Now You Can Turn Apple Music Into a Free Karaoke Machine
We all have songs we need to sing along to—whether they appear on the radio, on a streaming playlist, or on the Sonos speaker in the office bathroom, when this track hits your ears, you grab an imaginary microphone. And now, if you have Apple Music, you always have a free karaoke machine in your pocket thanks to Apple Music Sing .
Apple Music Sing is a new free feature of Apple Music that works on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV 4K. With it, you can turn any compatible song into a karaoke moment. This builds on the popularity of the real-time lyrics feature (which rival platforms like Spotify have also taken over), and makes Apple Music feel like a singing app for you and your friends.
Apple Music Sing turns your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV into a karaoke machine
First, Apple updated the lyrics in real time to “dance to the rhythm of the vocals,” which is a fancy way of saying that the app dynamically highlights each word as it’s played. This is a bit more useful for tracking than the previous realtime text feature, which highlights the entire line at a time, but it’s really the smallest change here. Sing also breaks backing vocals into their own animation so you don’t get distracted trying to sing two simultaneous vocal streams. If you have selected a song with multiple artists, the lyrics of each artist will appear on opposite sides of the display. This way, in a duet, you don’t have to worry about singing the other person’s line.
What makes Apple Music Sing really innovative is that it gives you the ability to control the volume of the vocals on the song of your choice. You can sing along with the original vocals or reduce them to focus on your own voice. You can’t completely eliminate the lead vocal, but you can mute it a lot , which I think expands Apple Music Sing’s potential beyond karaoke. For example, you can turn down the vocals on your favorite songs to better hear elements of the music that were previously hidden by the lead singer. Nowadays, I’m enjoying listening to some popular songs in a new light, focusing more on the instruments and overall production than on the lyrics.
However, this feature is not designed for music education, so it’s not perfect. Whatever process Apple uses to isolate vocals does make a difference in audio quality, with audible glitches and glitches here and there. But it’s still a fun way to learn more about your favorite tunes. And, of course, he’s excellent at offering tracks to sing along to.
Apple states that “millions” of songs in their library are compatible with the feature, and as Gizmodo reports , “80% of its songs will be released at launch.” You’ll also find songs to sing along to in one of 50 unique Apple Music Sing playlists. While I find many songs work, ” The Loneliest Time ” by Carly Rae Jepsen is not compatible. Blasphemy, Apple.
How to use Apple Music Sing on your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV 4K
Apple Music Sing is not available on all Apple devices, even those with the latest software, due to the processing power required for this feature. The following devices are compatible with Sing:
- iPhone 11 and later
- iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation and later)
- iPad Air (4th generation and later)
- iPad mini (6th generation)
- iPad (9th generation and later)
- Apple TV 4K (3rd generation)
This feature is not available on the Apple Music Voice plan (slightly ironic, Apple).
While you can try Apple Music Sing today, you’ll need to have the latest iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, or tvOS 16.2 beta installed on your device. If you’d like to try out Sing, as well as other features coming in future versions of Apple’s software, you can register your device in Apple’s beta program right now. This latest beta is a release candidate, which means it is more stable than other types of beta software. However, installing early software on your device still comes with risks, including data loss, so be aware of this before installing version 16.2. Apple will publicly release the software update later this month, so you can always wait to try it out.
When version 16.2 is installed on your device, select a song to play on Apple Music. If it’s compatible with Sing, you’ll see a new microphone icon in the lyrics. Touch it and it turns into a mini volume slider that you use to adjust the volume of your main vocal. If you ever want to turn off singing, slide the slider up or tap it.