Karaoke Forums

I'm trying to set-up my first home karaoke system. I've read a ton of posts and learned a lot from this forum, but I still have some questions.

I only intend to use it with my kids and a few freinds in small gatherings, and my budget is quite limited (<$500) to get things going. I have an Onkyo receiver in my home theater whose specifications say has "Power Output (8 ohm, 1 kHz, FTC) 100 W/Ch" and "Dynamic Power 170 W/Ch/115 W/Ch". I'm hoping to use this initially, with the plan that if it sounds lousy on my existing front speakers (each has 5 1/4" cone x 2, 1" Dome) + powered 150W sub-woofer, then I'll buy another pair (e.g. Carvin 10" 805s).

I plan to use my existing DVD player and simply purchase my Karaoke collection in DVD format.

My question is related to the mixer. I see a lot of dedicated Karaoke mixers, but I don't know how their quality compares with something like the Alesis MultiMix 8FX Compact 6-Channel Mixer. I want a minimum of 3 mic inputs. I read that the digital key change isn't very good on Karaoke machines, so I'm wondering what, if any, advantages a dedicated Karaoke mixer would have over the Alesis?

Thanks

Ken,
The only differance between a karaoke mixer and a reg. mixer is the fact that one has the word "Karaoke" painted on it.
You could break "mixers" down into 3 main groups:

1. Unpowered
2. Powered, (mixer with a built in amp). Most powered mixers will have efx.
3. Unpowered with effects, (efx).

The exception is a "karaoke" mixer that has a digital key changer.
To the best of my knowlege most karaoke player's key changers work just fine. Of course if you buy junk, that's what you'll have.
The quality of your music will change when you change the pitch, and will be less desireable the more you change it, but this won't be due to the key changers inequities. Raising the pitch will maqke the backround vocals sound like chipmonks no matter what you do, and lowering the pitch will make them sound like they're being done by Darth Vader. Electronic gadetry, ie. equalization, can make up for this a little.

For $150 the Alesis 8fx 6 channel efx mixer should serve you quite well.
4 mic channels, 2 stereo line input channels, efx, 3 band paramectric EQ controls on each channel, and led level set indicators make this a solid choice.

I would not recommend that you use your existing speakers no matter how they sound unless they're made for live voice.
Live voice can kill them QUICK!
Carvin's PM5 125 watt spot monitors may sound like your speakers, (5 1/4" woofer and tweeter), but they're not. They were ment to used as an onstage referance monitor for voice and other "pro" applications.

Home audio and "Pro" audio are 2 differant worlds.
Even your amp may not like live voice very well, and run hot, and if it doesn't, it still may not have what it takes to amplify voice with any kind of dynamics.

The Alesis 8fx and the Carvin 805s are a good place to start, being that you're on a budjet, but I can't make a recomendation on a key changer.
I think that you're better off getting a player that has a key changer.

I post again tomorrow with some recomendations for you to consider.

I had my JVC triple connected to my home system and the more I sang karaoke the more apparent it was that I would need to create a karaoke only set up. My home theater towers w/ dualy 6.5" drivers and a 1" tweeter began to rattle with some voice frequencies while singing. Interestingly enough, I have a pair of old EPI speakers (a Harman company now out of business) that are over 10 years old. They have an 8" driver and handle karaoke much better than the newer home theater style speakers. If you have some older speakers you may want to give them a try to see if they work.

I kind of knew my speakers woudln't cut it, but I'm an eternal optimist.

OK, so I have another inexpensive option to consider. I have a Roland KC-300 keyboard amp (4 channels, 100 watts, 12" woofer, horn tweeter) that I could use. I've sang directly into it before (1 channel has mic port) and it didn't sound bad. I would imagine that if I used the Alesis mixer to add some effects and sent the output to this amp it would sound fairly nice. Any thoughts? Comments?

I already have 2 Shure mics of decent quality. So $150 for the mixer, buy 1 more mic, and I'd have money left over to quickly get some karaoke music and maybe buy a comfortable chair or two for the room.

The key change feature isn't really that important to me, and if it became so I could always buy a seperate one. So I'm leaning away from buying an actual Karaoke Mixer.
Thanks,
Ken

The keyboard amp will work better than the home stereo.

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Would I be better off with something like a Carvin PA620 powered mixer ($300) and a pair of speakers. Or should I get the Alesis 8FX mixer and a plain power-amp + speakers?

