Karaoke with a Sound Mixer Board

In previous posts I have discussed some other audio setups for karaoke, including using a portable PA or using your laptop sound. In this post I will give an overview of how to use a sound mixer board for karaoke. 

This does increase the amount of equipment you need, including:

• sound mixer board
• microphone(s)
• amplifier & speakers
• cables

Even though it takes more equipment, you get more control over the sound mix - and it is easier to quickly adjust per singer to enhance the karaoke experience for everyone.

Pyle Sound Mixer Board

Pictured above is a highly rated, affordable, sound mixer board made by Pyle. I will just use this to go over the concepts, but most boards have similar functionality and the major difference is how many inputs they can take to mix together. For example, a 4-channel board can take 4 inputs and mix the sound into a single output, whereas an 8-channel board accepts 8 different inputs.

Typically karaoke does not need an extensive mixer board since it is usually the case that one of the inputs is the sound from the computer (music) and another input will be for the microphones. 

Using the mixer board above, let's suppose that channel 1 is for music (input from computer) and channel 2 is for the microphone(s). Probably it is best to start both channels with the level set to half (5). The gain should not be needed on channel 1, but setting the gain on channel 2 to be higher will enhance the voice.

Once you have this all connected together and have sound - then you can tweak the dials and levers to achieve the sound balance you want. I recommend reading the manual for the mixer board you have so that it is easier to troubleshoot issues that arise.

Summary

I know this was a brief post but I wanted to go over the basic concept of using a sound mixer board. Your setup will likely be something custom to what equipment you have and what works best for you. The mixer board does give you more flexibility and may be easier to get exactly how you want compared to trying to use the sound settings on your computer.

Plus, additional channels on the mixer board open opportunity for some fun experiments. Some ideas are:

• Having dedicated mics per channel - then you can adjust levels per singer. This gives the ability to reduce the volume for a backup singer, or increase the volume for a performer that sings softly.
• If you have aspiring musicians, you could have them jam along with the karaoke songs for ones that they know or want to practice.

Now that we have gone over the various sound options for karaoke, I think in my next post I will get back to talking about software. Stay tuned!

-Chuck