Probably the most favorite entertainment of Russians is karaoke. Oddly enough, the fashion for singing at home and in public places has not faded away for several years, but few people know what it is - karaoke - and where the idea of singing into a microphone even came from.
History of karaoke
Yes, yes, like all strange inventions, karaoke was invented by the Japanese back in the twentieth century. The young drummer of a Japanese band thought it would be interesting to keep the audience occupied during the musicians' break by broadcasting the lyrics of the song on the big screen and playing music without lyrics on the speakers. Then his invention was appreciated only by concert visitors who sang their favorite songs with pleasure. In the seventies, karaoke was remembered and the musician was even awarded the Nobel Prize. And karaoke began its journey around the world, gradually gaining more and more popularity.
How does it work
Karaoke is a popular invention, the meaning of which is the unprofessional singing of one or more people into a microphone connected to a special device that plays the desired compositions and broadcasts the text to the computer or TV screen.
Types of karaoke
There are several types of karaoke:
- Audio. When the audience is presented exclusively with the sound of a phonogram, with which the performer’s voice is mixed in a special mixer.
- Video. This is the most popular type of karaoke that can be found in restaurants and apartments of lovers of such entertainment. The principle of operation of such devices is precisely that the text of a song is displayed on the TV or computer screen, and music is played from the speakers. In many video karaoke, the lyrics of the song are presented broken into parts, and the necessary words are highlighted in a special color as the song is sung. Also, in some programs, points are awarded depending on the quality of singing. The beauty of this system is that no special acoustics are needed for karaoke.
Modern karaoke systems have new additional functions, such as the ability to independently adjust the tone of the sound or playback speed, the ability to turn on or off the voice of the real soloist of the song, team singing into several microphones at once and various tournament systems.
In addition to special karaoke installations, consumers have the opportunity to buy simple household appliances, for example, a stereo system or home theater, with a built-in karaoke function.
Let's admit it - we all love to sing. We sing in the car, in the bathroom (under the shower) and in the kitchen while cooking dinner, but nothing beats the feeling of holding a microphone in your hands and knowing that every eye in the room is on you! Karaoke is always and everywhere a great mood: in bars, restaurants, at a party, at home! Whenever a family or a cheerful group of friends gathers, live singing with KARAOKE comes in very handy...
According to the Karaoke myth, this incredibly popular activity was born 20 years ago in the city of Kobe in Japan. However, according to another opinion, Karaoke appeared even earlier than the 1970s on Mitch Miller's Television Show "Sing Along with Mitch". According to this version of the birth of Karaoke in the 1950s and 60s, television viewers watched a bouncing ball on the TV screen while singing along with Mitch and Company. Apparently, after this, the Japanese took this concept and transformed it into a form of commercial entertainment called "Karaoke". And from that moment on, the popularity of Karaoke spread far beyond the shores of Japan. Now this is a very popular entertainment all over the world.
Karaoke can be audio and video. When playing a Karaoke video, the lyrics of the songs are painted over on the TV or monitor screen against the background of the video sequence to the beat of the melody.
Audio Karaoke is phonograms recorded on a regular audio medium, with the lyrics written on a booklet that is inserted inside a disc or cassette.
Types of karaoke
The simplest karaoke machine consists of an audio input, a device for changing the key of the music (not the performer’s voice) and an audio output. Some lower-end machines try to provide voice suppression so that you can feed original songs into the machine and suppress the artist's voice, but this is not very effective (see below). Most of the machines used are audio mixing devices with a built-in microphone input and CD+G, Video CD, CD-ROM or DVD players. CD+G players use a special track called subcode to encode text and images displayed on the screen, whereas other formats natively display both an audio and video track. In a number of countries, karaoke with the ability to display text in video mode is called KTV.
Most karaoke music centers use technology that electronically adjusts the key of the music so that users can sing along to any music source at a tone that matches their vocal range while maintaining the song's original tempo. (Some first-generation machines used cassette tapes and changed the key by changing the playback speed, but these have long since fallen into disuse).
