What is Smule? An online karaoke app, musician platform or social network for amateur musicians?

First of all, I must confess that I myself am quite a Smule fan. I discovered this app for myself some time ago and it pretty much put me under its spell. However, I do not have a direct connection to the app developer. Smule covers a lot in one, and I look at the Smule app, which is available for iPhone and Android and also provides a rudimentary web access, as an online karaoke app, musician platform and social network for amateur musicians in one.

Do music together on the internet

Smule has pretty much tied me up from the start. In my opinion, it is one of the few well-implemented ways to make music on the Internet. It is largely confined to singing and that two people randomly distributed around the world can sing together. Technically savvy musicians also have the opportunity to upload their own instrumental arrangements to the platform. As a result, these arrangements can be used by singers to sing about the instrumental template.

The basic principle and the basic idea of Smule

But first to the basic principle of Smule Online Karaoke App. Paying users (VIPs) can "open" songs there. This means that they are looking for an instrumental template out of the immensely large songbook, to which they want to sing. You select vocal track 1 or vocal track 2 and get correspondingly different parts of the song to sing. Often in duets one track is the male voice and the other is the female voice. The one who opens the song, first sings the selected vocal track individually. The text to be sung is displayed in light blue. The text, which the later singing partner has to sing, is displayed in dark gray, so that you can follow the song mentally. Vocal passages to be sung together are shown in yellow. Experienced singers can also sing a parallel harmonic second part here.

After opening a new song recording, the recording will be available to other users on the platform for seven days to participate. Other users (and even non-paying users) can search for open songs to join. As a non-paying user you have complete access to the collection of songs. You only have the restriction that you have to join a singer who has previously sung one of the two vocal tracks. I find this a very clever solution: In this way, there are always enough singers who sing along with others. And even as a non-paying user, it is a limitation that you can basically live with.

Within the seven days after opening any other singers can sing in the second vocal track. After completing and saving, the overall result is published on the platform so that it can be listened to by everyone else on the platform.

Optionally, it is possible to sing with or without smartphone camera. If you decide to sing with a camera, then the song is available as a video with various predefined effects. For singing, the supplied headset from the smartphone manufacturer is sufficient, although you can achieve a better audio quality with a professional microphone for Smule.

To return to the original question: Smule is thus an online karaoke app, a musician platform and a social network for musicians in one. Normally you sing at the Online Karaoke always offset in time, although there is also a (more experimental) function for the common live singing, which is subject to various natural restrictions due to Internet transmission latency. In a newsfeed you get the results of other vocal duets displayed. It is possible to comment on songs or to send private direct messages to other musicians via messenger. Irrevocably you get to know other musicians from all over the country and the whole world. There is the possibility to "like" songs and "follow" other musicians as followers. Due to the range of functions, Smule has become a kind of Instagram for musicians and singers in particular.

How did Smule come about?

The original idea of the Smule Startup was to connect the world through music. Smule originated in Palo Alto, located in the Santa Clara Valley, in Silicon Valley, California. Over $ 100 million has been acquired through investors, and annual sales have also broken the $ 100 million barrier. The platform enjoys a high activity of over 50 million monthly users. Read more on Wikipedia.

Would you like to become active on Smule yourself?

Here are my beginner tips for singing on Smule.

More questions?

If the article has not answered all questions, you can also contact me.

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