Karaoke with your own songs

In Signal, karaoke plays your own songs from this server with the singing taken out, shows the words on the TV as they're sung, and turns phones into microphones. Start a party, a duet night or a competition; the TV shows a six-digit code and, if you like, a QR code for guests.

• The beat without the words. Reelhost makes a backing track of each song on your computer, and a guide track of just the singing to sing along with, both at the TV's own sound quality (48 kHz). It only reads your songs and never changes them; what it makes is kept in Reelhost's own folder. Songs someone picks are made first; your most played songs can be made ahead, overnight.
• Your library's lyrics only. Karaoke uses the lyrics already in your library: an .lrc file next to the song, or lyrics Jellyfin has for it. It never looks lyrics up online. Lyrics with word times light up word by word; for lyrics without them, Reelhost lines the words up by listening to the singing (with AI subtitles' whisper.cpp, if you downloaded it), or spreads them over each line. A song without lyrics still plays as a backing track. Your own karaoke files (CD+G next to an MP3, or MIDI karaoke files) play as they are.
• Duets. Lyrics marked for two singers (v1: and v2:, or M:, F: and D:) split the lines between singer 1 and singer 2, and whoever runs the night can set the parts for any song.
• Phones as microphones. Each singer's phone sends their voice to the TV over your home Wi-Fi, so it plays through the TV's speakers with as little delay as possible, and the TV scores the pitch live. Nothing is recorded. No phone? Whoever runs the night can add a singer by name, for a microphone plugged into the TV box or a phone passed round.
• Scores and leaderboards. Each song is scored out of 10,000 for pitch, timing and holding the long notes (singing an octave lower or higher counts). Every night keeps its scores: the night's leaderboard, your household's best of all time, and each song's top scores. Delete a night or a score anytime.
• Guests. With guests on, the TV shows a QR code: guests get a small page from this server with no sign-in, give a name, put songs down (on their own or as a duet) and can use their phone as the microphone: Reelhost passes their voice on to the TV as they sing and never keeps it. Browsers only allow the microphone on secure (https) pages, so at home guests use the Signal app as the mic; when you allow guests from away, the page's away address works in the browser. The page works on your home Wi-Fi; from outside only if you allow it and Signal works from away.
• Saved performances. Nothing is recorded unless a singer chooses to save a performance (64 MB at most). Saved ones stay on this server, are never uploaded anywhere, and can be deleted. One that didn't finish arriving is thrown away after an hour.

On your computer

Under Connect devices → Karaoke: see how many songs are ready and the space they take, Get songs ready now or Pause, choose whether your most played songs are made ahead and only overnight, and who may start karaoke (everyone, grown-ups only, or only admins). Clear karaoke songs deletes the backing tracks (Reelhost makes each again when someone picks it); your songs aren't touched.

The Karaoke pack (73 MB) is a separate download: the model that takes the singing out of songs (Spleeter, made by Deezer, free under the MIT licence). Without it Reelhost uses a quick built-in way that works on some songs only. Reelhost checks the download before installing it and carries on where it stopped if the connection drops. On a fast computer a song takes under a minute to get ready. Removing the pack and clearing songs are done on the computer, not from a phone.

Karaoke is part of Reelhost Complete and needs ffmpeg: on a computer Reelhost uses Jellyfin's own; in Docker, set REELHOST_FFMPEG or let Reelhost download it. When you remove Reelhost, the backing tracks and the Karaoke pack go; your scores and saved performances are kept unless you remove everything. Your music stays exactly as it was.