My brother has a 160 watt power amp he'll sell me for $150, so with the Alesis mixer the price would be about the same as the Carvin PA620 powered mixer. It looks to me like the effects feature on the Alesis is probably more estensive, but I'm a novice at this stuff.
Thanks

Depends on the power amp. If it's still designed for a home system, you'd be better off with the Carvin set-up.

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The amp my brother is offering to sell me is a QSC MX700. From what I see on-line it looks like a pretty good amp. Any opinions?

Here's the direction I'm currently leaning. I'll buy the Alesis mixer and initially use my Roland keyboard amp. I'll also buy my brothers QSC amp (as he's selling it for way below what I see on-line) and when I have adequate funds I'll buy a nice pair of speakers. This will get me going quickly (New Years eve karaoke is desired) and allow for expansion as funds become available. It could be that my kids don't care for it at all and I decide not to upgrade further (in which case I'm only out for the Alesis mixer and the QSC amp, both of which I could resell).

Try the onkyo first before you go out and spend money needlesly. I have one on my home theatre, and 100 watts on it is more than 300 watts on some pro audio equipment. You will be suprised at the results. for home use it should be fine. if you have digital out on the dvd player you could get a decoder, and play cdg's & vcd's also. depending on the dvd player. but most will

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$150 is a very good price for the MX-700 (which is a 300 watt amp BTW 150 per channel @ 8 ohms). New those run for about $500-550 (& you can still find them new) & used average $225-300. It is a discontinued model but is still a workhorse. You can safely run these down to 2 ohms per channel in stereo mode pushing 350 watts per channel @ 2 ohms. 225 watts per channel into 4 ohms. These can be bridged to either 8 or 4 ohms pushing 450 watts / 700 watts respectively.

This would be a better option overall & will have better dynamics for live vocals.

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Dr. D,

What's a reasonable decoder? I'd not thought of that approach before, but I guess the ability to use CDGs (which my DVD doesn't have directly) would be nice. I'm still thinking I would get the Alesis mixer for microphone inputs/effects.

Lonman,

I thought the MX-700 was a good buy at $150, that's why I don't want to pass it up. Even if I didn't use it (e.g. satisified with my HT onkyo) I could get my money back by reselling it.

One more question (there are so many factors I'm overwhelmed at times): how well does the voice cancellation feature work on Karaoke machines? Would that allow me to play my actual Eagles CD with the vocals muted so I could sing along with the original instrumentals? Or does that only work on karaoke specific CDGs? I assume this is something I couldn't do with the Alesis, so it may be a feature worth switching back to a Karaoke specific mixer.

Thanks,
Ken

The voice canceller only works (any of them) fully dependent as how the original music is recorded. It sometimes works really well, it sometimes won't affect a recording at all. Alot of times you'll end up with a ghostly voice of the original singer in a sea of loud guitars & no drums or bass.
But don't spend extra to get a "special" canceller, the ones in the karaoke players work fine.

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Ken,
The MX700 sounds like a good deal to me. Since it goes down to 2 ohms it probably has all sorts of qualities that your current amp doesn't have, ie. fast slew rate, high dampening power, low distortion, etc.

There are 2 differant forms of "vocal cancelation".
One is "vocal masking". This simply removes any sound that has been recorded on BOTH the right and left tracks of a stereo recording. It works equaly well on all recordings, karaoke or not. This is what you would use on your Eagles disk. It is rather cheesy and doesn't sound very good. You would be better off just singing along without it. Specific EQ adjustments help, but they also help if you don't use "masking".

The other form of vocal cancelation is "vocal replace".
This is a MPX function. It only works on disks that have MPXed vocals, (vocals on one side only), like karaoke disks that have instructional tracks. I've only seen it on one regular track, You Didn't Have to be so Nice/Lovin' Spoonfuls.

Vocal replace and vocal masking are both found on karaoke players, but vocal replace, (MPX) can be found on many home stereos. You can remove the MPXed vocals on your mixer by using 2 channels, one for the left side and one for the right side, instead of using one channel for stereo.
What you would do is:
Turn down the side that has the vocal recorded on it, (probably the left), and then by using the panner on your mixer send the right stereo track to both speakers, (or both sides of the amp).

There is no audio advantage to DVDs for karaoke. All tracks that you would find on DVDs are the same tracks you'ld find on CDG.
I would strongly recommend that you forget about using your DVD player and get a regular CDG player like the JVC single drawer player.
Then get the best speakers that you can afford.
After you've done this, do whatever it takes to get you brother to sell you the MX700 amp.
If your keyboard amp works for you, hold off on buying the speakers and go for the MX700. You can always upgrade later.

