Karaoke is basically singing to a backing track. The word is Japanese and, literally translated, it means "empty orchestra". It became popular in the UK in the early 80's with Pioneer Laserdisc systems which used large 12" double sided discs which had 14 songs per side and were around £100 each. As time went on and technology enabled more compact systems, CDG, or CD+Graphics, systems allowed the words and simple graphics to be encoded more cheaply and simply. Initially, the only manufacturer was DKK. Later, companies such as Sunfly, Music Maestro and Soundchoice started making many more discs. Nowadays, there is a huge choice from many manufacturers and custom burn discs are also available. |
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