First you must decide what type of media you will be using. The karaoke CDG disc system is the most widely used system at this time although this may not be the case in the near future. More and more professionals are switching to the compressed file or "digital" format (mainly the MP3+G) that is stored on a laptop computer hard drive and played with a software "hosting" program.
What are some of the digital karaoke advantages?
One leading provider of digital karaoke software is MTU. They have been producing high quality products for many years. Their Hoster karaoke hosting software is a widely used and user friendly program. This software includes all importing tools, CD+G Disc playback and ripping tools, video playback, songbook creator, and many more features. This same company also offers karaoke ready laptop computers. The basic karaoke system components.
Karaoke CDG Player Your player should be a trusted name brand, with a good track record, that has the features that you will need and not a lot of features that you will never use. It should have a digital key control, a single play feature, and quick and easy song number selection. You don't need any special voice effects or built in graphic displays and games. A good selection of players can be found here. Mixer / Amp Forget about the huge mixing boards with forty sliders, twenty knobs, and half a dozen VU meters. These are totally unnecessary for a karaoke system. What you need is a good quality mixer amp that has separate channel controls, a seven or nine band graphic equalizer, and enough power to drive your speakers. There are countless numbers of these amps around produced by companies like Behringer, Fender, Mackie, Peavey, Samson, and others. A good selection of amps can be found here Speakers Your speakers are the number one factor in creating a good sounding system. You can have the best amp, the best player, the highest quality disc, and sound terrible with the wrong speakers. You should not even consider any speaker that has less than a 15 inch woofer. You may think they sound great when you listen to them in the store but when you crank them up in a large crowded room you will wonder "what happened to the bass?". Not all speakers, even some very high quality ones, sound good with karaoke. Speakers that might sound great when cranking out DJ music may not sound so great once someone sings through them. My personal favorites for karaoke are JBL, Peavey, and SoundTech. A good selection of speakers can be found here Speakers Stands Speaker stands have come a long way since I bought my first set. They were constructed of tubular steel and cast iron. Heavy and a nuisance to set up. Today they are constructed of aluminum, fiberglass, or a combination of the two. Much lighter and very easy to set up. Look for a good brand name or one that is recommended by your speaker's manufacturer. Cordless Microphones These are a must for any professional karaoke system. Not because they have a better sound quality than quality wired mics (they normally don't), but you just can't have the wires strung around. There are many quality brands of wireless mics to choose from. A survey I once ran concluded that the Shure mic with the SM58 head was the overwhelming choice of the KJ's that responded. I have always been a fan of the AKG wireless mics. A good selection of wireless microphones can be found here RF Converter Nearly all karaoke players output the graphics as a raw video signal. To display the lyrics on a standard color television screen you need to convert the signal to VHF. An RF converter will do this. You run a single RCA cable from the player to the converter and then run a standard tv cable from the converter to the tv. These converters can be purchased for around 30 dollars from your local Radio Shack. Note: Some newer televisions have a video input provided in which case you would not need the converter. 19" Color TV A 19 inch tv seems to be the standard for a mobile karaoke system. It must be a color set in order to view the highlighting of the lyrics. A smaller screen makes it difficult to read the lyrics at any distance and a larger one is just to much trouble to haul around set up. Any 19" color tv will do. You should be able to pick up a cheap one in the classified ads of a newspaper. Component Rack Building your system from various components means that you will need a custom component rack. You can purchase a custom rack setup from your local music supply store or you can build one yourself. The standard setup, as I'm sure you've seen many times, is the mixer amp setting on a table covered by a rack system which is basically a shelf for the player and the tv setting on the top of the rack (example here). Normally the cordless mic receivers are placed on top of the tv. This makes for a compact setup that does not require a lot of space. You can easily construct this rack yourself out of 12 inch wide shelving boards for much less than the price of a commercial one. Disc Storage System You must have an adequate storage system for your CDG's that allows you to easily find and access your discs. While performing a show you do not want to be fumbling around trying to locate a certain disc. There are basically three types of disc storage used by karaoke KJ's. CD Rack - By far the fastest system, it is also the most compact. A little expensive but definitely worth the investment. TomBox - Keeps your discs free of dust and appears to keep scratches to a minimum. The down side to this system is the slow access to the discs. You must rotate the selector to the disc number and eject the disc. This does not allow you to have the next disc on standby as you can with the CD Rack system. Furthermore, these units are not stackable and occupy a considerable amount of space. I have received reports that you can easily snap a disc in half if it is not placed completely back inside it's slot and you move the selector. CD Wallet - The cheapest storage system and also the most harmful to your discs. Removing and replacing the discs in the sleeves causes unavoidable scratches which is the major cause of disc skipping and scrambled graphics. These also take up a considerable amount of space. Various Cables and Accessories You need some type of container for storing your cables and other accessories. A soft sided suit case or even a heavy duty gym bag works well. Here is a minimal list of what you will need.
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