flagged. Starring a song saves it to the singer's account, not just that phone, and you can see what singers saved in your Analytics.
- Friends and Duet Matches: singers add each other by scanning a friend QR or typing a code. Friends can see each other's profile, history and favorites, and "Suggest" a song to a friend. Duet Matches compares two friends' histories and lists songs they've each completed on their own. That's shared repertoire, not a voice-compatibility score. Tap Invite and the friend gets a duet invite for that song, if it's in tonight's library. Bands let 2 to 4 friends save a group with a name and pick a group song together.
- Achievements: 29 badges in Bronze, Silver and Gold tiers, each with a progress bar. First Blood is your first-ever performance. Early Bird is checking in before the first completed song, and Closer is singing the last song of the night. Then there's Annoy the KJ, the tongue-in-cheek badge only the host can hand out. The booth announces "X has officially Annoyed the KJ." Singers can wear a favorite badge next to their name on the queue and rotation screen.
- Profile: singers can upload a photo so the room can put faces to names. Photos can show on your rotation TV and the between-song screen, and you control display and moderation. They also get an a.k.a. name, a bio, and fun fields like favorite solo and duet song, vocal range, booth drink and signature mic move. Singers can delete their own profile.
- Talking to the host: "Message the Karaoke Host / DJ" lands in your DJ Inbox. "Tip the Host" shows your Venmo, PayPal, Cash App or custom link, and your own tip message can show on the queue screen.
- No phone? A shared tablet kiosk lets people pick a song, say how many are singing and type the names (FV). You can also add walk-ins at the booth. Everybody ends up in the same line.
Inbox tab (FV)
Phone and kiosk requests land here as cards. Review each one (singer name, song, artist, every name on a group card, which file version), or turn on Auto-Approve so clean requests go straight into the rotation using your preferred version. Either way, duplicates, songs on the gig's blocked list and reserved DJ names still get refused. Assign to moves a request to the singer it was really meant for, and near the end of the night you can close online requests without touching anything already queued.
Two other kinds of cards need your call. Account claims are when a signed-in singer claims a guest name, which transfers their songs and spot. Departure alerts are when a phone has been more than 200 m from the venue for 45+ minutes. The 💬 DJ Inbox in the header holds singer conversations, tip amounts and "buy this song" requests.
Preview: four views at once (FV)
On a paid plan, the Rotation tab has a preview built in. Set up a separate headphone cue output in Settings and you can watch the graphics and hear a karaoke track in your headphones while a singer is on stage. That's four separate views: host controls, singer lyrics, the rotation board, and your private preview. I haven't found another karaoke host with this four-view setup. It's handy for checking the next song's version and key before it's up.
The same preview works in Library (audition alternate versions, with its own key slider), in Rotation (preview any search result), and in Ghost-Trax (listen to a new track before it goes into your library). If the cue device is off, or shares an output with karaoke or Break-Wave, Auto-KJ tells you the preview is silent instead of blasting it into the room. Headphone cue on the Break-Wave mixer is free.
Ghost-Trax: make your own karaoke tracks
Ghost-Trax is a tab in the desktop app, between Library and Analytics, and it talks to the ghost-trax.com service. You hand it a song file you have the rights to use, and you get back an instrumental, word-synced CDG lyrics, and the original vocal as a separate guide stem.
Sign in with a Ghost-Trax account (or paste an API key), pick one file or a batch, check the artist and title, and set options per song: split lead and backing vocals, a high-quality separation pass, published lyrics when they exist, and an intro title screen (stock or your own artwork). The queue keeps running while you work in other tabs, and it picks back up if the app restarts. Each job shows where it is: queued, separating, transcribing, rendering. Some tracks stop at "ready to review" so you can fix the title screen or any wrong lyric words before the final render.
Finished tracks go to a holding folder outside your library, so singers can't request them yet. Preview one privately, and only add it when you like it. The editing studio lets you download the karaoke ZIP, the video, and separate instrumental and vocal stems (plus a harmony stem for duet-mode tracks). You can restyle the title screen, lyric colors, font, logo and background, and fix timing in the Waveform Lyric Timing Studio: drag words, move start and end handles, add a missing word at the playhead, nudge by hundredths of a second, then Save & Re-render CDG (or CDG and video).
