If you are considering starting a karaoke business and you think of building a karaoke system you first need to decide which type of media you will be using. The most popular system today is the karaoke CDG disc system although it seems to loose more and more field as the professionals are slowly switching to the compressed file or digital format (mainly the MP3+G) stored on laptops and played with a software hosting programs. There are quite a few advantages of using a digital karaoke machine, such as no discs to storage, no discs loading into player, no more dirty or damaged discs that skip during the show, easy song selection by using the hosting software search function, new songs can be purchased individually giving you more control over selection, and purchased songs can be downloaded from the Internet saving time and shipping costs.
Lead providers of digital karaoke software have been struggling to produce high quality products for many years and their karaoke hosting software is incredibly user friendly. Generally, the karaoke system software includes all importing tools, CD+G Disc playback and ripping tools, video playback, songbook creator, and many more interesting features.
The basic karaoke machine components are the following:
Karaoke CDG Player – should be a trusted name brand, with a good track record, that has features that you need not too many that you will never use. Digital key control is recommended with a single play feature, and quick and easy song number selection.
Mixer / Amp - you need a good quality mixer amp with separate channel controls, a seven or nine band graphic equalizer, and enough power to drive your speakers. There are countless numbers of these amps for karaoke systems and the best producing companies are Behringer, Fender, Mackie, Peavey, Samson, and others.
Speakers - are the number one factor in creating a good karaoke machine. Don’t use speakers with less than a 15 inch woofer. Not all speakers sound good with karaoke and that is why you need to test them before buying. There is quite a good selection of speakers on the market. Also, you will need speakers’ stands preferably made of aluminum, fiberglass, or a combination of the two as they are much lighter and very easy to set up
Cordless Microphones - are a must for a professional karaoke system because they are more fun and give you the liberty to move. Choose a good production brand as the selection of wireless microphones is rather large.
RF Converter - most karaoke players output the graphics as raw video signals and you need to convert the signal to VHF in order to display the lyrics. You need to run a single RCA cable from the player to the converter and then run a standard TV cable from the converter to the TV.
Color TV – is a must in order to distinguish the highlighting of the lyrics. A 19” TV is recommended as a smaller screen makes it difficult to read the lyrics at any distance and a larger one is just too much trouble.
You will also need component racks and disc storage systems that will allow you to better organize your system and respectively allows you to easily find and access your discs. When performing a show you want your system to be as efficient as possible without you getting a headache while trying to locate a certain disc.
When trying to build a karaoke machine you need to take into consideration several thing, such as the type of karaoke CDG player or .mp3 Digital karaoke machine, microphone, speakers, karaoke mixer, amplifier, and speaker cables you are using in order to come up with the best karaoke system as possible.