The biggest problem with not having a mixer is the fact that if you use the mic input found on a karaoke player, you cannot turn it up louder than the music. The player has only so much output, and it will use it all for both the music and the mics equally. The problem is that each mic has its own level of sensitivity. Some will send more signal to the player than others.
The longer the mic cord is, the less signal the player gets. This becomes very obvious at low volumes.

You can always use your existing system as a supplement to your karaoke system once you have a mixer, or by using a spliter to connect them together. Just don't turn up the home stereo loudly. You can also do the opposite, use the karaoke system to supplement your stereo. This doesn't mean that you have to turn up the volume and make things louder. If fact, it means just the opposite, using more speakers to spread the sound out will give you better sound at the same volume.

I know that the idea of getting a CDG player, and not using your DVD player may be a bitter pill to swallow, but it saves you the expence of getting a DVD karaoke player, and it gives you a key changer, vocal masking, vocal replace, AND echo!
The JVC features what it calls a "spatializer". This is a 2 position, (Hi and Low), spatial equilzer. It enhances some music tracks, giving them some "life" but it makes others sound a little strange.

Good Luck!
Kojak

Bitter indeed (since I just bought the DVD player). Had I researched the Karaoke issue sooner I could have gotten one of the combined CDG/DVD players (with progressive scan). Oh well.

I think I've got a grasp on this, but want to clarify it. If I get a single-drawer JVC CDG player, I should only use that for the music and plug my mics directly into the Alesis mixer? That would allow me to change the key of the music (or perform voice cancellation) and still have excellent control over the levels on the Alesis. Am I thinking clearly?

If my thinking is right, I'll order a single drawer CDG player, tell my brother I want his amp, and use my keyboard amp initially. Then if it looks like we'll be getting a lot of use and enjoyment from this, I"ll purchase a seperate pair of speakers when the funds are available.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I wasted a week using search engines and only finding karaoke sales sights that provided very little useful information.
Ken

On the sites selling the JVC XLSV22 I don't see the vocal replace feature, but I see that feature listed on the 3 drawer JVC. Am I missing it, or is that feature on a different JVC single drawer player? What I'm asking is which model of JVC single drawer CDG player offers all 3 features (key change, voice cancel, voice replace) that you thought would be beneficial for me?

Thanks,
Ken

Personally I would get the 3 drawer jvc, i guess cause I own one. I see no advantage to getting the single drawer. Mine was $250 with a sound choice 2003 demo pack.... real good. and it has all the features you are looking for.

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For no more difference in price between a single drawer and a 3-drawer, you'd almost be silly to get a single drawer. Even for home parties, with a 3-drawer you can have the next 2 songs loaded and ready. The advantage is less time between songs to unload/load as well as less chance of damaging a disc if you're going to take the next one or two out and set them on top of the player to have them ready to go. I like to immediately place the disc into the player to minimize chances of damaging it.

OK, I ordered my JVC 3-drawer player along with a party song pack to get me started. It's a relief to have that decision over.

Now I have a dillema. If I purchase the Alesis mixer, my current budget will pretty much be maxed out and I would't have money to buy the MX700 amp from my brother (in which case he may sell it on e-bay). If I purchase the amp from my brother and then save for the Alesis, I could use the mic ports in the JVC player until more funds are available. I know the Alesis mixer will always be available and the amp is kind of a use it or lose it opportunity. But if the mic ports on the JVC are really poor quality, I'd prefer getting the mixer now and look for another decent used amp in the future.

Any pros/cons anyone wants to point out?
Thanks

If ya had the mixer but no amp, ya wouldn't be able to play with it. If ya had the amp without a mixer at least you'd be able to use it. You wouldn't have as much mixing ability, but at least you'd be able to use it. The other thing is that the mic ports on the JVC are fine, and the JVC has a built in key change and echo capability, so you'd be fine to start out with on a home system. Then as ya save up if ya want to add the mixer later you'd be fine.

Actuality my situation is the opposite. I intend to run the sound through my Roland keyboard amp initially (as it provides both the amp and speaker). I could use the mixer through my Roland amp, but I don't have any seperate speakers (HT ones I'm told aren't sufficient) to use with the MX700 amp.

Kojak had discouraged the use of built-in mic ports on karaoke players, so that's why I was thinking the Alesis mixer was an important component.

Thanks for all the input. I think I'll try the JVC through my Roland amp once it arrives. Then if the sound isn't sufficient, I'll try to determine my first upgrade step.