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Creating your own Karaoke system

March 23rd, 2011 1 comment

I like karaoke, my choice of songs are Hindi soundtracks. Over the few months i have been trying to find a DIY solution for a karaoke system. I am always on a shoe string budget, so any thing that will let me do things for cheap (read free) i am all up for it. So this is what i did.

First the hardware:

  • A home audio system
  • Microphone (wireless preferred, i bought this)
  • A simple channel mixer, this is mine
  • Now that you have all the necessary hardware in place, its time to get Karaoke tracks. There are several options you can buy karaoke CDs or use some of the online services like Geetnet, Meragana (huge collection, i would recommend this if you have $). Since i was on a budget i wanted to create my own karaoke tracks. I have invested and built a huge Indian soundtrack collection and also i am not a big fan of having lyrics scrolling before me. I can handle lyrics very well. So after several trial and errors here is a very straight forward process i found to create your karaoke tracks by removing the vocals.

    Removing vocals from audio track

  • Get a copy of Audacity
  • Open the mp3 file of your choice in Audacity
  • Open File

  • First split the track by using the track tools
  • Split Track

  • Select the left track and apply the “invert” effect, from the “Effects” menu.
  • Invert Effect

  • Then use the “mono” feature for both the tracks.
  • Mono

  • Save changes and export to MP3.
  • You will need Lame library to successfully export to MP3. Get Lame library here for both Mac and PC.
  • Sample audio

    Original with Vocals

    Karaoke ready version

    Now you have a perfectly optimized sound track for karaoke with reduced vocals. All you have to do now is plug in the audio from PC to the one of the channels in the mixer. Microphone goes into the other channel. Plug the mixer’s audio out to your sound system.

    Happy Karaoke!!

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