So it does seem a strange idea given the modern digital age of streaming, Spotify, Youtube and digital/internet radio to want to take up space with a big box that only does 1 thing, play music you have to go and manually select? Why would anyone want to do that when they can just stream their custom playlist from their phone?
A jukebox is not for everyone but being a kid of the 80s/90s there is a certain nostalgia about the old pub jukebox, selecting a song and waiting to hear it, looking around to see if anyone else is digging your tune or knowing it’s going to annoy the old guys in the front bar. I loved the sound of that big jukebox in the corner, the dazzle of the lights and the box full of music I had not yet heard of. Flipping through the mechanical pages and pressing the sticky buttons to put on that favourite song. I could only dream of one day having something like that in my future home.
I have been a DJ since I was 12 years old providing the nights music for countless parties, mostly friends and family as a way to keep good music flowing and also protect the CDs from being ruined or stolen. As time went on and I wanted to enjoy the party more instead of just being behind the music I started making mixed tapes I could put on, programming CD shufflers to play a sequence of music for a few hours and eventually when PCs were capable and affordable in the early 2000’s, I made my first jukebox to allow everyone to just select their songs and this is where I discovered that especially at a party, people just loved to have some choice in what they wanted and it really made the night enjoyable, something I feel is important for a DJ to understand that requests from party guests is the key to a good night.
Another reason for wanting a jukebox is it allows for that classic “flipping through albums” thing where you sometimes don’t know you want to hear something until you see the DC cover, or finding a compilation album and catching a forgotten track you never realised you forgot about. In the modern day of automated playlists and algorithms deciding what you want it’s sometimes nice to step back and just select things yourself and this is the appeal of the jukebox.
I was fascinated with jukeboxes even from the old record players where you could stack several records on the spindle and it would play one after the other, it seemed so advanced for the time and I was always intrigued by the mechanics and electronics that made it all work. If the service tech was ever opening a machine up when I was around, you bet I was just standing there checking things out. Even now I feel a mechanical jukebox is a piece of art and I always wanted to own one, but realistically knew I never would be able to both afford and find room for one. However when MP3s became a thing, a computer was the next best thing and I was able to easily put one together for a party I was throwing…
I actually started back in early 2000 with nothing more than a PC and a keyboard. Before touch screens I used a simple list based jukebox program called DSD Jukebox which is still freely available today. This allowed a list of songs to be browser easily via just the arrow and enter keys of a keyboard to select and queue songs. It used Winamp to provide playback which could be setup to crossfade songs.
My first party jukebox had just 400 songs but was a huge hit and proved so useful that I dragged that setup to at least a dozen parties, people would always ask if I could bring it along and I would start refining it and improving the setup over time.
A neat feature of DSD Jukebox is it can connect to a webcam and take photos when people select songs and display that photo as a screensaver when the song plays so you know who selected the song. This was a real novelty and I still have photos from many of these parties as a memory and it’s clear people were having fun finding songs to play, likely a sign of simpler times.
Eventually I was able to add a touch screen monitor to make the setup simple to use and I would begin combining the jukebox with my DJ setup for long events such as the one pictured below for a New Years party in 2011 at a private location along the Murray River at a place called Morgan here in South Australia. This was when I switched to a new jukebox program called Ultimate Jukebox which is more similar to traditional jukeboxes where you browser albums and selected songs from the list of tracks on the album.
Sadly Ultimate Jukebox is no longer available to purchase or download as it seems the developer has given up (which is understandable since no one these days wants a jukebox…) but I still have my licensed copy, it still functions and this was the choice of front end for my jukebox build.
What I like about Ultimate Jukebox is the appearance is instantly recognisable as a jukebox and it is simple to use. It has “party” features where all the controls can be locked out allowing only the ability to select songs or it can be switched to a casual mode where it allows you to add a full album, change the order or selected tracks, skip a song etc. and this is exactly what I wanted.
