From licensing to production, a behind-the-scenes look at our song catalog
While accessing new releases from the KaraFun Business App takes a simple click, the production-to-app journey of any of our thousands of karaoke songs is a lengthy and exhaustive one, but one that your customers will appreciate when they sing their hearts out (again and again) in their favorite karaoke box.
So how does KaraFun select which music to include in its catalog?
The simplest answer is with lots of attention to detail and quality so that we can continue to offer you the best karaoke catalog on the market.
Our team of music specialists goes through a rigorous selection and production process that, on average, takes 3-6 weeks of internal production and checks before being released to the public.
Let’s take a look at the steps from licensing to suggestion and on to production.
Step 1: Voting and Song Selection
Hits come and go, classics remain and music is part of life. Choosing the perfect songs for our extensive catalog of karaoke videos is crucial, yet it can sometimes be a challenging task. Production costs can run high due to licensing fees and a lengthy qualitative check for each track, so providing a catalog of songs that fits your client's needs is all that more important.
The KaraFun Business Application is composed of thousands of hits, classics and fan favorites and is based on votes by our community of users. Our team of musicians also follows current trends in order to anticipate popular releases. This allows us to assure that we bring your clients exactly what they want to sing. And with 400+ songs released per month, there’s always something new to look forward to.
Looking for a specific song? Vote for it directly within the KaraFun Business App, as a KaraFun Business client, your vote counts doubly!
Step 2: Licensing
An essential part of the production process is licensing. Our internal licensing team works with major labels and corresponding performance rights societies in order to obtain the necessary authorizations for us to be able to legally reproduce songs and then provide them to you on the KaraFun Business App.
Since karaoke is a reproduction of an original song with video, it has specific licensing conditions that it must respect and is different from publically broadcasting solely the music to a song.
Contrary to many karaoke providers, our internal licensing team works with major publishers and performance organizations to clear the tracks for production and distribution and obtains the necessary rights to legally redistribute our catalog. Other providers often sub-license their catalog from a variety of different sources, not only compromising song quality but also legal song availability.
A valid KaraFun Business subscription includes a full and legal catalog. Broadcast of a karaoke song and video may require distinct licenses for commercial usage depending on your venue’s location so check regulations in your country and read more about it on our blog via the dedicated article Music Licensing 101 here.
Important Information about Licensing
If ever you or your clients can't find a song, it may be due to copyright restrictions as some artists, publishers and performance rights societies have declined use for streaming platforms. Sadly, despite the hard work from our licensing team, there is little action that can be taken as KaraFun Business chooses to respect these wishes and distribute a legal catalog. Our Team is committed to continuing to survey the situation in an effort to bring the best quality and most complete catalog of karaoke songs.
Step 3: Reproduction and Quality Control
The third step of the process is for our music team to find the original version of the voted-upon song. Finding the original version allows us to remake the karaoke version as close to the original as possible.
Once the original is identified (sometimes difficult due to a song's release date), our experts are now one step closer to releasing the music your clients will love to sing.
We work with 30 partner studios around the world to reproduce any of the songs found in our catalog. Doing so allows us to match the music to its area of origin, an effort to respect the cultural sound as much as possible. For example, a portion of our country songs are reproduced in the United States since our studio partners there are accustomed to this genre of music.
After the production of the song is completed, partner studios send the trackback to our main offices where our specialized team of sound engineers can compare it to the original audio file. After our team validates the high-quality standards of our songs is at the best possible quality, it’s time to sync the music to the karaoke lyrics.
Step 4: Karaoke Lyrics Synchronization
After song production, our music team checks lyrics and spellings with a fine-toothed comb before creating a karaoke video with specialized software that combines video and lyrics with the music tracks to create a final version.
And the cherry on top... our professional team of karaoke video experts take special care when creating our karaoke videos, making sure to theme each video. For example, you'll notice colors of a Christmas song reflect the festive green and red of the holiday season. Note: due to licensing restrictions for karaoke videos, we are not able to provide you with original music videos for songs.
Lyrics synchronization is just another essential step in the production process, providing an opportunity for another quality check before the song is released on our KaraFun Business App and to your karaoke customers.
Step 5: Upload to the KaraFun Business Application
The last step in the process, after having synced the lyrics to the music and creating a karaoke video, our team uploads the KaraFun Business App. Updates are made daily and just by opening the app, you and your karaoke box customers have access to the new releases without any time-consuming downloads. Each month, we upload over 400 new songs for you to share and sing with your customers that can be found in the App under the section NEW RELEASES.
Got questions?
KaraFun Business is dedicated to bringing you and your customers the very best in quality and selection of karaoke songs. If you have questions about opening a karaoke box business or the KaraFun Business App and song catalog, reach out, we would love to answer any questions or concerns by email at business@karafun.com.