Using laptop with mixer for karaoke

pot8ing

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Hi all
I'm hoping for some advice on an at-home karaoke set-up I've been trying to get working. At the moment I have 2 relatively cheap mics connected to a Behringer MX400 mini mixer via XLR cables into 1/4" mono jacks. I then have my laptop running KaraFun, with an HDMI audio extractor running video to my TV, and audio to the mixer, which then runs into a powered speaker. I have been using this mixer for years and it's always worked well for small set-ups (as long as I don't mind the mono sound!) but there is a significant delay in the microphone audio. I'm wondering what the source of this could be in this system since it seems the audio is transmitted in analog the whole time. Could anyone suggest a cheap solution to this problem? Would using an audio interface instead of a mixer make any difference?
Thanks!!!!
 
So to defeat the sound delay on a pc you need to use a mixing deck, I use this one, you would send the sound from the laptop using a 3.5mm jack to phono lead to the mixer and then phono lead away from the mixer to where ever the sound was going to, the picture you would send separately from the laptop to the tv. So essentially you are splitting the sound and the picture up.

As far as I am away this is the only way to beat latency on windows p.c, from my knowledge there was only windows xp where latency was not an issue, there are plenty of software programs out there that claim to beat the latency but I have yet to find one, the mixing deck whilst not ideal because of the extra leads is the only solution I could find that actually worked.
 
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What mics are you using? If they are plugged directly into the analogue mixer and to a powered speaker, I don't understand where the delay is coming from.

Are you running the mics through the PC to add echo effects or something? Is this adding the delay?

Is there any delay on the powered speaker? The mixer cannot add delay and unless there's some digital circuitry in the mics, they cannot either?

Do you have some pictures and spec of the mics and speaker?
 
Thanks for your replies!

No this is why I'm very confused - the mics aren't interacting with the PC at all. I just bought some cheap ones from amazon (Moukey MW5) as I wasn't worried about sound quality with just a small group of friends, but obviously the lag is a bit of a problem for karaoke! I can't give you much more info on the speaker at the moment as I'm away and bought it in a shop a few years ago...it's relatively good quality though and has always worked well. There's no delay in sound from the laptop, just the mics
 
If you Google windows karaoke microphone latency it is a topic that is well documented since the end of windows xp, since windows 7 onwards it exists, why ? I do not know the answer to this question, I tried all avenues to solve mine as stated above the mixing amp was and is the only solution I found, that's not to say by now there are not other workarounds by now.
 
OK, so neither the mic or mixer can introduce any delay, so it must be the powered speaker.

@sim12 , please re-read the OP's posts, he's not plugging the mics into the PC, so it's nothing to do with any latency issues.

I can only think that the powered speaker has some sort of delay built in and this is what you are hearing. It will be delaying the output from the laptop as well, but unless you were listening to the laptop speaker and the powered speaker at the same time.
 
OK, so neither the mic or mixer can introduce any delay, so it must be the powered speaker.

@sim12 , please re-read the OP's posts, he's not plugging the mics into the PC, so it's nothing to do with any latency issues.

I can only think that the powered speaker has some sort of delay built in and this is what you are hearing. It will be delaying the output from the laptop as well, but unless you were listening to the laptop speaker and the powered speaker at the same time.
Yeah my bad I see now, so either the mixer is faulty or as you mentioned the powered speakers are causing audio delay.

Anyway the ok can put the sound out through to tv, that would certainly find where problem sits.
 
Thanks both! Glad to have confirmed that it can't be the mics, and don't see how it can be the mixer so time for some more experimenting with speakers yay
 
Yes, the mixer cannot delay the signal.

Some powered speakers have digital signal processing and this adds a small delay. We found this with some Sony speakers at a house party, as they were a good half a second behind the ones they were linked to.
 

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