NextUpKara
NextUpKara

Getting a microphone into the room

You already have the songs and the screen. The only question left is how a voice gets into whatever makes sound — and in most rooms that is cheaper than people expect.

If the room has a TV, a soundbar or a PA

This is most rooms, and the answer is about $90: a karaoke mixer — a small box with two wireless microphones that sits between your laptop and whatever already makes sound.

It mixes the microphones into the music and sends the lot onward. Nothing to install, no separate amplifier, and the microphones are in the box. Look for two microphone inputs, an aux in and an aux out, and an echo control — a little echo is the difference between somebody being willing to sing twice and not.

Example: the Rybozen karaoke mixer — two UHF wireless microphones included, two wired microphone inputs, HDMI and 3.5 mm in and out. We have not tested it and get nothing if you buy one.

It makes no sound by itself. It is a mixer, not a speaker — it has to feed a TV, a soundbar or a PA. If the room genuinely has nothing that makes noise, see below.

How to wire it, so it works first time

There are clever ways involving HDMI and ARC. Use the boring one; it cannot go wrong:

  1. Laptop → TV by HDMI. Video on the screen, as usual.
  2. Laptop headphone socket → mixer AUX IN, by cable. That is the music.
  3. Microphones → mixer. Wireless ones just need their receiver plugged in.
  4. Mixer AUX OUT → the speaker, soundbar or PA. That is everything, mixed.
  5. Mute the TV, so the music is only coming from one place.

A 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm cable and a 3.5 mm to RCA cable cover every room you will meet. About eight dollars each. Buy long ones.

Two delays that will ruin a night, and both are a cable

Do not send the music over Bluetooth

Nearly everything in this category advertises Bluetooth, and Bluetooth delays audio by a tenth to a fifth of a second. You would never notice that playing music. You will absolutely notice it when the words on the screen are ahead of the backing track, because following the words is the entire job. Run a cable.

Test your own voice through the TV's speakers

If the only thing making sound is the television, the microphones are going through the TV's audio processing, and televisions add their own delay. Music and words stay in step with each other — but you hear yourself a fraction of a second late, which is far harder to sing through than it sounds.

Worth thirty seconds before anybody else arrives: hold a microphone and say something short and percussive — "check, check" — and listen for whether it comes back a beat late. Talking will tell you; singing along to a track will not, because you have the music to hide behind.

If it is late, try this first: put the television in Game Mode. It exists to cut the processing between the input and the screen, and it cuts the audio processing with it. That alone fixes most of them. If it does not, run the mixer into a speaker or a soundbar instead of through the TV and the problem is gone entirely.

If the room has nothing at all

Then you want a powered PA speaker with a built-in mixer — roughly $150–250. "Powered" means the amplifier is inside: microphones plug into the speaker, the laptop plugs into the speaker, done. Over about sixty people, two of them.

Three things decide whether one will work, and they matter more than the brand:

Pyle, Rockville and Gemini all make something that fits, usually with the wireless microphones in the box. Search "portable PA speaker karaoke bluetooth" and judge by the three points above. Prices move, so check before you buy.

What you do not need

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