Karaoke night is the bomb. You know it, I know it, and anyone who disagrees has stage fright or just a very special taste in music. For the rest of us mortals who can live with the occasional jarring note, karaoke is a beautiful experience! The exhilaration! The emotion! The connections we make with people who like the same music! Whether you go to a specialised karaoke venue or your local social house hosts a karaoke night, the result is usually one magical night. However, did you know that you don’t need a karaoke machine to have a great karaoke night? You don’t need a big venue? Heck, you don’t even need to be with your friends in the same room? Did you know all of that? Of course you did! Because you read the title!
You can have your karaoke night virtually! You and each one of your friends will be performing online karaoke from the comfort of your own homes. Because your online karaoke night will be happening via video call online. If you haven’t done this before, singing karaoke online will be an astonishing experience for you. No less bewitching than when you sang karaoke in person at a karaoke venue for the first time ever. Singing karaoke online from the comfort of your own home takes away any anxiety you may be feeling. Which is excellent news for those who found their stage fright a little too much to physically participate in karaoke in the past. And the best way to have an online karaoke night is to use the right virtual meeting software. Such as any of the subscription options offered by Banty. Here’s a few things to do for an awesome experience singing karaoke online with a Banty platform.
The term “karaoke” often calls to mind a large screen with lyrics changing colour to help the singer with timing the words to the non-verbal music being played. That’s because a few advances in technology made this helpful little feature very common. But in its original form, karaoke simply means “Empty Orchestra”. Essentially, music without live instrument players who can adjust to your pace or accommodate minor slip ups on your part when you sing. So singing to a pre-recorded soundtrack.
Now if you’re holding your karaoke night via virtual meeting software online, you should be able to do karaoke however you prefer. You can go old school. Play the recorded, lyric-free music on your end while you read lyrics off your screen or a printed sheet of paper. Alternatively, if you’d like to approach this the modern way, Banty offers an option to do so. To begin with the modern approach, you’ll need the lyric displaying, singing-free, sing-along-style videos for any songs you would like to sing to be uploaded to a video displaying platform. They could be uploaded beforehand by a content creator you don’t know in person, or someone in your group of friends can obtain and upload these videos instead. YouTube and Vimeo are a couple of popular choices for sing-along videos. Using Banty’s screen sharing features, you can then opt to share a tab from your browser running the sing-along video of your choice. Just select the “Share Audio” feature so the other participants in the video call can hear your pipes going off!
You may be tempted to share a YouTube video into Banty directly because it seems to make more sense with this feature being available, but in fact, being able to sing over a YouTube video shared directly through the feature isn’t available across operating systems. Often, you might find the mic being automatically muted when you share sound through the video and the video being automatically muted when you share sound through the mic.
Alternatively, if you’d like to go old school but you want everyone to be able to see the lyrics you can use Banty’s chatting feature to copy and paste all the lyrics for each song. Or you can simply select the option to share a window from your screen sharing options and show the participants wherever you have the written lyrics displayed on your screen.
Since you’re hosting your own Karaoke night through video conferencing software online rather than relying on a Karaoke bar or cafe, you can’t really count on the catalogues commonly offered by most karaoke venues. You’ll have to make a list of the songs you want and then see if you can source singing-free soundtracks for them or even proper sing-along videos. Depending on how your group typically handles get-togethers you may want to make a list of the songs other members of your group might like to sing. Alternatively, if your group usually relies on a single person to organise their entire event then you might just need to make the list yourself.
Once you have that list you should then proceed to obtain the materials required for each song on the list. With just a little bit of luck, lyricless recordings of the songs’ soundtracks will already be available, including specialty sing-along videos you can read the lyrics off as they change colour. If not, you might have to ask someone to make you a few of those, which can be surprisingly easy and inexpensive sometimes. Got the list? On to the next step!
Set up your laptop, desktop, tablet or smartphone in a room with good acoustics. Preferably good lighting too, since Karaoke night with friends is more than about singing, it’s an interactive experience. Double check your equipment’s performance two or three hours before starting so you can have a little time to solve any problems you discover when you do. Drink some fluids a few minutes before performing to help your vocal cords through the experience to come. Advise your friends to do the same. After all, while completely butchering a song is part of the fun of karaoke night, there’s no need for avoidable failure. There’s going to be plenty of that even with everybody trying their best.
Since you’re already organising the whole event, you might as well put the order in which people are going to sing and what songs they’ll be singing on the list of songs you made earlier. That way you can distribute the singing time equitably and you can ensure that everybody has a great time.
Are you ready to rock your friends’ screens in a video call for karaoke online? To have the best experience with an online karaoke night whilst video conferencing, you can try any of our subscription options for free, a full 14 days before deciding whether to purchase a subscription. Learn more about your subscription options here.
