Review: Go on, sing your heart out!
If you like nothing more than an evening crooning your favourite songs, you might want to sign up for the new EZ-OK Smart Karaoke Application and cloud karaoke service from AJ Advance Technology, which lets you have fun singing more than 25,000 karaoke numbers from the comfort, not to mention privacy, of your own lounge.
AJ, which is well-known among Thais for its home electrical and home entertainment appliances, has invested more than Bt100 million to develop its cloud karaoke system. The service must be used with the EZ-OK app and users need to first apply for a monthly service with AJ. The app, which is available for both Android and iOS devices, serves as an interface for you to browse through selections of over 25,000 songs, mostly popular Thai tracks, and the app will fetch the songs of your choice.
Moreover, the app supports voice command, allowing you to say the songs’ titles for the app to search for you. And the songs can be compiled into a playlist or a list of favorite songs.
Since the songs are karaoke files, you can tap the microphone button on the display to turn the vocals off or on. Off gives you just the instrumental track and you take over as the vocalist. You can also adjust the melody key to suit your pitch and even record your singing for sharing on social networks.
The app can also give you points after the end of each song but you will need a stereo headset to connect to your smartphone or tablet. The app also requires a powerful microphone in the headset to feed your voice signals back to the server for rating your performance. The rating system so far does not support the Bluetooth headset but AJ says this will come soon.
The app has four sections– Popular Songs, New Songs, Music Genres and Favourites. The Favourites section is where you will find the songs you most want to sing and they’ll be downloaded for you to sing offline.
In the Genres section, you will find seven music genres to browse through, including dance songs, songs for life, luk thung and strings.
The app can be downloaded for free and you can try it at no cost for a full week. After that you pay a monthly or yearly service charge to access the cloud database.
During the promotion period, AJ charges Bt99 for the monthly service down from the normal price of Bt199 or Bt499 for the yearly service form the normal price of Bt1,999. The promotional prices will remain in place until further notice.
The app needs your mobile phone number to be registered for an account. Once you have purchased and filled the airtime code, your account can be used with three devices at the same time. You can also use it on your Android TV and there are also options of HD music videos for you to select and sing karaoke on your large-screen TV.
The app can also be used with the Portable Mic Karaoke PM-001 from AJ that has a built-in microphone and speakers. It also has sliders for adjusting levels of bass, treble, echo, microphone volume and music volume. It connects to your smartphone or tablet with Bluetooth connection. During the test, I found the PM-001 produced loud and clear sounds, making karaoke singing really fun inside my living room. The PM-001 retails for Bt1,990.
AJ also has several other portable karaoke speakers for sale, including the BoomBox Speaker Karaoke BB-001 and the Party Speaker Karaoke PS-001 priced at Bt3,990 and Bt4,990 respectively and coming with a free one year-subscription to the service.
Key facts:
Monthly fee: Bt199 (now available at promotional price of Bt99)
Yearly fee: Bt1,999 (now available at promotional price of Bt499)
Required: Android or iOS devices and small-talk headset for performance rating
Number of songs: 25,000+