History

AudioSynTrac and Numark Electronics were the first companies that combined to offer sing-along tapes and audio equipment to the rest of the world. The president of AudioSynTrac, Scott Ebright was a California music promoter and talent agent who booked singers at resorts and hotels across the U.S. Japanese electronics companies saw the AudioSynTrac products introduced at CES shows in the 1970's and immediately copied the concept, calling it "karaoke". The first karaoke machine was invented by Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue in Kobe, Japan, in the early 1970s. After becoming popular in Japan, karaoke spread to East and Southeast Asia during the 1980s and subsequently to other parts of the world in its modern state.

In Japan, it has long been common to provide musical entertainment at a dinner or a party. Japanese drummer Daisuke Inoue was asked by frequent guests in the Utagoe Kissa, where he performed, to provide a recording of his performance so that they could sing along on a company-sponsored vacation. Realizing the potential for the market, Inoue made a tape recorder that played a song for a 100-yen coin.

Instead of giving his karaoke machines away, he leased them out, so that stores did not have to buy new songs on their own. Originally, it was considered a somewhat expensive fad, as it lacked the live atmosphere of a real performance and 500 yen in the 1970s was the price of two typical lunches, but it caught on as a popular entertainment. Karaoke machines were initially placed in restaurants and hotel rooms; soon, new businesses called karaoke boxes, with compartmented rooms, became popular. In 2004, Daisuke Inoue was awarded the tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel Peace Prize for inventing karaoke, "thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."

Inoue never bothered to patent his invention, losing his chance to become one of Japan's richest men. Roberto del Rosario, a Filipino inventor who called his sing-along system "Minus-One", now holds the patent for the device now commonly known as the "karaoke machine". Following a court battle with a Japanese company which claimed to have invented the system, del Rosario's patents were issued in 1983 and 1986, more than a decade after Inoue's original unpatented invention of the device in 1971.

Early karaoke machines used cassette tapes, but technological advances replaced this with CDs, VCDs, laserdiscs and, currently, DVDs. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Pioneer Electronics dominated the international karaoke music video market, producing high quality karaoke music videos (inspired by the music videos featured on MTV). In 1992, Taito introduced the X2000, which fetched music via a dial-up telephone network. Its repertoire of music and graphics was limited, but its smaller size and the advantage of continuous updates saw it gradually replace traditional machines. Karaoke machines connected via fiber-optic links to provide instant high-quality music and video are becoming increasingly popular.

Karaoke soon spread to the rest of Asia and then to the United States in the 1990s, as well as to Canada and other Western countries. In-home karaoke machines soon followed but lacked success in the US and Canadian markets. When creators became aware of this problem, karaoke machines were no longer being sold strictly for the purpose of karaoke but as home theater systems to enhance television watching to "movie theater like quality". Home theater systems took off, and karaoke went from being the main purpose of the stereo system, to being a side feature.

As the available selection of music has increased for karaoke machines, more and more people within the industry saw karaoke as a very profitable form of lounge and nightclub entertainment. It is not uncommon for some bars to have karaoke performances seven nights a week, commonly with much more high-end sound equipment than the small, stand-alone machines noted above. Dance floors and lighting effects are also becoming common sights in karaoke bars. Lyrics are often displayed on multiple TV sets around the bar, including big screens.

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