Karaoke ‘systems’

[Sport_Turismo_GTS]

Not sure if this is the best forum for this…

My wife is in a choir and enjoys singing with her friends, so I’m thinking about a Karaoke ‘system’ for her birthday.

We have a PS5 so I’m aware there are games like Singstar available. We also have a decent music set up with an Amp and speakers plus Spotify etc, so not sure if there is something that will link a Mac / iPad (for the lyrics) with Spotify and an amp and microphone?

Or whether I need to get her something like this:
https://vocal-star.com/product/vocal-star-vs-800-h...

Any suggestions - would pay more if there is a better solution.

[Miserablegit]

I’d just get singstar or rock band or one of the many similar alternatives which allow download of additional tracks (at extra cost) and run the ps5 through the hifi (which I presume you are doing already)
Might as well use the ps5 you have rather than pay more for an additional no-name disc player.

[TEKNOPUG]

Spotify has a Karaoke mode. If your TV doesn't have Spotify, get a Firestick or similar and connect TV to amp.

[LuS1fer]

Only a proper, professional karaoke system sounds any good and even then, you need an expensive microphone.

You need the volume and the echo or you might just as well sing in the shower.

I sing karaoke 3 nights a week and don't have a home system for that reason.

[OutInTheShed]

My sister is in quite a serious choir.
An ipad, a small semi-decent pair of cordless speakers and a piano app are quite useful apparently.
I think the ipad is used for sheet music as well as recording and playback.

[TEKNOPUG]

LuS1fer said:

Only a proper, professional karaoke system sounds any good and even then, you need an expensive microphone.

You need the volume and the echo or you might just as well sing in the shower.

I sing karaoke 3 nights a week and don't have a home system for that reason.

You don't need a microphone if you are singing in your living room. Unless you have the volume cranked right up.

[OutInTheShed]

TEKNOPUG said:

You don't need a microphone if you are singing in your living room. Unless you have the volume cranked right up.

Depends what you want to do!
Since covid, a lot of these choir types are doing complex stuff like zoom concerts and interactive rehearsals. I wouldn't go randomly buying stuff without talking to the users. It's not my thing but I'm aware there's a lot of 'stuff' out there.

If you want to spend a few quid on it, maybe consider paying a person to contribute some coaching or activity rather than buying a hardware squawk box?

[Lucid_AV]

Sport_Turismo_GTS said:

Not sure if this is the best forum for this…

My wife is in a choir and enjoys singing with her friends, so I’m thinking about a Karaoke ‘system’ for her birthday.

We have a PS5 so I’m aware there are games like Singstar available. We also have a decent music set up with an Amp and speakers plus Spotify etc, so not sure if there is something that will link a Mac / iPad (for the lyrics) with Spotify and an amp and microphone?

Or whether I need to get her something like this:
https://vocal-star.com/product/vocal-star-vs-800-h...

Any suggestions - would pay more if there is a better solution.

I wouldn't put a karaoke system through a decent Hi-Fi. Here's what happened to a customer's speakers after the teenagers were left alone and had a house party.



It wasn't the volume that killed the speaker. It was the distortion. The kids then set about trying to hide the damage of the farting speaker by ripping out the rest of the cone. They then put the grille cover back on to hide the evidence.

Get a portable PA speaker. They're rugged enough to take the abuse and survive.

For mics, the VW Golf of vocal mics is the Shure SM58. This thing has been kicking around since the mid '60s. It has a warm tone but can get a little bassy if held too close to the lips. A bit of EQ can cure that though. They can be had for around £100-£110.

Useful alternatives: AKG D5 (£80), Sennheiser E835S (S for the On/Off switch. Around the £75~£85 mark. The bargain basement mic is the Behringer XM8500 at just £20 a pop. All metal, well built, and sounds far better than most other mics under £60. If you buy just one good mic, then have a couple for 'party time', these are the boys. These are all dynamic mics, that means no batteries required, and the mics are pretty good at rejecting background noise.

If you want to go wireless then that's possible, but the mics will be more prone to feedback and you'll be paying a chunk for the wireless tech rather than sound quality.

You'll need a mic mixer with some digital effects. The chorus effect is useful.

The make or break for karaoke is the song book. The games for consoles are just that; games, with just a few songs. They focus more on game play. You'll get bored of that very quickly. Proper karaoke software for a PC or Mac can run with a song book in file format. The most popular formats are MP3+G (music + lyrics onscreen) and MP4 (either music + lyrics or video + lyrics). Have a look at selectatrack.co.uk to get an idea of the range of songs available. Production by Sunfly is pretty good, so that's a fairly safe bet. Other music production houses might not be so good, but have a look and listen anyway

You'll need a player of some description. TBH, a CD/DVD player karaoke machines are old hat, and the pauses between loading up discs kind of kills the atmosphere unless you're good at DJing and can mix from karaoke to normal music and back.

Software players are better, but the best results I've had for customers is with some computer software called Sax-n-Dotty. This will let you play music MP3 files between singers, create a queue of singers and their songs, manage that list when they change their mind or swap their songs, key change by +/- 12 steps, display lyrics on a separate monitor, and there's a comprehensive song database search feature so that when you have one song by several artists you can find the right version. You can run a seamless show with this. The software runs on PC only. A license is a one-off fee of £30.