Do you love to sing along to your favorite music or do you like an evening of karaoke? There are many karaoke bars worldwide, where you can sing along with your friends or family to the greatest classics. With Apple Music you can also sing karaoke at home. In iOS 16.2 and newer, you will find the Apple Music Sing function on the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. That’s an extension of the existing lyrics in Apple Music, animating the lyrics so you know exactly when to sing. But the function offers much more.
- Supplies
- Why high demands?
- Possibilities
- To use
Apple Music Sing: You need this for karaoke with Apple Music
In principle, anyone with an Apple Music subscription can sing along to the music, but if you want to use the special karaoke mode, you have to meet a few other requirements. You need this for Apple Music Sing:
- Apple Music subscription
- iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, or tvOS 16.2 or later
- One of these devices:
- iPhone 11 or newer
- iPhone SE 2022 (3rd generation)
- iPad Pro 2021 or newer
- iPad Air 2020 or newer
- iPad mini 2021
- iPad 2021 or newer
- Apple TV 4K 2022 (3rd generation)
So you need a fairly recent iPhone, iPad or Apple TV to use the karaoke mode.
Why these high system requirements for Apple Music karaoke?
If you look at the list of devices on which Apple Music Karaoke works, some recent devices are missing, such as the 2021 Apple TV 4K, the iPad Pro 2020, and the iPad Air 2019. It seems that it only works on devices that meet the following to demand:
- At least A13 Bionic processor
- At least 4GB RAM
- At least 3rd Generation Neural Engine
The second generation iPhone SE 2020 does have an A13 processor, but only 3GB of RAM and is therefore not included. The Apple TV 4K 2021 is also excluded because it contains an A12 chip. The Neural Engine must also be recent: adjusting the vocals in a song apparently requires rather heavy processing and is therefore only possible on the third generation of Neural Engine. Apple has not provided any explanation about this itself, but you can deduce which hardware is required based on the list of supported devices.
Features of Apple Music karaoke
Apple Music’s karaoke mode offers a few different possibilities:
- Sing along with the moving lyrics, which indicate exactly when you should sing something
- Adjusting the volume of the original artist’s vocals
- Singing duets together, with the vocal parts of the two singers opposite each other
- Sing along with lyrics by backing singers
Karaoke mode works with millions of songs from the Apple Music library. Not all songs are suitable, but most songs where the scrolling lyrics are available also support Karaoke mode. Keep in mind that the vocals in the existing songs are, as it were, filtered out, without this being at the expense of the actual music. You cannot keep the original vocals completely still, because you will always hear something of the original voice.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV won’t record your voice. You cannot connect a microphone to the Music app to, for example, make your own voice sound through the speakers. Also, the Music app does not look at how well you have sung along, as is the case with many karaoke machines.
Sing along with Karaoke mode in Apple Music
To sing along with the music in Apple Music, do the following:
- Open the Music app and start the song you want to sing along to.
- Tap the button in the bottom left to view the lyrics.
- A button with a microphone will appear on the right side. Tap this.
- The volume of the original artist is adjusted. Press and hold the button and drag it to increase or decrease the artist’s volume. The word Sing appears below the timeline to indicate that the Apple Music Sing mode is active.
- If necessary, tap play and sing!
With duets, Apple shows the vocal parts of both singers separately. For example, you can arrange that one sings the lyrics on the left and the other sings only the right. Unfortunately, it is not always clear when both singers sing at the same time, so some knowledge of the song in question is certainly an advantage.
You can read along with the moving lyrics and the lyrics light up when it’s your turn to sing. If you want to go big, you can also stream the music from the Music app to, for example, an AiPlay speaker. If you have an Apple TV 4K from 2022, you can also sing along with the lyrics thanks to the karaoke on the Apple TV.
