Wireless Bluetooth Karaoke Microphone with Effects by Mainstream Source
Our best-selling microphone has been listed this year as Amazon’s Choice and the Best-Selling new microphone on Amazon!
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How Our Microphone was Conceived
When Mainstream Source® developed our wireless karaoke microphone, we wanted to differentiate ourselves from the many other microphones in our class.
The President/CEO of Mainstream Source was a developer for Yamaha Corporation of America for over ten years, creating music tracks for their pianos and keyboards. Although born and raised in the USA, he learned first-hand how his Japanese counterparts insist upon precise, exact and intricate specifications for their projects on every level.
One of the many tasks our CEO performed at Yamaha was to duplicate every instrument and every note from a hit song and try to make a digital keyboard play the song back to sound as close as possible to the original. Although he worked on Yamaha’s most expensive pianos and keyboards, his task was to take the same song and make it sound as good as possible even on the least expensive keyboard sold by Yamaha.
From this experience, he came up with the idea of taking a relatively inexpensive microphone and offering as many features as possible to make it sound as good as it can get. In his own recording studio, he utilized the best and most expensive microphones, but this microphone was not going to be meant for studio recording. It was designed to be a fun, affordable, all-in-one karaoke party microphone with a new design plate and new features.
First, the microchip was upgraded to accept a split allowing four ‘volume’ sliders; one for voice volume, one for music volume, one for reverb and one for echo/delay, so the user could use just reverb, just delay, or the combination of the two. Then, he split the echo/delay slider so if it was raised a little you would experience a different delay speed than when it was raised fully.
Although subtle, these additions along with a slightly better built-in sound system (remember, we are working with just one-inch speakers here, but a line-out into a larger sound system can produce a cleaner, big sound) all were designed to enhance the experience of the user, and make it just slightly more professional than others in its class. And… we now offer this microphone in 13 different color combinations, including black on black, rose gold, silver, gold, pink and blue! Kids and adults alike love our 4 different sound effects, in case you want to sound like a monster, a baby or an alien while you sing!
Mainstream Source® producers also went to work developing our “Mainstream Source® Pro Karaoke” catalog of recorded music for karaoke applications, and to date, we offer hundreds of songs for karaoke and sing-a-long use on our Mainstream Source® YouTube channel, Amazon Music, iTunes, Spotify and on most other platforms. Almost all of our karaoke songs include a full vocal melody track for sing-along, an instrumental track with a guide melody instrument for teaching, and an instrumental track with or without background vocals for karaoke use.
We hope you enjoy the Mainstream Source® wireless karaoke microphone as much as we enjoyed creating it for you!
Karaoke Around The World
The word karaoke comes from the Japanese language; kara means empty and ōke is short for ōkesutora, which means orchestra. So, essentially, a karaoke song is a song with an “empty orchestra”, an instrumental track without a singer.
In just a few years, karaoke has become a worldwide phenomenon! Surprisingly, the art of karaoke singing is practiced differently with vastly different meaning from country to country. In the USA, for instance, karaoke parties occur where anyone can sing (or choose not to sing) regardless of skill, and the audience more often than not will make fun of the performer as everyone laughs together. Although it has become hugely more popular, until recently it wasn’t as much a part of the culture as it has been in Asia. In Japan, where it originated in the early 1970’s, karaoke is taken seriously, and it is considered an obligation or duty when one is called up to sing. Performers are treated with the greatest of respect… and more often than not, they do the very best they can to perform their chosen song with dignity, regardless of skill, while still having an enjoyable experience. In the Philippines, karaoke is huge because of KTV, a family experience in different locations all over. In fact, all over Asia karaoke has become an after-work activity in bars and restaurants throughout China, Korea and other Asian countries. Karaoke is also becoming popular in Australia, South America and all over Europe.
The Origins of Karaoke/Sing-Along
Singing along to music has been a longstanding tradition going back to the beginning of mankind, from chants to hymns to traditional folk songs. At the turn of the 20th century, player pianos were popular. Huge white rolls of paper with holes for each note were placed in the piano, and the holes in the paper would trigger the keys to play different notes, creating the first piano that played itself. People would gather around the piano and sing to the scrolled songs. Silent movies would scroll lyrics with the classic red bouncing ball as a pianist played the song in the theatres while the audience sang along.
Christmas carolers would roam neighborhood streets and marketplaces, spreading joy. Barbershop quartets were popular, leading to the great a cappella groups of the 1950’s. In the early 1960’s, children and adults alike would gather around the television (or their record players) to “Sing Along With Mitch”, as Mitch Miller created a phenomenon. The television show would begin with a certain song with lyrics displayed on the TV screen. This was probably the first actual interaction between an audience and performer in this manner.
In the early 1970’s, a Japanese performer named Daisuke Inoue realized that people enjoyed singing along to his music, so he developed the first rudimentary karaoke system, taping his music and selling it to others to sing to. Diasuke eventually won the Nobel Peace prize as he developed his system in order for people to better ‘tolerate each other’. Because he didn’t patent or trademark his idea, many others adopted the format, including Roberto del Rosario in the Phillippines, who patented the idea originally as “minus-one” and eventually as a karaoke machine. In fact, he still owns the patent on this.
The way karaoke songs are delivered to us has evolved from radio… through the cassette player era… and karaoke machines… to iPods… to today, where you can just use a stand-alone wireless microphone with a built-in speaker (like ours!) and hook it up through Bluetooth to many different applications on your computer or smart phone, for a portable, all-in-one experience. And… our Mainstream Source® wireless karaoke microphone can be used with no effects in classrooms and small meetings to amplify a speech or presentation.
Although new songs are always being produced for karaoke, most singers will pick a more popular classic pop, rock or dance song to sing, depending upon the country or culture, for a better result. In Japan, for instance, traditional Japanese songs are coveted.
It’s Good For You!
Singing can actually benefit a person’s physical and mental health! It’s certainly not a cure-all, but anything that helps reduce stress while releasing endorphins is bound to be good for you. One case study showed that singing actually reduced high blood pressure in a septuagenarian woman. It also boosts your social skills, builds confidence and the best part is… you don’t even have to have talent to do it! In fact, most people suck at it, which makes it that much more fun and takes all the pressure off. So, go on and have fun, let go and enjoy the experience!