A popular karaoke game involves entering a random number and starting a song, with participants trying to out-sing each other. In some karaoke centers, this game is programmed and may be limited to the genre of the song to prevent participants from launching into some unknown national anthem that none of them can sing. In some parts of the United States and Canada, this game began to be called "Kamikaze Karaoke".
Many low-end systems (boom boxes, etc.) are equipped with a Karaoke mode, which attempts to remove the vocal track from regular (non-karaoke) audio CDs. This is done by removing the recording from the center portion of the disc, taking advantage of the fact that most music discs have vocal tracks in the center. This means that the voice, as part of the music, has the same volume on both stereo channels and no phase difference. To obtain a quasi-karaoke (mono) track, the left channel of the original recording is subtracted from the left channel. The crudeness of this approach is reflected in the often unsuccessful results of voice removal. Typical consequences are that the vocal track can be heard echoing (due to the stereo echo being superimposed on the vocals), and the sound of the remaining instruments that are mixed in the center (drums, lead instruments) is also removed, reducing this approach to something more like a gimmick. such devices.
Karaoke-VCD
The rise in popularity of video CDs in Southeast Asia is partly explained by their cheapness and acceptable quality, and partly by the popularity of karaoke. Many VCD players in Southeast Asia come with built-in karaoke functionality. If users turn off the artist's voice and leave only the music, they can sing karaoke. In the past, karaoke VCDs were only released with pop music sets. Now karaoke VCDs with music of different genres and styles are being produced. Nowadays, karaoke VCD with recordings of Cantonese opera (Canton (Guangzhou) is a province in China - translator's note) is very popular among older residents of Hong Kong.
MIDI applications
A number of computer programs have been developed that serve similar purposes in typical karaoke machines, using MIDI hardware to create an accompaniment rather than a recorded track. The advantage of this approach is that it makes conversion a technically elementary procedure, and also reduces the amount of data required to provide accompaniment to the point where it can easily be transmitted over the Internet, even over slow lines. The standard format used is *.KAR, which is an extension of the standard .MID standard for MIDI disks, which can be played without modification to the MIDI player software.
Video game
The karaoke game was originally released for the Nintendo Famicom, but its limited computing capabilities contributed to the small size of the song catalog on offer, and therefore reduced replay value. As a result, karaoke games were considered something of a collection item until the games began appearing in enhanced DVD format. Created for the PlayStation 2 by Konami and released in North America in 2003, Karaoke Revolution is a console game in which one player sings along with on-screen prompts and scores based on matching the melody, timing, and rhythm. Two more versions of the game soon appeared - "Karaoke Revolution" Volume 2 and "Karaoke Revolution" Volume 3. While the original "Karaoke Revolution" was eventually released for the Microsoft Xbox game console in late 2004, the new version , which can also be played online, included the ability to download additional song packs through the exclusive Xbox Live online service.
A similar game, SingStar, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, is particularly popular in the European, Australian and Asian markets. List of other similar music games Dance Dance Revolution from Bemani's, Guitar Freaks, and Drum Mania.
Mobile phones and karaoke
In 2003, some companies began offering karaoke services on mobile phones. It's still a developing service and it's unclear whether it will get stronger, even with all the technological advances. However, some mobile karaoke providers, such as Karaokini, have begun to achieve commercial success. The Karaokini service is promoted through the Vodafone Live! in Greece and Malta.
Karaoke services in mobile phones are most often based on a Java utility that launches a text file with lyrics and a music file in MIDI format.
The portal www.web2txt.co.uk became the first company to offer full-fledged mobile karaoke in 3gp (mobile video) format, which provides a better product to the end user.
Karaoke on computers and on the Internet
Since 2003, many programs have been released to host karaoke shows and play karaoke songs on PC. Instead of carrying around hundreds of CD-G or LaserDisc discs, a karaoke DJ can rip all their contents onto a PC hard drive and play songs and lyrics from it.
In addition, new programs allow amateur performers to sing and listen to each other via the Internet in the presence of listeners from all over the world.
