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What is Karaoke Eternal?
Karaoke Eternal is a self-hosted karaoke party system. Guests use their phone's browser to browse your song library and add themselves to a queue, while a separate browser window — the Player — runs fullscreen on the device connected to the room's audio and video setup.
What it does
- Playback formats: MP3+G (MP3 audio with CDG lyric graphics, including zipped files) and MP4 videos, plus music-synced visualizations with automatic lyrics background removal.
- Phone-first app: A mobile web app built for dim, crowded rooms. Guests join via QR code and a guest account, with no app install.
- Multiple rooms and queues: Several simultaneous rooms, each with its own queue and optional password.
- Dynamic queues: The queue reorders itself to keep the rotation fair, so one person can't camp the mic.
- No microphones required: The Player only outputs music and lyrics, so you keep your own mixer, mics and speakers. That's a deliberate design choice, not a limitation — it lets you build as simple or elaborate an audio chain as you want.
- Self-hosted: No ads, no telemetry, and your media stays on your hardware. The server reportedly runs on nearly anything.
Who it's for
The sweet spot is someone with a karaoke library already on disk — a KJ, a home host, or a community organiser — who wants phone-based song requests without paying for a hosted service or handing their library to one. It assumes you're comfortable running a server process and pointing it at your media folders. If you'd rather not touch a terminal, a commercial cloud karaoke service will be less work.
A practical scenario
You host a monthly party with a laptop plugged into the TV and a mixer feeding two mics. You run the server on a small always-on machine or the laptop itself, open the Player fullscreen on the TV, and print a QR code on the wall. Guests scan it, search your library from their phones, and queue up. You keep your existing mic and speaker setup untouched.
Next step
Decide where the server will live, since that shapes everything else: a laptop you already own, a home server, or a small dedicated box. Then confirm your library format — if it's mostly MP3+G, you're covered; if it's something else, check the documentation before committing. The project's official site is Karaoke Eternal, and its source and issue tracker are on GitHub.
How do I set up Karaoke Eternal for a karaoke party?
Set up Karaoke Eternal in three parts: a self-hosted server that stores and serves your media, a mobile web app guests use to browse and queue songs, and a player that runs fullscreen on the device connected to your TV and sound system. The server runs on nearly anything, and the player is browser-based, so the main work is installation, pointing the server at your media, and getting guests connected.
The three parts
- Server – hosts the web app and your karaoke files. Choose one of the available installation methods and keep it running for the party.
- App – the phone-facing side. Guests open it in a mobile browser, find songs, and add them to the queue. QR codes and guest accounts make joining quick.
- Player – the same app, but run fullscreen on the machine handling audio and video for the room. This is what your TV and speakers connect to.
Practical setup order
- Install and start the server using the method that fits your hardware.
- Put your media files where the server can see them and let it scan or parse the library, including metadata.
- Open the player fullscreen on the party display and confirm audio and video output.
- Create a room or queue, optionally password-protected, and test joining from a phone.
- Print or display the QR code so guests can join without typing a URL.
What media it handles
The player supports MP3+G files (MP3 with CDG lyrics, including zipped), MP4 videos, and music-synced visualizations with automatic lyrics background removal. Because the player only outputs music, microphones are not required — your audio setup can be as simple or complex as you like.
Party decisions worth making early
| Situation | Consider |
|---|---|
| One room, one screen | Single queue, no password needed |
| Multiple rooms or TVs | Separate rooms/queues, optionally password-protected |
| Large guest list | Dynamic queues keep rotation fair and reduce queue hogging |
| Mixed phone types | Browser-based joining avoids app installs |
Next step
Read the Getting Started guide on Karaoke Eternal for the step-by-step path, then check the F.A.Q. if you are unsure whether you need microphones or how to route audio. If you get stuck, the project's Discord server is the support channel.
Can I run Karaoke Eternal on a Raspberry Pi or low-power device?
Yes. Karaoke Eternal is designed to be self-hosted and the server "runs on nearly everything," which includes low-power hardware like a Raspberry Pi. The heavy lifting is light: the server mainly serves the web app and your media files, while playback and visualizations happen in the browser on the player device.
What runs where
- Server — the always-on piece. It hosts the app and streams your karaoke files. This is what you'd put on a Pi.
- App — opens in any phone or tablet browser so guests can browse and queue songs.
- Player — a fullscreen browser view on whatever machine drives the room's audio/video.
Practical Raspberry Pi setup
A typical low-power build looks like this:
- Install the server on the Pi using one of the available installation methods.
- Point it at your media library (MP3+G, zipped MP3+G, or MP4).
- Connect the Pi to your TV or audio system via HDMI, or run the player on a separate machine and let the Pi just serve.
- Guests scan a QR code to join, then queue from their phones.
Trade-offs to weigh
| Consideration | Low-power device (Pi) | Full PC/laptop |
|---|---|---|
| Power draw and noise | Very low, often silent | Higher, may need fans |
| Serving files and the web app | Comfortable | Overkill |
| Driving WebGL visualizations | Can struggle on older models | Smooth |
| Video decoding for MP4 | Depends on the model's hardware | Generally easy |
The main caveat: if the same Pi also runs the player with WebGL visualizations or high-bitrate MP4 video, an older or base-model Pi may stutter. Splitting roles—Pi as server, a stronger device as player—avoids that.