- The ghost slider: the 👻 slider in the player brings the original vocal back in under the singer, as much or as little as they need. It only works on Ghost-Trax songs, since it needs that guide stem.
- Your rights, your responsibility: Auto-KJ and Ghost-Trax don't ship with a licensed song catalog. You supply the audio, and you're responsible for having the rights to use it and to play the results in public. The software license isn't a mechanical license, a public-performance license, or permission to copy someone else's recordings. Use rights-cleared audio.
- Price: Ghost-Trax credits are optional and separate, $2 per song. Cancel an active job and you get the credit back.
Library tab (FV)
Point it at your existing folders: MP3+G/CDG ZIP and video karaoke (MP4, MKV, AVI). A live folder watcher picks up new files, and Relink Folder handles a library that moved to another drive without a full rescan. Brand Priority Order lets you rank manufacturers so your preferred copy is the default when you own several, and Make Default overrides that for one song. Edit Song Details fixes artist, title and brand and can rename the file to match, and Fix Unparsed Songs suggests a guess for messy filenames.
The cleanup tools sort out years of mess: Loose File Cleanup zips stray MP3+CDG pairs (with a preview first), Missing Files removes dead entries, Run Audit checks every ZIP for the expected audio and lyrics, Redundant Copies finds extra copies of the same pressing, and the duplicate-spelling tools merge "AC/DC" vs "ACDC"-type messes after you confirm. Nothing gets deleted. Quarantine moves files to a folder next to your library, and "remove from catalog" only removes the database row. When it's clean, Export Songbook CSV.
Analytics tab
Tonight's proof sheet shows completed songs, queued requests, completion rate, singers (active and paused), average wait, peak hour, applause, top singers (with group participation), top songs, hourly activity and a performance log. You can Copy CSV, Copy Scoped CSV (with date, gig and summary metrics) or Print Report.
History and Venue Reports covers every past show, including imported histories. Pick one night or all time from a 30-night chart, see top songs, artists and singers, and use Most sung to see who sang what. Saved favorites shows which songs singers starred in the phone app, ranked by how many people saved them, which helps when you're deciding what to buy next. To hand something to the venue, export a night-and-gig report as a CSV or a self-contained printable HTML file.
Gigs tab
Gigs is where your venues and schedules live, and where you pick tonight's show. Add a venue with its street address and the server geocodes it, so your show appears on singers' nearby-gigs map. Create one-night, weekly or monthly gigs. Use for this show switches gigs and applies that gig's blocked-song list without clearing your rotation. Instant gig starts a gig for the next six hours in one button, and singers find it by location or the show code. Switch to LAN only keeps singers on the venue network with a local QR.
On the Full version, if the venue internet drops mid-show, Auto-KJ fails over to a travel-router LAN with the same rotation rules and local requests, and the music doesn't stop (FV).
Break-Wave tab
Break-Wave is a full two-deck DJ mixer for the music between singers, so you don't need a second DJ app. Each deck has a full waveform, BPM and Camelot key analysis, keylock, a pitch fader, nudge, tap-tempo beatgrid fixes and four cue pads. The mixer has EQ with kills, a crossfader with curve and AutoFade, and headphone cue on its own output.
Automix (FV) reorders your break playlist for smooth transitions (optionally avoiding the same artist back to back) and runs it hands-free. End of Song Action can roll straight into the break playlist (FV). The performance hub adds a 12-pad soundboard, a 16-step drum sequencer, a mic looper (1 to 8 bars), and a Pro FX Rack per deck (filter, echo/delay, reverb, flanger), with routing to the main speakers, your headphones, both, or mute. Sync and track identification (AcoustID fingerprinting of your break library) need a paid plan.
Settings and looks
Settings has seven groups: Show night, Rotation and playback, Singers, DJ and host, Audio and hardware, Appearance, and Library, data and help. First-time path: activate your license or start the 60-day trial, pick your DJ profile, set up audio and screens, choose the show in Gigs, review your singer rules, and run the Pre-show Check, which puts library, missing files, audio outputs, singer connections and screens on one checklist with buttons that jump to each fix. Anything that could disrupt a live show (changing the network, restoring a backup, installing an update) warns you and asks first.
- Screens: Screen Two is lyrics, with an On Deck banner and upcoming-singer list. Screen Three is the rotation board, with rolling messages. You can pair a phone as a private remote (FV).