Alternative devices
Previously, the CD+G karaoke disc format, containing text on a specially encoded track, required special - and expensive - equipment to play it. However, prices for bar players have dropped, and some unexpected devices (including the Sega Saturn video game console) can read graphics. In general, karaoke devices, equipped with video playback and sometimes recording capabilities, are often popular products sold in toy and consumer electronics stores.
In addition, there are programs that run on Windows, Pocket PC, Linux, and Apple Macintosh PCs that can decode and display karaoke music tracks, although they usually need to be ripped from a CD first and then compressed. Recently, karaoke applications for mobile phones have appeared, mainly in Asian countries.
In addition to CD+G discs and software karaoke, karaoke players equipped with a microphone input are popular mainly in North America and parts of Asia, such as the Philippines. Karaoke players equipped with a microphone input only need to be connected to the TV and sometimes to a power outlet; there are also battery-powered models. These devices often come with additional features such as tone correction and special sound effects. A number of companies offer karaoke content for download for a fee to supplement the library of karaoke players with a microphone input.
Music centers with a karaoke function, playing CD+G discs and with a microphone input are also commonly used at home. Recently, DVD karaoke discs have become the most popular media for home karaoke in North America. This was made possible by the presence of a large number of DVD players in American households, which gives users the opportunity to simply install a DVD rather than connect new equipment.
Karaoke bars
A karaoke bar / karaoke restaurant / karaoke club or karaoke hall is simply a bar or restaurant equipped with karaoke equipment that allows people to sing in their company. This is the most common variant in North America. Many establishments offer karaoke weekly, and some offer karaoke every evening. Usually the latter invest more in the purchase of both equipment and music CDs, and are often very popular, so that the visitor has to wait an hour or more for his turn to go on stage (this is called “rotation”).
In Asian countries, Karaoke box (also called KTV or Noraebang) is the most popular type of karaoke establishment. A karaoke box is a small or medium-sized room in which karaoke equipment is installed for a group of friends who rent it for a certain time in order to spend it in a more intimate and less public atmosphere. Some believe that the Karaoke box format was invented in South Korea.
Some traditional Chinese restaurants have so-called mahjong and karaoke rooms, where older customers can play mahjong and teenagers can enjoy karaoke. The result is fewer complaints of boredom from visitors, but more noise.
Origin of the word
The Japanese word for karaoke is カラオケ, which comes from two words: 空 kara, “empty,” and オーケストラ ookesutora (a corruption of the English “orchestra”). Together these words form an acronym that literally means “empty orchestra.” It was originally a slang term for media in which live performance is replaced by pre-recorded music, and in this form it is written in the Japanese katakana syllabary. The term karaoke can be interpreted as a “virtual orchestra” because you can select the desired musical key and sing to this music in the absence of a live orchestra.
Karaoke speakers
KARAOKE MASTER - Karaoke on various media:
Can be divided into Audio and Video karaoke. The difference between video and audio karaoke is the ability to visually observe the text of the song being performed in the form of captions on a TV or monitor screen, which undoubtedly helps in more correct performance. At the same time, various images or video fragments can be used as the background on which the captions of the song lyrics appear, which visually makes the Karaoke performance more attractive.
MASTER KARAOKE has been developing in Russia for more than 5 years. During this time, we have come a long way from the first released Video Karaoke disc with 15 songs to the creation of more than 50 DVD karaoke discs including more than 100 songs.
The most famous Video Karaoke formats common in Russia:
The media used is a disc in Video CD format. At the moment, it can be considered an outdated format for household video viewing. The Video CD format was developed in the mid-90s of the 20th century with the aim of replacing the already outdated analog format for home video viewing (VHS). VCD is a standard-sized CD that implemented support for the digital video stream compression standard in MPEG1 format, which was qualitatively different from analog VHS. But a full-length 1.5-hour film in good quality could only fit on 2 discs, which was due to the storage capacity limitation of 650 MB. You can play such a disc on special VCD players, a computer, or on DVD players that support this format. Subsequently, support for the VCD format began to be built into all DVD players, and today all produced DVD players can play Video-CD format discs. Despite its limited capacity, the VCD disc was almost ideal for Karaoke. On one such disc you can fit about 20 songs with a standard duration of 3.5-4 minutes, which means more than an hour of sound in total. In addition, discs of this format have a song selection menu function, which is a prerequisite for Karaoke.
