Put a Karaoke Machine In Your Pocket Using a Raspberry Pi

Karaoke is known the world over as that thing only drunk people and narcissists are willing to do. Sure, your singing voice sounds great in the shower, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid cringing when you hear it amplified over the PA in a grimy bar. But it’s still really fun, which is why it’s a shame that you generally have to go to those grimy bars to participate. Luckily, YouTuber jkagerer has a solution in the form of this pocket-friendly Raspberry Pi karaoke machine.

Details are sparse on this Pocket Karaoke v2.0 build, and it’s still squarely in the breadboard prototype phase of development. But, it’s still cool all the same. What we do know about the project is that it runs on a Raspberry Pi 3, and utilizes some sort of synthesizer for the backing music. Lyrics are displayed on a basic 16x2 character LCD display, and navigation is handled with three buttons.

The notes currently being played are shown on an array of eight LEDs, which would indicate that it’s using an octatonic scale and octaves are being ignored. The actual sound is reminiscent of very early cell phone ringtones, but that’s still enough to make the programmed songs recognizable. Those include “Happy Birthday,” “A Bicycle Built for Two,” and The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.” Sure, it’d be hard to rock out to songs with melodies that aren’t so easily identified, but this is still a neat project that you don’t have to go to a dirty bar to enjoy.