Shigechi Negishi, the Japanese engineer who invented the karaoke machine in 1967, has died at the age of 100. the Wall Street Journal Reports said Negishi's daughter, Atsumi Takano Wall Street Journal Journalist Matt Alt said Negishi died last month, on January 26, of natural causes after suffering a fall.
Alt, who previously interviewed the inventor for his book Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern Worldwrote on today.
Negishi invented the first commercially available karaoke machine, which he called the Sparko Box, in 1967. He came up with the idea after a colleague joked that he had a bad voice and thought it would sound better with a background track. Negishi, who ran a consumer electronics company, asked his company's chief engineer to create a prototype that could play instrumental recordings using a microphone preamp and mixing circuit. It ended up as a cube-shaped machine that played 8-bit tapes connected to a microphone, and the lyrics were presented in booklet form. The first song Negishi tried singing along to was a version of “Mujō No Yume” by Yoshio Kodama.
Negishi never patented his invention, and the Sparco box was a commercial failure. The popularity of the karaoke machine grew dramatically in Japan in the 1970s before becoming global in the following decade. There is only one Sparko Box left, which is kept by the Negishi family.
Farewell to another legend: Shigechi Negishi, the inventor of karaoke, has died at the age of 100. By automating singing, he earned the enmity of performers who saw his instrument as a threat to their jobs. It's a strange introduction to the debate about the impact of artificial intelligence on artists today. pic.twitter.com/ZOpLdSisb2
– Matt Alt (@Matt_Alt) March 14, 2024
