when i last left off, i was going to build a jukebox by building an enclosure for my touchscreen.

well, I haven’t got that started yet, so i thought i’d take a detour into the story of how i got the jukebox running on my newly enclosed pc.

Jukebox Software

I began by doing some research at the jukebox forum at arcade controls. They have a fairly active board and lots of friendly nerdy types all too eager to offer an opinion.

I started to go through the list of PC jukebox software that they have compiled and i installed demo’s and did a lot of trial and error. I ended up going with AlbumPlayer.

The touch screen interface is awesome and works great with my 15″ ELO touchscreen purchased off eBay.

screenshot of albumplayer user interface in action:

Album player has a nice built in music database that allows you edit all the song/album data including all the basics: genre, artist, year, album cover, etc.

The extensive database collection editor allows you to create custom collections that you can use for grouping, browsing, playback, etc.

You can browse/search albums grouped pretty much however you can think of based upon album artist.The search functionality is complete and works really well, but it isn’t too pretty. This is supposed to be upgraded in the next version, so I figured I could live with that one con to the software.

My biggest selling point was that Album player is the only jukebox software I could find that was playlist based. I wanted to be able to load a pre-built playlist and then allow my guests or myself to add tracks to the ‘queue’ and then go back to the playlist.

I got albumplayer to do this really easy by creating a custom collection, then in the random play options, you can choose what custom collections are in the pool for randomization.

For example, I wanted rat pack music to play randomly and continuously when nobody is picking music. So i created a ‘rat pack’ custom collection and added all my rat pack albums to it. I chose this collection as the random play collection, and now it plays random songs from those albums continuously. Users can still browse through all the albums on the jukebox and choose anything they want, and it will be added to the cue as the next song. once all the user’s chosen music is done playing, it automatically picks a song out of the random pool (rat pack in this case).

The random play adds a song to the queue whenever it starts the last song in the queue.

You can choose multiple collections to be put into the random pool, as well.

Importing music into the jukebox was really simple. Just hit the “scan for new music” and it scans the chosen directory for anything that hasn’t been already added to the albumplayer database. Then you can import anything new. Albumplayer gets album/song information from whatever source you set, filename/directory structure or mp3 tags. The cover is automatically found and added from either amazon or whatever local location you set. You can always go back and edit any of the album info. There’s even a handy google images link to help look for album covers.

Here’s a screenshot of the album info edit interface from my install:

I’m not going to get into all the rest of the features here, read about them on the albumplayer site. Or, better yet, since the demo is free, you can install and play with it yourself. I’ll just say it does everything i can think of that i would want a jukebox to do.

I always choose to import my music based upon the mp3 tags since I spent a good amount of time going through all my mp3’s and making sure they all have the correct tags attached to all the songs/albums. The best tool I have found to do that is called Tag & Rename. It allows mass mp3 tag edits, adding tags automatically from directory names and file names, and mass renaming and reorganizing of files based upon tags.

So now i have monitor one as the touchscreen displaying the jukebox interface. but, i can’t just let monitor 2, which is actually hooked up to the projector, just sit idle, now can I?

luckily, there is a plugin for album player called CD Art Display which gets a feed from album player and displays the album cover along with other player info like song title, artist, album name, time remaining, etc. All the normal mp3 player display info.

There are a lot of pre-made skins that you can use with CD Art Display, but i’m a picky type and wanted to go along with the vegas theme in the k2 lounge.
I ended up with the following screenshot taken from my projector:

The album cover takes up a huge portion of the screen, and has that nifty reflection that is all the web 2.0 rage these days. The song title, artist, and album info all show up in the sands sign marquee to make it look like that is currently performing artist, which it is. pretty slick, eh?

well, it gets better.

CD Art Display has a play time progress bar that fills in as the song progresses, so I made the progress bar look like one of the neon tubes going along the bottom of the sign that gets filled in as the song progresses. the time remaining is displayed just below the marquee.

I can already hear the masses screaming “holy crap! how did you make that look so awesome? and can i have the skin you made?”

