Austin Karaoke

As a first timer to karaōke, I’m happy that I went to Austin Karaōke. It was incredibly fun and cheap! It only cost about $ 10 per person for my group to enjoy 2 hours of terrible singing. The only disadvantage was that I could constantly hear the music from the surrounding rooms, which made everything begin to sound like chaos. Although there were many song books, they all could have used a little updating. There were songs that were incredibly popular and had been out for months that were not to be found in the books. However, I still had a great time and would recommend it if you are in the area.

Pros — Cheap, laid back, BYOB, good large selection of songs.
Cons — this place is RUN DOWN. Now, it makes sense because it’s a byob place so it’s probably frequently used by super drunk people. However, they really need to remodel or fix some basic things up including the sinks in the bathrooms, and any broken hard ware in the room at minimum. There also needs to be better a/​c or air flow as it got hot in the room very quickly.
Overall, I wouldn’t mind coming back because of the price and the fact that basically no one bothered us. But there are probably nicer options out there if you’re not just looking to get totally wasted.

Austin Karaōke has a better song selection than Hi-​Tunes. I love this place!

I’m sure this place is great if you’re Korean, given that 95% of the songs Are Korean. heck, even the tv and remote are in ONLY korean. we had to ask employees 12 times to get things working for us. he even came in with a screw gun to make adjustments. when it comes down to it, they don’t give a shit about anyone who isn’t Korean. guess they’ve had a bad experience with people outside their own race.

This is the place people go in a last ditch effort to woo the women of 6^th. Srs.
It is a great place and I have been here many times after a night downtown. The song selection is on point as well (I suggest all star from Shrek). The establishment is also byob so its good for continuing the process of utterly destroying and eventually sending your liver into the shadowrealm.

Austin Karaōke is what it said it is: a Karaōke. There are rooms where your friends and you can sing along the tunes of their huge selection of songs in a completely private setting; sing on! Their systems, unsurprisingly, are all in Korean.
But now, what this place is really known for is its late night closing time. I think it’s set at 5 AM during the weekends which makes it perfect for an after hours party gathering.

Okay, you’ve just finished dominating Rainey or 6^th Street, but you’re not ready to give up the night. You could go home and continue another round of Power Hour until you pass out with Cheetos and Keystone Light in hand, or you could rally and move onto the next step.
Trust me. Rally and move onto the next step, Austin Karaōke. This is going to be a fun night you’ll remember… at least, parts of, depending on how hard you pushed it up before that.
Facts:
— $ 20 an hour for 4 people, then an additional $ 5 per hour per person.
— Open every day from 6PM — 4AM EXCEPT Monday.
— Right off Lamar Street in a Korean shopping plaza.
Tips:
— Make a reservation the day before. I know this is counter-​impulsive, but you can always cancel it if you have burned out too much too quickly.
— Pick up a few tambourines from the front desk. Even if you can’t sing on key, you can likely tamba-​jam on beat… unless your motor skills are blasted past the point of a tambourine beat. Then you should probably resign yourself to dancing as you pass the tambourine off to a friend.
— Stop by a store on the way over… it’s BYOB!
— Don’t forget that you left your ID there as a room deposit… especially on a Sunday night. You’ll have to wait until Tuesday evening for them to open again.
Watch sweet karaōke videos with cool scenic backgrounds from around the world and turn on the disco ball! Give the tuner a lil key change if squeaking out some Bruno Mars is a little too high for your vocal range. Have fun!

Austin Karaōke is the cleanest Korean style Karaōke Bar available in Austin, in my opinion. They do a good job with their upkeep, which is rare for most Karaōke bars. They’ve also got some helpful employees and treat everyone kindly. I’ve been coming here for the last few years once or twice a year, and haven’t been disappointed. Mostly just drunk, and having fun.
You get a private room, pay $ 5 per person an hour, bring your own beer/​liqour, and sing your heart out. Doesn’t get much better than that. For all of you shy folk that don’t like singing in front of strangers, this is definitely the best option for you to test out your vocal skills.
Music selection is pretty good, but should definitely have a LOT more songs available. Hence, the docking of a star.

I’ve been an occasional Austin Karaōke patron for years. They just got a nice (American) song refresh. BYOB? Respectable song selection? Love this place.
Just be aware their new song scoring app is ruthless. I scored a 000, again? Oh, and the amusing, pseudo-​romantic background videos have been replaced by scenic videos from various Asian countries. (I think I prefer the old vids, honestly.)