The quality of arrangements on Karaoke discs in VCD format immediately became a distinctive feature from the widespread Midi format used by LG Electronics on its karaoke discs, since instead of a very limited set of electronic sounds synthesized by the karaoke machine chip, it became possible to use real live instruments for recording song arrangements with quite acceptable compression quality. At the moment, the Video CD format is dying out, as it has been replaced by a newer digital media format - DVD.
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)
A new generation of CDs that hold a much larger amount of data, allowing you to record video and sound in significantly better digital quality than previous formats. It was developed in the late 90s and began to develop at a rapid pace, displacing VHS and Video CD. With the transition to DVD, many additional features became possible for Karaoke. First of all, it is an opportunity to record several times more songs on one disc than on a VCD. At the moment, quite a lot of Karaoke discs with 100 songs have already been released.
In addition, it became possible to use different sound options for phonograms on a karaoke disc and switch between them - standard arrangement with a “voice” prompt, “Pro” arrangement without a “voice” prompt, an original phonogram of a song, “Karaoke+” arrangement with the voice of a professional performer and various mixed options. It has also become possible in DVD Karaoke to “turn on/off” the captions of the song lyrics and even change the video sequence. It is now possible to use not only standard stereo sound, but also 6-channel surround sound Dolby Digital 5.1
At the moment, almost all of this is used in the production of Karaoke discs in DVD-VIDEO format, and additional advantages can be the use of thematic video sequences, the use of original clips as video sequences, an attractive animated menu for selecting songs, and even various options for filling in the titles of the lyrics.
Karaoke LG
Special karaoke discs produced by LG Electronics to complete the Karaoke players it produces. As a rule, such discs contain a large number of songs and are not intended for playback on DVD players from other manufacturers. Until 2004, compact discs (CDs) were used as a media, and MIDI was used as a recording format for phonograms. On the new Karaoke disc, which was released in 2004, a DVD was already used as a media, and soundtracks were recorded in WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. The new generation of disks and devices is incompatible with the old technology, i.e. old discs cannot be played on new Karaoke machines produced by LG and vice versa. At the moment, several discs have already been released in Russia.
The main feature of LG Karaoke is the ability to change the tone and tempo of songs during playback. There is the possibility of assigning points for performance, as well as the opportunity to hold competitions for the best performance of Karaoke songs.
Discs in LG Karaoke format released at different times:
Discs in MIDI Karaoke format
New DVD-Karaoke format (WMA recording format)
On the new format discs, in addition to all the advantages of the previous generation discs, it is possible to enable/disable the backing vocal function. An interactive menu has been implemented to search for the desired song by title or artist.
Samsung karaoke
Relatively recently, Karaoke machines produced by Samsung (DVD-OK) appeared in Russia, and with them discs in DVD format Samsung Karaoke, as well as LG discs not intended for playback on devices from other manufacturers. In a fairly short period of time, Samsung released a whole line of Karaoke machines and various versions of Karaoke discs. In Russia, 5 different discs have already been released with different numbers of versions and sets of functions. As a standard, all discs provide such functions as changing the tone and tempo of the soundtrack, enabling/disabling the scoring function for performance, and an interactive menu for searching for the desired song. The Midi format is used as the recording format for phonograms on all discs.
Versions of SAMSUNG Karaoke discs (DVD-OK), already released in Russia at different times:
In versions 3,4,5, compared to versions 1.2, the function of turning on/off backing vocals was added (in previous versions there were no backing vocals), the function of transliterating the text of foreign songs into Russian text, as well as the function of changing the sound volume " voice prompt."
Disc compatibility, despite the fact that they all use Midi technology, is quite complex:
1.Disc version 1 can be played on devices with which disc version 2 was supplied, but there is no backward compatibility.
2. Discs of the first versions 1,2 cannot be played on devices designed to play versions 3,4,5 and, accordingly, vice versa.
