Introduction

There are three main parts to the karaoke process.

Note

While these summaries do have links, you can also just take a guided tour through the whole doc in a reasonable order by hitting the Next button at the bottom of each page.

Audio

The first step in creating a karaoke track is sourcing or creating the audio. Whether this is an instrumental track or has backing vocals is a personal preference. In diveBar, we prefer to use original audio rather than covers (see Why we use original audio). This could be created by mixing official stems or an official instrumental or karaoke track from the artist if available. In most cases, that’s not an option, so it’s created by isolating vocals from the original mix, which is the strategy covered in this guide. To get started, see Vocal Isolation.

Graphics

This step involves syncing the lyrics to the audio as well as any theming or branding you want to apply. There are a lot of stylistic choices you can make here and a lot of different options of software to use. Some karaoke channels go for consistent theme across their videos, while others customize each video substantially and apply various effects. Head over to Syncing/Graphics: Background.

Distribution

Once your karaoke video is created, you can release it to the world! The vast majority of homebrew karaoke creators release to YouTube due to its ubiquity and its deals with artists and labels that allow us to upload there. In addition, most creators have a Google Drive to enable offline distribution for KJs.

Periodically, collections of videos are created to make it even easier for KJs to use them. If you don’t want your files to be distributed this way, please make sure to be clear about it. The best way would be to create a Google Drive with none of your tracks and just a README explaining your position. Keep in mind though that YouTube is a public site and KJs will potentially play your tracks directly from there or rip them for offline use, whether they are part of one of our collections or not.