Austin Karaōke is the place where you can sing with your pants off!
NO PANTS THURSDAYS, Y’ALL!
Ok. While that may not be 100% accurate, Austin Karaōke is one of those places where you get your own room so if vodka fueled Backstreet Boys is your thing, then so be it.
BACKSTREET’S BACK, Y’ALL
One big huge giant caveat: AK is BYOB which is a huge double edged sword. Great if you planned your evening accordingly with a cooler fill of liquor, beer and mixers. But kind of shitty if you made the decision to go after getting closed out at Blackstar COOP down the street.
GOT NO PINOT GREEGE, Y’ALL
How you gonna keep the party going? … Especially when you can’t buy all that good stuff?
You’re gonna need that liquid lube when you hear some «basic bitch» who thinks she’s Rihanna try to belt out some classic Britney. I don’t think so miss thang.
HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME, Y’ALL
It really is a fun place and they’re open late.
They have a pretty weak selection of English songs though and thus my rating.
If you’re a karaōke hound you should check out DK sushi on Thursdays. It’s a good party.

Well, we really wanted to karaōke and the original place we wanted to go to was completely full. They referred us to Austin Karaōke and we were lucky to get a small room for the night. The neighborhood is a bit stabby, but we heard nothing but joyful out of tune singing when we entered.
You can BYO libations and snacks and they even provide cups and bottle openers here — all you need to do is ask the nice people in the front. I loved the scenes playing in the background of the lyrics — it looked like scenes from a Asian travel show that were spliced together. We had no problems with our equipment, but one of the seats in our room did collapse under the weight of one of our friends.
The place isn’t the cleanest and people can get a bit rambunctious in the wee hours of the night, but singing louder and being roudier than your neighbors is a great remedy for that. They charge by the hour so keep an eye on the time and ask for rates beforehand because they did not tell us how the payment worked up front. Other than that, I would keep an open mind for this place and enjoy singing along to your favorite one-​hit-​wonders!

It’s a typical Korean karaōke place. The only things different here than other Korean karaōke places are: they don’t serve food (only snacks), the remotes are completely in Korean, no wireless mics (make sure you don’t trip on the cables), no fun instruments like tambourines or maracas and the walls are a bit thin (can hear others singing as if their doors were open).
If you’re looking for a place to satisfy some singing, then this place will suffice. I wouldn’t say it was rundown but it could use a little updating. They charge $ 20/​hour and serve Miller Lite.

It’s a private karaōke BYOB experience with Korean remote controllers and not a lot of customer service. That’s the best summary I can provide of this place in one sentence.
Other thoughts:
Lots of drunks walking around trying to shake your hand and flirt. We had at least 4 instances where people opened our door to our private room to say drunken hellos. There’s no lock btw, or any kind of customer service really. If you came looking to emulate the perfect experience you once had in Japan, you came to the wrong house. The girl showing us our room was completely plastered. Basically I come here when Hi Tunes Karaōke is too busy. Check them out for better customer service!

I hate karaōke with a passion. I basically use it as an excuse to drink and make fun of my friends. This place gets the job done. They have a huge variety of songs. Most of the playlist are Korean songs however. It’s BYOB and there’s a liquor store next to this place which is very convenient. We had a hard time using the oversized remote to select songs because all of the buttons are in Korean. If you hate karaōke as much as I do go next door and get a bottle of booze. It’ll ease the pain of your friends annihilating the songs you really love.

This place sucks.
Once in a blue moon they will update the songs in their system but they won’t update it in the page book to locate it. That’s fine and dandy I’m a pro at searching for songs so thank goodness there’s a REMOTE that I can use to search via name of the song or name of the artist. Imagine my surprise that the letter ‘N, O, and T’ don’t work. Do you realize how many songs/​artist have those letters? It’s annoying and I have mentioned this to the front desk so many times because its happened in multiple rooms that some of the buttons don’t work.
I’ve come here a few times so its not like I only had a one time bad experience. Every time I go we have about 5 – 7 people and we understand their policy at 5 $/​head but they either try to overcharge us on purpose or the workers at the front desk don’t know how to count. Our bill was 200 $ for 7 people this last weekend for 3 hours. 35X3 does not equal 150 $ even after tax. Of course when we asked about it in the front desk they told us we had 12 people in the room and they were giving us a discount! Btw I understand DIFFERENT people walking in and out of the room to say Hi to think they might be in the same room but nobody new ever came in. The only thing I can think of is that some of the guys were smokers and to be considerate of non smokers in the room they took a step outside when needing a smoke break.
Regardless this place sucks, the equipment is old, and the employees don’t know how to count.

