Singtrix Party Bundle – Tech Review

Developed by the creators of Guitar Hero, and pitched to Mark Cuban and the rest of the sharks on Shark Tank, Singtrix was created to bring karaoke and house parties to the next level. Singtrix features the most powerful vocal processing ever created for professional musicians. We’re talking auto-tune in your living room! Singtrix was designed to allow anyone to sing like their favorite artists, regardless of natural singing ability.

Recently we were lucky enough to test and review a Sintrix Party Bundle at Busted Wallet’s HQ. From everything we’d seen online and on Shark Tank we knew this karaoke machine was going to be fun to play with. What we didn’t know, was if Singtrix would actually take our pitchy, untrained singing voices and make them sound like John Legend and Beyonce.

To fully understand how Singtrix works, from a technical standpoint, check out the embedded video below…

Setup:

From un-boxing to powering up the Singtrix studio and speaker took us all of 15 minutes. Once you finally get all of the cords, hardware and additional parts out of the box, and then setup of the mic stand the entire system goes together rather quickly. Setup and tear down now takes us just 5 minutes, which is great for taking your Singtrix on the road from party to party.

There are several cords to keep track of, so having a bag to store everything is a good idea. The mic stand folds down nicely for travel. Overall, the entire system is pretty easy to setup and intuitive. The only downside we could see was the amount of cords laying around, but that can be easily remedied with some twist-ties or electrical tape to keep things tidy.

Design:

We were happily surprised with the build quality of this system. Each piece of the Singtrix feels well made and built to last. We were most impressed with the Singtrix studio controller, which has so many presets, that you’re unlikely to use them all. The studio is also very easy to use with six buttons on the face and a power button located at the back.

Using the Studio to shift between vocals proved to be simple and intuitive. The studio even comes with three additional face plates with different colors for a little bit of customization.

Additionally we found the included phone / tablet holder to be a nice touch. This allows you to use karaoke apps to feed you lyrics while you sing your favorite tunes.

Vocal Manipulation:

Singing is hard! But with more than 300 options to auto-tune, pitch correct and harmonize, the Singtrix studio is an amazing little device. As you find effects that work well with your voice and the songs you like to sing you can add them to your favorites by holding the MIC VOLUME button down for 4 seconds. Do this! You’ll thank us later when you’re singing like a rock star instead of searching for minutes and minutes through the seemingly endless effects.

Once you find an effect that makes you sound amazing, use the “Hit” button on the mic to magnify your awesomeness. This button will layer your voice even stronger which is great for singing hooks and choruses.

The Singtrix studio allows you to sing better than you could have ever imagined, it’s truly wonderful to watch someone use Singtrix for the first time, but trust us, it will not make you sound like a pro if you can’t carry a tune. The pitch correct works amazingly well and helps a lot, but it’s not going to make you sound like Celine Dion the moment you start singing.

Now if you can get through the track with a steady pitch and without having your voice crack YOU WILL amaze your friends. For us less talented singers it still took some practice to get warmed up and singing our best.

Something that is hard to get past is the fact that while singing you can hear your own voice and your manipulated voice at the same time. You hear your own voice because it’s coming out of your mouth and you also hear your beautifully auto-tuned voice coming from the speakers. This can take some time to get used to. The best solution we could find was bumping up the volume on the speaker and putting it behind you. The other option is to run your music independently on another speaker system and use the Singtrix studio and speaker for vocals only. This is the best option in our opinion if you have an additional speaker setup available.

Some of our favorite voice effects are the Power Trio, Barry Tone and Tuned Duo. Your best bet is to go through all of the effects and pick out your favorites without any music playing, this will give you an idea of which effects will make you sound like a pro.

Singtrix App:

We found the Singtrix app to be less than wonderful but still useful. The app is free, which is nice, but the songs aren’t. Well, you get 12 free songs pre-loaded on the app ranging from Justin Bieber to Willie Nelson, but beyond that you need to join the Singtrix Club ($11.99 per month) or you download credits for songs as you go ($9.99 for 5 songs or $49.99 for 27 songs).  The Singtrix app also allows you to scroll though vocal presets, this is a nice feature if you’re looking for a specific preset and can’t remember the number.

Luckily for us their are killer third-party apps you can download that are also free and simply pull karaoke videos from Youtube for you. You may have to deal with an annoying ad or two every so often, but it’s better than paying for tracks. Karaoke Cloud (iTunes / Android) and Sing! (iTunes / Android) are both good options.

Better than using the apps to find songs we found it easier to simply search Youtube on your phone or tablet. If you want sing Tom Petty’s Last Dance With Mary Jane, simply type in “Last Dance With Marty Jane Karaoke”. Basically any song you can think of has been ported to Youtube in karaoke version in one way or another. You’ll find that it’s a bit hit or miss, with some karaoke tracks on Youtube. Some have background voices, or bad lyric timing and tempo, but a lot are really, really good too.

Audio Quality:

The 40 watt speaker system included in the Singtrix Party Bundle is a nice setup. The speaker is quite loud and is able to handle a wide range of highs, mids and lows. With a built-in sub in the bottom it can also deliver some decent bass.

You can control the volume, treble and bass from the knobs on the face of the speaker. We found that lower bass and a mid level on the treble worked nicely for most pop, rock and country songs. You’ll want to dial up the bass for hip hop and rap.

Though this speaker is quite nice, overall we found that it has to work very hard to project the music and your voice at the same time. It seems to be a bit of an overwhelming task at time for the speaker. If you’re able to, you might want use the Singtrix speaker along with another speaker system and run the music through one and the vocals through the other. We tried this using the Singtrix and the Sony Portable Party Speaker with great success and a lot more depth in range as well.

Value:

Priced at $349.99 the Singtrix Party Bundle isn’t chump change, but when you compare it to similar karaoke machines with no voice effects, the value becomes clear very quickly. With Singtrix you have a karaoke machine, a system to make announcements with, a total party machine and countless hours of entertainment with amazing and hilarious voice effects. If you’re in the market for a karaoke machine Singtrix should be at the top of your list for consideration.

Buy Now: $349.99 or to learn more, go to: Singtrix.com