Karaoke (Japanese:, from kara, “empty”, and okesutora, “orchestra”) is a form of entertainment where recorded music accompanies an amateur singer who sings along with the accompaniment on microphone. The music is of a well-known song in which the voice of the original singer is absent or reduced in volume. Lyrics are usually also displayed, sometimes including color changes synchronized with the music, on music video to help with the sing-along.

Karaoke has been a popular form of entertainment in East Asia since at least the 1980s, and has since spread to other parts of the world. Karaoke engenders quite a bit of culture specific to its enthusiasts, and this culture, unsurprisingly, varies from country to country. Much of the information in this entry is currently specific to karaoke’s area of origin in the Far East.

Technology

A basic karaoke machine consists of audio input, a means of altering the pitch of the music (not the singer) and an audio output. Some low-end machines attempt to provide vocal suppression so that one can feed regular songs into the machine and suppress the voice of the original singer, however this is not very effective (see below). Most common machines are audio mixers with microphone input built-in with CD+G, Video CD, Laser Disc, or DVD players. CD+G players use a special track called subcode to encode the lyrics and pictures displayed on the screen, while the other formats natively display both audio and video. In some countries, karaoke with video lyrics display capabilities is called KTV.

Most karaoke machines have technology that electronically changes the pitch of music so that amateur singers can sing along to any music source by choosing a key that is appropriate for their vocal range, while maintaining the original tempo of the song. (There were some very old systems that used cassettes, and these changed the pitch by altering playback speed, but none are still on the market, and their commercial use is virtually nonexistent.)

A popular game using karaoke is to randomly type in a number and call up a song, which participants take a turn to try to sing as much as they can. In some machines, this game is pre-programmed and may be limited to a genre so that they cannot call up an obscure national anthem that none of them can sing. This game has come to be called “Kamikaze Karaoke” in some parts of the United States and Canada.

Many low-end entertainment systems (boom boxes etc) have a karaoke mode that attempts to remove the vocal track from general (non-karaoke) audio CDs. This is done by center removal which exploits the fact that in most music the vocals are in the center. This means that the voice, as part of the music, has equal volume on both stereo channels and no phase difference. To get the quasi-karaoke (mono) track the left channel of the original audio is subtracted from the right channel. The crudeness of that approach is reflected in the often poor performance of voice removal. Common effects are hearing the echo of the voice track (due to stereo echo being put on the vocals), and also other instruments that happen to be mixed into the center get removed (snare/bass drum, solo instruments), degrading this approach to hardly more than a gimmick in those devices.

MIDI applications

Some computer programs that serve a similar purpose to the standard karaoke machine have been developed that use MIDI instrumentation to generate the accompaniment rather than a recorded track. This has the advantage of making transposition technically trivial and also shrinks the information needed to provide the accompaniment to the point where it is easy to transfer them across the Internet, even over slow connections. The standard file format used is *.KAR, which is an extension of the standard .MID MIDI disk format, and can be played unaltered by MIDI player software.

Video game

A karaoke game was initially released for the Nintendo Famicom but its limited computing ability made for a short catalog of songs, and therefore reduced replay value. As a result, karaoke games were considered little more than collector’s items until games saw release in the higher-capacity DVD format. Karaoke Revolution, created for the PlayStation 2 by Konami and released in North America in 2003, is a console game in which a single player sings along with on-screen guidance, and receives a score based on his or her pitch, timing, and rhythm. The game soon spawned two more versions, Karaoke Revolution Vol. 2 and Karaoke Revolution Vol. 3. While the original Karaoke Revolution was also eventually released for the Microsoft Xbox console in late 2004, the new online-enabled version included the ability to download additional song packs through the console’s exclusive Xbox Live service.

A similar game, SingStar, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, is particularly popular in the European and Australasian markets. Other similar titles in the rhythm-based game genre include Bemani’s Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Freaks, and Drum Mania.

Karaoke VCD

The takeoff of Video CDs in Southeast Asia is partly due to the cheap but tolerable quality, and partly due to the popularity of karaoke. Many VCD players in Southeast Asia have built-in Karaoke function. If users disable the singer’s voice and leave the music alone, they can play karaoke. In the past, there were only pop-song karaoke VCDs. Nowadays, different types of karaoke VCD are available. Cantonese opera karaoke VCD is now a big hit among the elderly in Hong Kong.

Karaoke on mobile phones

In 2003, several companies started offering a karaoke service on a mobile phone. This is still a budding service and it is unclear whether this service will take root even with all advances in technology. However, today there are some interesting efforts for Mobile Karaoke with an amazing usability and compatibility. A great example can be found at http://www.karaokini.com/ Karaokini, is already sold through Vodafone Live! Greece and Malta with a great success.

Karaoke on computers and internet

Starting in 2003, much software has been released for hosting karaoke shows, and playing karaoke songs on a personal computer. Instead of having to carry around hundreds of CD-G’s or LaserDiscs, a KJ can ‘rip’ their entire library onto a hard drive, and play the songs and lyrics from that.

Additionally, new software permits singers to sing and listen to one another over the Internet with collaborators/audience from all around the world.

Alternative playback devices

The CD+G format of karaoke disc, which contains the lyrics on a specially encoded subcode track, has heretofore required special - and expensive - equipment to play it. Commercial players have come down in price, though, and some unexpected devices (including the Sega Saturn videogame console) can decode the graphics; in fact, karaoke machines, including video and sometimes recording capability, are often popular electronics items for sale in toy stores and electronics stores.

Additionally, there is software for Windows, Pocket PC, Linux, and Macintosh PC’s that can decode and display karaoke song tracks, though usually these must be ripped off of the CD first, and possibly compressed. Recently, Karaoke software was also made available for mobile telephones, mainly in Asian countries.

In addition to CD+G and Software-based Karaoke, microphone-based Karaoke players enjoy popularity mainly in North America and some Asian countries such as the Philippines. Microphone-based Karaoke Players only need to be connected to a TV - and in some cases to a power outlet, in other cases they run on batteries. These devices often sport advanced features, such as pitch correction and special sound effects. Some companies offer Karaoke content for paid download to extend the song library in microphone-based Karaoke systems.

CD+G and Microphone-based Karaoke systems are typically also used at home. Recently, DVD Karaoke disks became the most popular medium for home-Karaoke in North America. This is due to the large amount of DVD Players in US Households which enables consumers to simply play a DVD rather than have to hook up new equipment.

[Excerpts From Wikipedia]