I didn’t actually make a skin, all i did was use the built-in skin editor on the default skin that came with the app.

Here’s a quick step-by-step:

1. Start with an awesome photo
   
2. work some photoshop magic to make it into a wallpaper size image
3. work even more photoshop magic to erase the names in the bottom marquee and move the frank sinatra, dean martin, etc names down to the bottom. then stretch out the top marquee so you can fit the mp3 info in there.
4. save that image and use it as your wallpaper
5. mess around with the built-in skin editor to move all the elements around till you have them where you want
6. change the colors/font in the editor so that the album info matches the sign marquee letters
7. change foreground/background colors of the progress bar to match one of the sign marquee’s neon tubes
8. bask in your high level of awesome

another fun little feature of albumplayer is that it has last.fm functionality built into it, so it automatically updates your profile as you play music. Fun way to keep track of what is being played on your jukebox. Check out what is hot on my jukebox at my last.fm k2 lounge profile.

Well, that’s how i have my jukebox set up.

Next up, the physical jukebox enclosure for the touchscreen…

I had just replaced my main desktop computer, so I decided to build a jukebox out of my old machine.
Somehow, this simple goal turned into a monster project that now includes building an entire media pc that we can watch movies from.

home theater PC

To begin this project, I took my main desktop that i had just replaced, and moved it over close to the entertainment center.

Specs overview: athlon 2800+, 1 gig ram, radeon 9600

Nothing fancy, but enough to listen to mp3’s and watch divx movies on.

The radeon vid card had a VGA, Svid, and DVI output, so i was set there. I got myself a sound card with digital optical out, and i’m set for surround sound.

Once I got the system working well through my sound system and projector, it was time to make it look a little more presentable.

First things first, hide the media PC.

Decided to build the jukebox control screen out of a 15″ ELO touchscreen that I got off ebay. I was going to build an extension off my “water main closet” to house the touchscreen, more on that later, so I needed to house the pc somewhere close.

After many precise measurements using empty beer bottles, i figured i could put the PC inside the water main closet and run all the cords inside. So that’s what i did.

and here’s the step by step:

first cut a hole in the wall

then since i’m not really that great of a woodworker, and i’m kind of lazy and didn’t want to have to add all new studs, etc to do a cabinet door all proper like, instead of framing the hole, I put black duct tape around the edge. It actually looks pretty darn good and keeps everything flush to the wall. i have to credit my wife with that idea. thanks honey.

next i screwed in a stud going back from the floor stud to act as a center support for the drawer pull. attach the drawer pull to the center support stud and to the shelf itself and presto, you’ve got a pull out shelf.

next came the door.

for this i used a sheet of plexi, cut to size, to cover the hole. slapped some hinges on there, and a fancy schmancy cabinet handle and i had myself a nice clear door.

once that was all done i loaded in the computer, pulled the wires through, and turned on the beast with all it’s blue light goodness and sat back and admired my handiwork.

with beer from my tap in hand, obviously.

here’s a few shots of the finished product, with and without flash.

next step, build the enclosure for the touch screen….

I didn’t take in-progress photos, but here are a couple of the finished shelves hanging on the wall behind the bar. The shelves are lighted in all the photos below, some photos are just using a flash.

I started out by putting stud bracing in the wall behind the bar. This would allow me to hang the shelves directly into the wall and not have to worry about hitting the vertical studs.

You can see the braces in the wall to the upper left of the fridge:

The shelves themselves are just 2×10’s with the outside corners rounded off so as not to cause any injuries.

We cut a strip out of the back of the shelf to give ample room to hide the light wires.

Holes are drilled through the shelf big enough to allow you to shove the C8 size Christmas lights up through the bottom of the shelf, leaving the wiring hanging below.
There is a strip wedge of wood screwed and glued under the main shelf to hide all the wires that go to the Christmas lights. This wood also gives a little more surface area to the back of the shelf and provides some angular support.

The shelves are then screwed to the bracing studs through the drywall.

The lighted part was a bit more ingenious and came out of the noggin’ of my dear ol’ dad.

