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Here you can learn how to use your computer as a karaoke machine and home recording studio.
Karaoke Country features tutorials on how to backup, store, rip, burn, record, and play your own karaoke songs all on your home computer!

What is Karaoke?

Karaoke, a Japanese word stems from the words kara (空) which is short for karano, meaning empty, and oke which is short for ōkesutora, meaning orchestra. The words together make a contraction literally meaning empty orchestra.

There are many forms of Karaoke but it comes down to two basics; The Audio, or song, and the lyrics. As you can imagine, there are many ways to produce audio and as many ways to display lyrics. The way they are combined determines the type of karaoke experience you will get.

Karaoke playback devices

The CDG 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.

Additionally, there is software for Windows, Pocket PC, Linux, and Macintosh PCs 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 CDG 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.

CDG, DVD, VCD and microphone-based players are most popular for home use. Due to song selection and quality of recordings, CDG is the most popular format for English. It's also important to note that CDG has limited graphical capabilities, whereas VCD and DVD usually have a moving picture or video background. VCD and DVD are the most common format for Asian singers due to music availability and largely due to the moving picture video background.

Karaoke on Computers and the Internet

Starting in the early 2000's, software has been released for hosting karaoke shows, and playing karaoke songs on a personal computer. Instead of having to carry around hundreds of
CDG'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 audiences from all around the world.

Various online karaoke websites provide the opportunity for karaoke enthusiasts to participate and share in a worldwide karaoke community. Users can create personal, online karaoke profiles, which store their individual recordings and even allow video syncing. Some examples of free sites are the independent singsnap.com, Yahoo's bix.com, Electronic Arts' singshot.com and Fox Interactive's ksolo.com.

As of right now (2007), companies such as Sound Choice and Stellar Records are taking law actions against computer run karaoke systems. They say it is against fair use laws and that "fair use" does not apply to commercial use. They also say that format shifting for any use is also against "fair use" laws. We will be keeping a close eye on that!

Follow the links on the left to get started with computer karaoke.

A Word Of Caution!
This web site is for information purposes only. How you use this information is your responsibility.
Please check your localities copyright laws concerning the legality of copying karaoke discs and other media.