For my jukebox I wanted to not only be able to select a song to play but also select a full album to easily play, or put a few albums on. Another unique feature with this software is it has a “CD Stacker” feature which works the same as an old CD stacker, you select CDs to put in the stacker and it can play them one after the other, random play one or all CDs in the stacker, this is separate to the playlist so you can have a full playlist of songs and still switch to the stacker to put something on.
The host of features is actually impressive for a program that is almost 20 years old now:
The great thing using a PC as the jukebox is it is not limited to just 1 solution, it is possible for me to also install Spotify and other jukebox and media playback applications too.
So the original “jukebox” was nothing more than a PC and a screen and I had plans for a long time to make it into an actual standalone device and it was only after I completed my virtual pinball machine I really felt the games room we had could benefit from a custom jukebox so I started to get all my old pieces out the shed and design a new project to work on.
My initial plan started with gathering together most of the parts I needed to start testing. This would be a PC, screen, speakers, amp and the software. I planned to try and make it as cost effective as possible and use mostly recycled computer parts, amps and speakers I already had lying around.
I started by grabbing down my old touch screen monitor which was quite a cheap generic monitor with a touch digitiser added on. I had planned to use this as it is what I had used on the previous touch jukebox setup I carted around to parties however it had been sitting in my shed for 10 years and the summer heat had not treated it well. Note to others, do not store LCD screens in a hot shed for long periods without switching them on.
The LCD membrane had started to break down and the crystals had started to come out so this was not going to work.
I looked at other second hand screens and many were just far too expensive not to mention also adding on a small PC since nothing I had was worth trying to salvage for the size. I then decided to instead purchase a second hand cheap HP All-In-One PC supplied with Windows 11
This all in one PC cost me $190 and is perfect for the application. The screen is a nice glass capacitive multi-touch screen and while the supplied SSD drive was only 120GB I ripped that out and installed a spare 2TB SSD which is plenty to locally store all the music and videos I wanted to add.
I then installed my old jukebox software and I even added the backup configuration and skin I modified and had the software up and running in no time. With that side setup so easily and happy the old software still worked just fine it was time to figure out the design of the actual cabinet and where it would go in the room.
My initial plan was a small wall mounted touch screen that could just hang like a picture on the wall and then plug into the amp I already have out in our games room. This would take up little space and would use the already existing outdoor speakers out there. I measured up the touch screen PC then launched my CAD software (Sketchup 2017) and started some designs.
While the wall mounted idea was a neat option that would have required little effort a few issues arose. First was the fact the games room is an outdoor enclosed patio and there is actually very little wall space available since most of the walls are either doors, windows, openings to carports and what little wall space there is has things like a dart board already there or are just unusable for standing and browsing music.
So I decided to instead build a floor standing unit where I planned to make it a full standalone unit with its own speaker/amp system, lights and also decided to make the top section with the touch PC and the bottom section with the speakers and amps completely separate parts so I could easily transport it but also so I could take the jukebox screen anywhere and connect to another audio system.
My initial idea above would have the screen at a slight angle similar to an information kiosk however I did not like this idea as I would not see the screen or album art from a distance so I tinkered around with the design for a few days and ended up on the following design:
The person for scale is based on my own dimensions and I also looked at a number of touch screen based systems to get the overall height at the best height for use by most people.
The more vertical monitor placement allowed better view of information and ability to see it all from a distance making for something that looked more like a jukebox or arcade machine and less like an information kiosk. I really wanted a jukebox aesthetic more than just a computer on a stand appearance.
I had some old bookshelf speakers I planned to recycle (tho these were actually still good quality bookshelf speakers) along with some good quality mid and high range drivers which I put together and tested and they sounded great. For the low end I have several old MTX sub boxes with Fusion subs, designed for a car boot however they offer very nice sounding low end even at low volumes. The idea was I wanted this to sound overall great, not specifically loud, so I really wanted crisp high end and decent bass.
To achieve this I built the cabinet big enough to fit the entire sub box within it with the speakers mounted above direct into the cabinet. Main reason for this was to keep the low end bass sounding good (since the sub box is correctly tuned) but this would also keep the low end from causing the whole cabinet to rattle, this decision proved to be the right one and also added the extra weight down low to make the whole thing very stable. The downside is it does make this rather heavy but so too is a real jukebox.