We took a piece of 3/8" plexi and cut it to the size of the shelf. Then buff the outer edge of the plexi to make it opaque.

The back of the plexi was cut with big "slots" that were big enough to allow room for the Christmas light bulbs. Slide the plexiglass on the shelf and the bulbs should all fit into the slots. The bulbs should also be just high enough out of the shelf that the bottom of the bulb is actually shining on the edge of the plexi. This creates a sort of fiber optic effect where the light from the bulb goes into the plexiglass and causes the outer opaque edge of the plexi to glow. If you don’t buff out the edge, you don’t get that glow, since the light is actually being reflected off the roughed up edge.

Screw down the plexiglass in the back (make sure to use pilot holes) so the shelf doesn’t move around when you are sliding bottles on/off it.

The back light diffuser is just a long, thin strip of plexi that has been buffed to give it that opaque glowing look.

You could screw that down to the shelf or to the back wall or whatever, just so it doesn’t tip over.

Once we had all that done, we got to the fun part: loading up the shelves with booze.

And after that is the even more fun part: drinking the booze.

Part 1: Neon

Added 4 neon tubes going down the stairs to give more of a Vegas feel to the entrance.

I had the opportunity to make these myself, and it was quite a neat experience. I have a friend in the local university’s art glass program, and he gave me a demo on how to make the them and then I proceeded to make 3 more. The tubes themselves are pre-made, and you have to melt the glass ends to attach the ‘nodes’ or whatever they are called that you attach the electricity to, then pump them full of neon gas. Hook them up to a transformer and there you have it, instant Vegas.

Now I just have to practice the bending of the tubes to make a giant flamingo or something.

Part 2: Kegerator with Wall Beer Tap

The next big addition was the adding of a beer tap behind the bar.

When my grandmother passed this summer, I claimed her old Philco refrigerator that was down in her basement. It amazes me how well things were made back in the day. This thing has about 3 inches of insulation on every side and is the quietest refrigerator compressor I have ever heard. It maintaining a steady 34 degrees (Fahrenheit) on the mid setting, which I couldn’t believe.

Worried that it would be a huge electricity drain, we hooked up a watt meter to it and it only takes the same amount of electricity as my mini-fridge under the bar. So no worries there.

I got the shank, faucet and coupler from the bar I used to work at, and ordered the drip tray from Perfect Brewing Supply. Picked up a 20 pound CO2 tank and regulator from a local gas supply company. Some hose, hose clamps, and a couple hole saw bits and I was all set to start.

Drilled the hole in the side of the fridge and put the 2 hoses through. I wrapped them in duct tape first to prevent them from being cut by the sharp metal edges on the hole. I drilled a pilot hole then did one side at a time to so I could look inside the wall of the fridge and make sure that I wasn’t going to hit a coolant line.

After shoving the hoses through the hole, I filled in the hole with Great Stuff expanding foam. That stuff really is Great. sealed the hole and hardened to hold the tubes in place.

Drilled a hole in the wall and mounted the faucet & shank with the drip tray hanging off it.

Drilled another hole below that and pushed the drain tube through and ran that down to the floor drain. Someday, when I get around to finishing the bath/laundry room, I’ll hard pipe that drain, but for now, this will work.

Hooked up all the rest of the tubing and then tapped my first beer.

Let me tell you, nothing tastes better than a beer out of your own wall.

got myself one of these baby’s for Christmas and never again will I have to make that mid-party trip to the gas station to get an overpriced, underfilled bag of ice that I drop and rip open on the way out of the trunk and spill half the ice in the driveway.

Magic Chef – Counter Top Ice Maker . the thing makes no more noise than a compact fridge and fits neatly under my blackjack table . yet it can spit out a tray of ice every 7-8 minutes from the moment you turn it on.
the beast kept up with my new years party of 10 people with no problem. never had to wait for a cube.

there’s a lot of moving parts in there, and i’m sure it will die approx. 15 seconds after the 1 year warranty runs out, but i’m going to use the heck out of it until then (sorry for the coarse language there, i’m just THAT excited).

next on the list: running water.
dare to dream.