So after my experience I went back and read some reviews and imagine my surprise when their poor experience matched mine.
«At the end, a short little Korean guy charged me for 25 people for a full 3 hours. I was surprised and asked for him to double check. He said he’s correct without blinking.»
This is exactly what happened to me. Even the part where he said he’s correct without blinking. He claimed we had 20 people in the room right now.
Much like the negative reviews the short one started getting angry and raising his voice when I disputed his charge. I told him there was no reason to raise his voice. He said «It’s loud in hear and so I want to make sure you can hear me». Ha!
In the end I paid the $ 300 even though I should have only paid $ 225. Afterwards we were cleaning the room and he came in and I counted how many people were inside. There was a total of 7. Then I challenged him to walk outside and count. We counted 4 more people smoking. hmmm… that would be a total of 11 not 20. He didn’t offer to refund my money.
They are just scamming large groups. Stay away if you have a large group. Read the other reviews. I wish I had.

I’m warning you. It gets swampy and hot in these rooms. I don’t know why. You walk out of the room and it’s a comfortable temperature. You walk in and it’s a sauna.
The videos they have playing along with your song are hilarious and out of context.
It’s a fun place to have a party and it’s byob. That really helps get the party going. All their songs are listed by title so good luck with that. I also question their billing. When I got there, the guy told me it would be about $ 5 an hour per person. When we checked out, the bill was way more than that. So if you have people coming in and out, make sure they check out and pay. I think that was some of the confusion.
If you love to sing, but are scared to do it at a bar. Gather up a group of friends and sing your little hearts out here. You might want to bring fan.

This place is BYOB. $ 5 per person, per hour. Only one star short was the sound quality. It was too quiet, then adjusted to too loud, then squeaking, then adjusted again and again and ended up stressing everyone out for the first half of our get together!!! But after it was all said and done, the BYOB was the best part of it all and we had a good time. They have a good variety of songs and don’t make anyone feel left out. (since we had a multicultural group of friends this particular night)

I’ve never claimed to be a fan of karaōke. Mainly because it’s usually done by random fools who think they could win a reality singing competition or people who just choose the absolute worst songs possible (yeah, I’m talking to you, «Date Rape”-singing dude from Canary Hut). However, if it’s a group of your friends in your own private room left to your own devices with a plethora of booze that you didn’t even have to smuggle in (since it’s allowed), it’s a whole different story.
Now, I didn’t actually get to sing because a few in our group totally monopolized our karaōke time, but I did particularly want to belt out a little Rick Astley. There isn’t a huge selection of songs, and most of the listings are in Korean, and nearly all of the pages are sticky and stuck together. Plus, nearly all of us in the group are college-​educated but it was still pretty tricky to figure out how to use the machine. We could’ve benefited from a tutorial from Mr. Karaōke Dude up front, because we had to keep calling him in our room to help us. But, it was a fun time and I wasn’t subjected to random, obnoxious karaokers. Plus, if you don’t stay a full hour, they pro-​rate. We were there for 45 minutes and it was $ 4 each, so that was a nice surprise. If nothing else, it’s a nice place to hang out with your friends and you don’t have to worry about messing up someone’s house.

This is a karaōke place. Meaning, it’s not a bar that features a karaōke machine. This is Japanese-​style private rooms where you can have your own party. It’s BYOB, and they have some regular drinks and will serve you steamed dumplings in between your sets of Journey, Eminem, Backstreet, Josh Groban, 50 Cent, Katy Perry, and whatever else you might want to sing (that was a snapshot of part of ours).
It’s open until 4, we got there at midnight and stayed till 2. Dumpling and some Yakult (a Chinese light yogurt drink) cost us $ 15, and the room for 2 hours was $ 36. Split among the 5 of us, it’s cheaper than bowling, but your voice will be more hoarse.
This isn’t a «come to Austin» and karaōke pitch — I just want to point out that there aren’t that many cities that have dedicated karaōke places like this, and Austin has 2. You might want to check this one out.
Also, don’t be intimidated by the Chinese character remote control… you’ll figure it out after a few minutes. They have every song you can ever think of and then some.