The problem with hosting your karaoke show from your laptop, is that microphones plugged into your computer don’t broadcast the sound externally – the computer assumes you are using the microphone to record. I did find a virtual audio driver that fixed that, but there was a moment of latency between the karaoke track sound and the microphone sound. I finally decided that it was best to just get a sound mixer and use it to keep all the audio inputs synchronized properly.

At first I assumed that I would need a sound mixer with USB to connect to my laptop, but that has its own issues. Is the mixer compatible with your operating system, etc.? Then I realized I only needed a standard mixer and use the laptops line out (headphone) port to connect to it using a 3.5mm to dual 1/4-inch cable.

I wanted a small mixer that was light and easily portable since I want to be able to take this to friends’ houses for parties. This Behringer model is very compact and works amazingly well with my laptop.