3.Versions 3 and 4 are not compatible with version 5.
Karaoke terms
Minus>
arrangement of the original soundtrack without the performer's voice, only music.
Arrangement
phonogram in the form of Karaoke, created on the basis of the original phonogram of the song. Can be created by removing the voice from the original work or by reworking the original work.
Captions
text or graphic information displayed on the screen over the image. In karaoke, captions are used to display song lyrics on the screen. Typically, karaoke credits use two lines of credits that change as the song plays.
Background footage
dynamic or static images placed under karaoke titles and used as a background when performing karaoke songs. Short video clips on any topic are usually used as video sequences, which makes the performance of songs visually more interesting.
); also this device itself.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ Alexander Malinin - “Berega” (Slavic Bazaar 2013) / Alexandr Malinin, “Berega”
✪ BTS (방탄소년단) "FAKE LOVE" Orchestral Cover
Subtitles
Principle of operation
A format for storing uncompressed audio streams, widely used in the media industry. Its peculiarity is that a fixed number of bits are allocated for amplitude encoding. This affects the size of the output file, but makes it very readable. A typical wave file consists of a header, a body with the audio stream, and a tail for additional information, where audio editors can write their own metadata.
The international karaoke song format is based on mp3 and text file.
A compressed audio file that uses free, non-proprietary Ogg Vorbis audio compression. The Ogg format is similar to the .MP3 format, but sounds better than an MP3 file of the same size, and can include audio metadata, including artist and track information.
UltraStar
One of the popular modern formats is sets of files for the UltraStar and compatible programs. This is a text file containing the title, author, version, style, language, background, text (broken into pieces with their own height and duration), etc. of the song, as well as file names with the song cover, background used in the singing process, and the composition itself. The last field is called "MP3", but is also used for other file formats.
Players, home cinemas, etc.) have a karaoke function - a built-in microphone input and a mixer for adding voice to the soundtrack.
There are so-called karaoke machines, the purpose of which is to play phonograms without the presence of a vocal part in them, while simultaneously broadcasting on the video screen a running line of song lyrics, a clip of the performer, or a background video. Such systems are used both in karaoke clubs and at home.
Professional karaoke systems: AST, Evolution, Yourday are used in specialized karaoke establishments, contain a database of songs (karaoke is played without discs) and have functionality with the necessary reporting for accounting and non-profit organizations for the protection of authors' rights, such as RAO (Russian Copyright Society), "VOIS" (All-Russian Intellectual Property Organization) and First Musical Publishing House (PMI).
MadBoy is considered a professional karaoke system, but does not have its own database of songs.
Among the household (home) karaoke systems, the following brands are currently known:
Instructions
To sing karaoke on your computer, first of all you will need a microphone. If you don't already have a microphone, it's best to buy a special computer microphone with a 3.5 jack or USB connector. You can find such a microphone in any computer store.
If you already have a karaoke microphone, you will need a 6.3 jack to 3.5 jack adapter. You can purchase it at audio-video stores or radio parts stores. The adapter is necessary so that the microphone can be connected to the computer connector on the board.
After you have selected a microphone, you need to connect it to your computer. If you have a USB microphone, you can insert it into any free USB connector. If the microphone has a 3.5 jack connector, it must be inserted into the microphone jack. It looks like a pink ring.
Find instructions on the Internet and a microphone for your sound card. Recording and playback from the microphone must be activated. Try it yourself. To do this, find the icon for the sound card control program. Usually it is located in the tray and looks like a speaker. In the menu you need to find a tab called Microphone or Input. And enable the “record” and “playback” functions from the microphone.
Once you have set up the microphone, you can start your favorite pastime - singing karaoke. To do this, go to the Karaoke.ru website, select the song you like, and open it. Click the Play icon and start singing. If you want to find your favorite song, write its name in the “find karaoke” line.
The site also has a function to record your performance. To do this, you need to click on the record button in the player (small square on the round button). You can download the recorded song to your computer and listen to it later. Or post it on the website so that others can appreciate your singing.
