Story behind the first karaoke machine

Belting your favorite song on prerecard music in a microphone in front of friends and strangers in Karaoke is a popular method for people around the world after working for people around the world or celebrating friend’s birthday. The idea for the karaoke machine did not come from a singer or a large entertainment company Niciden KogyoA small electronics assembly company in Tokyo.

Founder of the company, Shigchi NegishiOne day in 1967 was singing himself at work when an employee jokingly said that he was out of tune. To know that singing with music would help them stay on the pitch, Negishi began to wonder how to make it possible. He had the idea of ​​changing one of the 8-track tape deck, which is now known to his company as a Karaoke machine.

Later that year, he created that he would become the first machine, which he called The Music Box. The 30-gram cube placed an 8-track player for instrumental recording of four tapes and included a microphone for singing.

He sold his machine to a Japanese trading company in 1967, which then sold it to restaurants, bar and hotel banquet hall, where he used it as entertainment.

The machine was coined Karaoke Music to describe the work of singing with music in the 1970s. The word is a combination of two Japanese words: KaraMeaning EmptyAnd OxutoraMeaning Orchestra,

In a few years, dedicated establishments known as Karaoke Bar began to open in Japan. Today is more than 8,000 in the country, according to Statistics,

Karaoke machine has been remembered as one IEEE milestoneThe dedication ceremony was held in the area in June in which Karaoke is connected to the booth. Ekinagawa Prince Hotel In Tokyo. Negishi’s family along with IEEE leaders participated in the event. Negishi died last year at the age of 100.

He was grateful that people enjoy karaoke around the world, his son, Akihiro Negisia said at the ceremony, “Although he did not imagine it to spread globally when he made it.”

Inventing one of the world’s favorite past by mistake

Shigchi Negishi grew up in Tokyo, where her mother ran a tobacco shop and her father made a regional election as a government official. After earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from Hoci University In Tokyo, they were drafted Imperial Japanese Army During World War II. He became the prisoner of the war and spent two years in Singapore before his release in 1947.

He returned to Tokyo and sold cameras for electrical parts manufacturer Olympus corpIn 1956 he started Nikiden Kogyo, which according to the construction and gathering portable radio for the house and car Engineering and Technology History Wiki Entry About Karaoke Machine.

Negishi will start singing with “pop songs without lyrics” radio shows every morning, according to A Forbes Article. He usually did not sing in the office, but a frightening day he did. Negishi was motivated to an engineer from the 8-track tape deck, now known as a karaoke machine

An 8-track tape deck can play and record audio using magnetic tape cartridges. Niciden Kogyo’s music box was a 30-nine meter cube, with slots to insert four 8-track tape on the top panel, with the control button to play, stop, or leave the next song.

Each 13-nine meter-rectangular 8-track cartridge is a loop of about 1 cm-wide magnetic tape that is coil around a circular reel, as mentioned in one Blog post on technology anytimeInside each cartridge, a small motorist draws tape across an audio head, which reads the magnetic pattern and translates them into sound. Each tape had a metal sensing strip, which at the end of a song, informed a solanoid coil located in the player or if someone pressed the button to switch to the next song, according to A. Autodesk Instructus Blog PostThe coil created a magnetic field when the electricity passed through it – which rotated the spindle on which the audio head was mounted to go on the next track on the tape. Each tape can have about eight songs.

Negishi added a microphone amplifier to the player’s top panel, as well as a mixing circuit. The user can accommodate the amount of music and microphone.

He also recorded his 20 favorite songs on tape and printed songs on Cardstock. He tested the machine by singing a popular Gathagit, “Mujo No Uom” (“The Heartless Dream”).

“It works! All this I was thinking,” Negishi told the reporter Matte Alt Years later, when asked what his views were for the first time, he tested the music box. Alt wrote Pure invention: how Japan makes modern world,

In 1969, engineers added a coin -accepted adder to the machine at Tokyo -based trading company Kokusai Shohin, in which the music box was renamed Sparko Box.Dr. Tomohiro Hase

According to the Ethw entry, the fees for filing the patent were very expensive, so in 1967, Negishi sold the machine to Mitsuyoshi Hamasu, a salesman of Kokusai Shohin. Tokyo -based trading company began selling and leasing the machines by the end of the year.

In 1969, engineers from Kokusai Shohin added a coin -ache -accepter to the machine. The company renamed the music box The Sparko Box. In six years, around 8,000 units were sold, Hamasu said An interview about the rise of karaoke,

Karaoke became so popular that in the 1980s, known as Venue and Bars Karaoke box Emerged. Group could rent rooms from hours.

Negishi’s family owns the first music box he created. It still works.

The milestone plaque identifying the karaoke machine is displayed in front of the former headquarters of Niciden Kogyo, which Negishi turned into a tobacco shop after retiring. The shop is now owned by his daughter. The plaque reads:

“The first Karaoke machine was made in 1967 with a pre-compatible accompaniment for public entertainment by combining live vocals, which was a leading popularity worldwide. Nicidane Kogyo’s Shigchi was created by Negishi, and originally called the music box (later the Sparko Box), a mixer, microphone, and 8-tape tape players.”

Administered by IEEE History Center And supported by DonorThe milestone program recognizes excellent technological development worldwide. IEEE Tokyo Section Sponsored nomination.