Car Karaoke? Why Not!?
Some of us love to sing along to songs in the shower, house, or better yet, the car. Why the car? Well, no one can hear us! If you’ve never heard yourself sing along to a song without the song in the background, maybe you should brace yourself for when you do. A remedy to help your vocal skills improve, yes it’s possible, as well as amplify the fun aspect is to have a microphone. You may be thinking, “but I’m driving.” If you’ve ever made a phone call in the car, it’s no different.
Since I was quite young, I’ve always emphasized the sound system in my car over the car itself. No, I didn’t strap a subwoofer in and make a fool of myself with a rattling trunk. I rather focused on clarity and quality. Yes, you can typically bump up the components of your car pretty simply and affordably. The one thing I had never thought of was to install a microphone. You may first assume you can simply plug a mic into your car and hear through the speakers, but you’d be wrong. That loud, ear piercing shriek you hear in movies when the person on stage is trying to speak into a poorly setup mic, that’s what you’ll get. It’s feedback. It MAY be possible to narrow down the direction of your speakers in your vehicle and/or have some supplying the mic (say the rear) and the others (say the front) supplying the music, but this would be more complicated than my quick fix. This is especially the case if you have a newer car with 12+ speaker setups. One of my vehicles has 18 speakers, no joke. This would be a nightmare to isolate directional noise. What is the solution, you ask? Toss in a portable Bluetooth PA speaker. Here is the tricky part if you’re not into speakers. Not all speakers are the same. For example, you can have a $500 Sony speaker from Best Buy that just kicks. The sound can be very loud, powerful, and clear. However, if you plug in a microphone, it may sound distorted at even mid level volumes and especially bad when trying to play music at the same time. Also, you probably don’t want to blow that much money on a speaker for a car (that could potentially be stolen). After testing several “PA” all in one speakers on Amazon in the $50-$100 range, I found one that worked wonders. PA means to “publicly address” and therefore is built for vocal frequencies and microphone integration. They are also built to be very loud, but in a certain frequency range (higher for vocals). They will likely not reproduce good bass notes, or as good as a nice speaker setup.
Long story short, this speaker works, and it was about $80. It can also function as a Bluetooth speaker for small events if you choose to dual purpose it. It’s also rechargeable and sounds decent in full range. It has lights built in, but can be turned off. It is basically a knock off of the small Sony boombox, but with a built in wireless mic and better vocal production capabilities. Since I was not playing music at the same time, the vocals were even clearer than I hoped for.
Now, what this does is projects your own voice to the front seats, like a monitor on stage of a professional singer (that thing in their ear is to hear their own voice). This helps greatly when trying to stay on key of the song. You can also plug in several microphones. I, ultimately, ended up using wireless headsets that I had that sort of resembled MacDonald’s drive thru ear pieces. This is safer for driving, and it’s less rash than holding a microphone in traffic. My original goal was actually for my passengers to have fun, not so much myself, but it ended up working out both ways. More so, for the casual commuter, you may make your drive a full on jam session and brighten your own day without scaring anyone else. For the family or friends that are along for the trip, you may make an epic highlight of the journey.
Laugh a little, it is funny, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Even the most introverted of us will enjoy the thrill, but they may want tinted windows. 😎
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Have an amazing day!
