Newbie question on home karaoke and in-private recording

Prason

New member
Hello there,

I stumbled upon this site after going in circles within my head for a couple of years. I guess too much internet reading poisons you sometimes and that seems to be the stage I'm in right now. I'm by no means an audiophile nor a music creator or producer. Just an audio enthusiast and trying to satiate my passion for singing but do have an alternate career in software development and IT. My usecases are mostly for me, family and friends at home for weekend parties. Here are the usecases I'm trying to fulfill and need some expert guidance on which way to proceed.

1) I have a Memorex SingStand 2 for weekend karaoke at home but as you'd expect the mic sucks and the overall quality sucks. For entertaining family and guests I'd like to have a better setup with a better quality microphone and the output will be routed to an existing 5.1 setup (Vizio 5.1 soundbar, woofer etc) in the living room via aux or whatever can be achieved. Not sure what equipment I'd need for this. I was originally thinking of a large diaphragm condenser microphone (Rode NT1A that a friend has offered to give it to me for free) connected to a mixer (Behringer Xenyx 1202 for example) and then have it output to the speaker system. But I do now realize that the condenser microphone would also pick up the sound coming from the speakers as I sing on top of the karaoke. So I'm essentially in a stalemate on wt microphone to use and how to achieve this karaoke setup for weekend fun. This is my most immediate need. Please advise.

2) Once I arrive at a reasonable solution for (1) above, the next usecase on top of that would be some way to record the karaoke performance as the party goes on with each singer coming on to deliver their voice to a song of their choice. What would I need to record audio performance only (vs) record the video of friends performance. I know I'm talking crazy but to me life is all about good times with good friends and creating memories.:)

3) The biggest usecase of all is for me to record my voice on top of a karaoke track. I believe I have a fair idea of achieving this but needed a bit more clarity. What I came up with was the Rode NT1A mic, FocusRite Scarlett audio interface connected to a PC via USB or Firewire and then use Audacity or ProTools to do the mixing/time sync. I already own studio headphones but will be buying monitors as well. What I do not have clarity on is if an audio interface, in general, would have a line-in to feed the karaoke track. And if it's an aux line-in, that would be a stereo input into the interface. Wouldn't that result in loss of quality? Also for the connection from the interface to the PC, is there anything I have to consider so that the overall quality of the end result wouldn't suffer? I do have a dedicated room for this and will be using pop-filter, voice isolators and insulation etc. Eventual plan is to build a small cube sort of enclosure that will house the microphone and enough space in the cube to fit 2 persons for singing.

4) For the usecase in (3) above, would using a mixer instead of an audio interface provide any advantages (or lack there of)? Is this approach even advisable?

If I can achieve the majority of what has been described above with a minimal/common set of hardware (karaoke vs recording vocals on karaoke tracks ) that would be most ideal. Anything to reduce digital clutter in the house.

I do have some original karaoke tracks without the vocals but trying to find a solution to cut out the vocals from other tracks. I'm aware of the phase cancellation method but wanted to know if there would be any hardware equipment that would do a fairly good job of stripping out the vocals. I realize that the vocals can't be stripped off a 100%. Need some suggestions here as well.

I hope I can get something going pretty soon. Apologies on the long post but your help and advice is much appreciated.

Best Regards
Prason
 
For doing live karaoke at home, I'd be inclined to look at a plain old Shure SM58 or similar: a general purpose, near-indestructible dynamic mike that has reasonable rejection of unwanted sounds (e.g. a karaoke backing track). I'd save the NT1A for recording; it's more suited to that role.

You could almost get away with not having a mixer if you pick the right interface. The Focusrite 18i8, for example has four inputs at the front: you could plug in two mikes plus a stereo input from the Singstand (if it has a line out) or direct from your ipad or whatever you're using to source the tracks. It also has a variety of outputs: you can use one to go to the Vizio.

However, I'm not sure whether the Focusrite will work without being connected to a computer. It would be good if it could work as a standalone unit.

If that doesn't appeal to you, then the mixer is not an unreasonable option: feed mikes and karoake into the mixer then into the vizio. Also feed it into an interface, maybe a smaller Focusrite, and from there into your computer.

To produce recordings of voice plus karaoke track, you should think about importing the backing track into your DAW, rather than recording it into the DAW in real time. Then you can record vocal tracks as you play back the track in the DAW.

I'd be inclined not to build an enclosure for singing. Unless they are designed really well, they can produce unsatisfactory recordings. In the absence of a proper acoustically treated room, just find the biggest, most pleasant room and record in there.
 
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