- Rules: end-of-song action (wait, auto-advance, or break playlist, FV), a warning before interrupting a song, and the Repeat Song Rule (once per night, a cooldown timer, or allowed; the same song can never be queued twice at once). The Group Song Guest Rule decides where duet partners land afterward. You can set max singers per song (1 to 4), per-gig Blocked Songs (hidden from search and refused by every request path), Banned Singers, and a custom on-deck message.
- Rig: multiple DJ profiles with their own tip links and shortcuts, three separate outputs (Karaoke, Break-Wave decks, Headphone Cue), and MIDI controller mapping.
- Data: the show saves continuously, so if you close and reopen, your rotation comes back. Back Up My Data (catalog, live session and preferences, never license keys or logins) on demand or on a schedule. Restore checks the backup before it replaces anything. You can also import past history files.
- Skins: 11 built-in themes (Arcade, Artifact, Broadway, Classic Dark, Haunted House, LCARS, Neon Lounge, Signal, Studio, Unicorn Overdrive, and Word 95, which comes with a familiar paperclip). The Skin Creator & Market has 14 presets: 8 free, and 6 Signature skins at $5 each (Velvet VIP Lounge, Cyber-Grid Tron Edition, Tokyo Midnight Club, Cosmic Laser Bowling, Obsidian Glass Studio and Purple Rain). Test-drive a locked one before buying, and sync unlocked ones across your rigs. Skin Studio lets you build your own or fork a preset, with a built-in WCAG contrast check, and you can export or import skins as JSON. The host window scales from 50% to 250%.
How it stacks up
I compared Auto-KJ against the other host software KJs actually use: catalog-rental apps, one-time-license Windows programs, and free open-source rigs. When something else is the better fit, I'll say so. If you want a ready-made rented catalog, or a one-time Windows license built around CD+G discs, MIDI and YouTube karaoke, those exist and they're good at that job. These are the things I haven't found in the others:
- Four views at once, including a private headphone preview while someone's singing (FV).
- A named Fairness Engine, not just a queue. The others give you a queue, an automatic "who's next," or leave it up to you to keep the list honest.
- A built-in singer web app with no app store and no server to set up (FV). With the others you get a remote queue, an add-on service, or a request server you have to set up yourself.
- LAN failover mid-show when the bar Wi-Fi dies (FV). Elsewhere it's local playback only, and requests are on you.
- Ghost-Trax built in, for $2 a song.
- A two-deck DJ mixer for breaks, so you don't need a second DJ suite.
- A three-screen rig (host, singer lyrics, audience rotation board) as standard, versus a booth plus one singer display.
- Every desktop platform. The one-time-license competition is Windows-only.
- You own your library. With a catalog rental, the songs leave when you cancel. Here, you still own every ZIP.
- A real 60-day Full version trial inside the app: no card, nothing auto-bills. It's not a catalog sampler or an evaluation download. And the Free version stays $0.
Pricing, exactly
- Free version: $0 forever. The full desktop app, the Fairness Engine for singers you enter at the desk, lyrics and rotation screens, break decks, and key/tempo. No phone requests. No account needed to download.
- Full version: $10/month for one live show at a time. Adds phone requests, full library management, LAN failover, kiosk, phone remote, and OpenKJ songbook hosting. The 60-day trial starts inside the app: no card, nothing auto-bills, one trial per account and per computer. Extra shows running at the same time are +$5/mo each (five weekly gigs still count as one seat).
- Lifetime: $500 one-time. The Full version, paid once.
- Ghost-Trax custom tracks: separate and optional, $2 a song.
Platforms: Windows x64 and ARM64, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Linux x64 (AppImage, .deb, .rpm).
Links
Staying on OpenKJ?
I also maintain a free community fork of OpenKJ 3.0.1 with current Windows, macOS and Linux builds: https://github.com/pkircher29/openkj. I make nothing from it, and you don't need Auto-KJ to use it.
Ask me anything, hard questions included. This is my one post, and future updates will go in the weekly Creators Update thread.
Edit: I put together a walkthrough for signing up for the 60-day trial:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY-pfIeXCFU
Written guide and downloads: https://auto-kj.com/blog/60-day-trial-walkthrough.html
A full step-by-step screen recording of the actual signup and activation is coming soon.