Sing! Join the global karaoke party! Review

Developer: Smule
Price: Free
Version: 1.0.2
App Reviewed on: iPhone 4

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Sing!, like many karaoke apps, will display song lyrics and cues for singers to follow along as it plays music without vocals. It will allow a singer to record their vocals, add a few effects and share the results online via Facebook or the built-in Smule network. It even throws up a score based on how well the singer was able to stay on pitch. But Sing! goes so much further than that, simply by allowing any singer to create or join a duet or group sing along.

Sing! features a unique global view -- something like Google Earth -- that shows uploaded tracks by location. Users can listen to songs from around the world simply by tapping on a singer's image and waiting for the track to load. Users can also resort to a song view that allows them to see popular songs, recently uploaded songs and more.

There are quite a few great ideas to be found in Sing!, even if they don't all seem too practical. The global view, for example, is a fancy trick. It's fun to poke around and see what's out there, but I'm glad there are other ways to find songs to sing along with. Overall, I'd have to say that the interface is my least favorite thing about Sing!.

As can be expected, the free song selection is very limited. New tracks are 99 cents each for those who want to download a song to sing by themselves, but for those looking to join a duet or group sing, songs are completely free. Just scroll through the list of available songs and touch the "join" button to sing along.

Recording a song is simple and happens through the idevice's built-in microphone. However, it's highly recommended that singers plug in a pair of headphones for playback, as the microphone will easily pick up the music coming through the speakers. This can lead to a slight doubling effect on the music that makes the final mix sound bad, especially when using the "SupaTune" effect, as it applies an Auto Tune-like effect to vocals and will also affect the music.

Sing! Join the global karaoke party! is either going to horrify or delight people, depending on their point of view on karaoke, in general. Yes, there are a lot of bad singers out there, but the name of the game is to have fun, and with the whole world as a stage, Sing! can be an awful lot of fun.