A useful decision criterion: if you only need song browsing and queueing with MP3+G audio, almost any recent Pi is fine. If you want music-synced visualizations or lots of MP4 video on the player itself, use a more capable machine for playback.
Next step: check the project's Getting Started and Installation docs on Karaoke Eternal to match an install method to your Pi model, and confirm your media format before committing to the hardware.
How do guests join and queue songs from their phones?
Guests join by opening the Karaoke Eternal app in their phone's browser — typically by scanning a QR code shown on the host's screen — and then queue songs from that browser page. No app install is required, and the site says guest accounts make joining easy. Each guest gets access to the library and the queue for the room they've joined.
Once in, a guest searches the library and adds songs to the queue. The queue is dynamic rather than a fixed list: the site describes it as keeping parties fair and fuss-free, which in practice means the system reorders or balances entries so one person can't monopolize the rotation. The player runs fullscreen on the machine handling audio and video for the room, so guests never need to touch the host's computer.
What a guest actually does
- Scan the QR code or open the app URL in a mobile browser.
- Join as a guest (or enter a room password, if the host set one).
- Search the library and add songs to the queue.
- Watch the queue to see when their turn is coming up.
Points worth knowing
- Multiple rooms and queues can run at once, and each can be password-protected — useful if two parties share one server or you want to separate a kids' room from a main room.
- Microphones aren't part of the system; the player only outputs music, so your audio setup is separate.
- Supported formats are MP3+G (including zipped) and MP4 video, so the library you build determines what guests can pick.
If you're setting this up, decide first whether you need more than one room, then create the guest-facing QR code or URL for each room before people arrive. Test the join flow on a phone on the same network as the server, since that's the step most likely to trip up first-time hosts. For official setup details, see Karaoke Eternal.
What file formats and media types does Karaoke Eternal support?
Karaoke Eternal is built around two playback formats: MP3+G (an MP3 audio track paired with a CDG lyrics file, including zipped versions) and MP4 video. It also offers music-synced visualizations with automatic lyrics background removal, which matter if you want a background that reacts to the song rather than a plain screen.
What that means in practice:
- MP3+G — the classic karaoke pairing. You keep an MP3 and a matching CDG file together, and the app renders the lyrics over the audio. Zipped files are supported, which is convenient if your library arrived that way.
- MP4 videos — self-contained karaoke videos with burned-in lyrics. These are the simplest to manage because there is no separate lyrics file to keep in sync.
- Visualizations — the player can display music-synced graphics and strip the background from lyrics, useful for a more produced look on a TV or projector.
A practical decision criterion: if you already have a large MP3+G collection, this app fits it directly; if you prefer downloading ready-made karaoke videos, MP4 is the cleaner path. Mixing both is fine, since the queue treats them as songs either way.
One detail worth knowing: the player only outputs music, so microphones are not required. That keeps your audio setup flexible, but it also means the app is not handling vocal input or mixing on its own.
Next step: check the app's Getting Started and Media Files documentation to confirm how your existing library should be named and organized before you import it, since mismatched MP3/CDG pairs are the most common reason a song fails to display lyrics.
How do I manage multiple karaoke rooms or queues with different passwords?
Karaoke Eternal is built around exactly that scenario: the page lists "Multiple simultaneous rooms/queues (optionally password-protected)" as a feature, so each room can have its own queue and its own password rather than everyone sharing one list.
How it fits together
The system has three parts: a self-hosted Server that serves the web app and your media, the App (a mobile browser interface guests use to search and queue songs), and the Player, which is the same app run fullscreen on whatever machine handles audio and video for a room. Rooms and queues live on the server side, so they persist across phones joining and leaving.
A practical setup for two rooms
- Install the server and point it at your media library (MP3+G, zipped MP3+G, and MP4 are the supported formats).
- Create one room per physical space — for example "Living Room" and "Basement" — and set a password on each.
- On each room's audio/video machine, open the Player fullscreen and connect it to that room.
- Put a QR code for each room's join link at the entrance to that space. Guests scan, enter the room password, and land in the right queue.
The password is doing two jobs at once: it keeps the queues separate (nobody queues a death metal track into the kids' room list) and it stops strangers from adding songs if your join link leaks.
Trade-offs to weigh
| Choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Password on every room | Cleaner queues, more friction at join time |
| One open room, one locked | Good for a public/mixed party plus a private side room |
| Separate rooms per space | Independent playback and queues, needs a player device per room |
| One room, one queue | Simplest, but a single long list and no separation |
Next step
Decide how many simultaneous playback devices you actually have. Rooms only make sense if each one has its own screen or audio output running the Player; otherwise you are better off with a single password-protected queue. If you want a second reference point on self-hosted media servers generally, Jellyfin covers the broader self-hosting model, though it is not a karaoke queue system.
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