How to level-up your at-home Karaoke set up

There are several benefits to having your own karaoke setup. For starters, it’ll make for a nice home stereo system as well for listening to regular music or even as a home theater for watching movies. Solid speakers work for just about any audio application, including karaoke.

And while there’s a great selection of at-home karaoke machines you can purchase, you’ll find that you may have everything for a perfect DIY-setup right in your home — especially if you’re already an audiophile or general techie.

I initially went looking for a karaoke machine to purchase, then realized I had all the components in my house already, so I know first-hand it’s worthwhile to address how your current tech can be utilized in a new way. That said, here’s how to cobble together your own DIY karaoke setup at home. In total, you’ll need just three things: speakers, a microphone, and an audio mixer.

How to set up your karaoke at home

Essentially, you just need to hook up your microphone and speakers to an audio mixer in such a way that your microphone outputs its audio through the speakers. The method may be subtly different depending on what combination of devices you choose to buy, but the general principles are the same.

1. Hook up your microphone to your mixer’s line-in port over XLR, or via a 3.5mm jack.
2. Attach your speakers to your mixer’s line-out port. This is typically either an RCA connection (red and white cables) or through a 3.5mm jack, depending on your speakers.
3. From this point, you should have a PA system set up.
4. When everything is on, test to hear yourself talking into the microphone through your speakers.
5. Hook up your mixer to a display.

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Once your homemade PA setup has been accomplished, hook the mixer up to a PC, tablet, or TV. The device’s audio will go to the mixer and out through the speakers along with the microphone audio. Simply run some karaoke software and let the person singing use the display to read the lyrics.

Using a karaoke mixer to hook directly into your TV

If you want something a little simpler, you can also use your TV. A karaoke mixer hooks directly into your TV and already includes the microphones. Thus, you can single into the microphone, which then goes through the mixer and to the TV where it comes out of the TV speakers. It even works with soundbars.

If you want to go this route, here’s how:

1. Make sure that you select a karaoke mixer with either HDMI eARC support or an optical out port.
2. Plug the mixer into your TV’s eARC or optical audio port and finish setup as per the device’s instruction manual.
3. Run your karaoke software on your TV and prepare to jam out.

The most taxing part of this setup is the karaoke software. Many, including KaraFun and YouTube, have casting support as well as smart TV apps on Apple TV, Google TV, and Amazon Fire Sticks.

Some of my top recommended karaoke software

YouTube

Best free option

YouTube is compatible everywhere and there are plenty of videos that are set up for karaoke like this one. Nobody is sure how many songs YouTube supports this way, but it’s entirely free to use as long as you don’t mind a few ads. You can optionally play any song from its official music video and sing along with the artist if you don’t want the lyrics cut out.

Smule

Best for duets and group singing

Smule houses over one million songs in its library, including duets and group performance support. It also has a scoring system to see how well you did, audio effects to jazz things up, and more. Like KaraFun, it requires a subscription that you can cancel at any time.

The Karaoke Channel

Best for TV Karaoke

A karaoke app specifically designed for use on smart TVs. It supports Google TV along with LG, Samsung, and Sharp TVs. There is also a video-on-demand service via numerous cable service providers.