I also noted down some other requirements for the build:
One key point was the physical button option to allow some actual hard buttons to be used to scroll through music as even tho it is touch screen, I also really wanted the physical buttons to be present and this is what the shelf on the front of the monitor section was for, that and a place for your other hand/drink.
With most of the design figured out in CAD, which took about a week of plotting and changing ideas I then pulled it apart and laid it out in a cut plan to see how it would fit together on the sheets of MDF I planned to use.
The main cabinet was to be made out of 18mm thick MDF while the front speaker panel and rear panels for the top and bottom cabinets would be made from 12mm MDF. The reason for such thick MDF was strength and acoustics, less vibrations and more solid cabinet is better for the sound acoustics.
At this stage of design I had the software running, cabinet design mostly nailed down but still had not properly settled on the actual speakers to use nor did I know just how I would power on the PC since unlike a full size PC where I could just re-wire the power button the all-in-one PC is basically just a laptop and the integrated power button was not able to be easily re-routed (and yes I pulled the whole thing apart to try and see if I could, the button is so small and surface mounted it would have risked making it not work at all).
Before sinking any more money I knew I needed to solve a few more problems…
Power On/Off
The most important issue I had to solve before I could continue was how I would power on and off this system because this was designed to be used by my family and needed to be simple to switch on and off.
The all-in-one PC/monitor had the power button on the side of the monitor which would be inside the cabinet so not able to be reached. An idea I had was to simply drill a hole on the side and insert a wooden dowel that would extend into the cabinet and press on the power button, however this was my last resort idea. Ideally I wanted to simply touch the screen or maybe a physical button on the front to power on the system so I started looking at what would possibly work.
I discovered that in the BIOS of the PC I could make it always power ON after AC fail so if you plug it in or switch the main power switch on, the PC will come on. This was great, however if you were to simply shut down the system you would then have to switch the power off and on again to power it back on and that would not be intuitive to someone else.
I then discovered it was also possible to set a press on the keyboard to switch ON the system which was all very well, however this system would not have a keyboard attached and this did not extend to the touch screen, that could not power on the system. What I did plan on having were some buttons on the front connected to a key encoder and while I planned to use something like an ipac I did not think that would be seen as a “keyboard” to the PC so may not allow a press to power on the system. What I needed was to use a keyboard itself but with wired buttons instead of the keys and this is where I found that a simple cheap USB attached numpad worked to power on the PC so I decided to just wire a small numpad controller to the buttons for this.
Another part of this problem was the fact the PC also had to power on the speaker and amp section so I would have to have a power output link to the amps power which I could switch on somehow from the PC. Luckily I am skilled in this kind of thing and had the idea to just use a solid state relay that could switch 240v using just a 3-32v DC power input… Testing the USB ports, I found 2 of them were not constantly powered when the PC was off so I was able to simply run the power from a USB port to the solid state relay to provide switched power out a plug on the back which connected to the amp cabinet.
Speakers
The next problem was the speakers I wanted to use. I had a variety of speakers I built for parties I would DJ that all sounded great but I would need to use some bookshelf speakers I really liked for the main speakers and didn’t want to pull apart so a few days of monitoring speakers on Market place and I found someone selling some vintage philips speakers that would be perfect, low end, mid range and high range and I had crossovers to connect to them, I just didn’t know if they would actually fit but I decided to grab them and figure it all out later.
Amp
I then had to figure out the amp side. I have several spare amps kicking around however they are all 2ch amps and I really needed a 3ch amp that could drive the main speakers and also the sub. This did not have to be massive but did need to offer control of the sub and also basic bass/treble and amp freq controls.
A small amp that ticked all the boxes was a Fosi Audio amp which was just $100
I was rather apprehensive of such a small amp and if it would even drive the 12″ sub and all the speakers I planned to install but after deciding to purchase it and testing it, I was quite impressed. I have similar amps on my pinball machine however this one is far better quality, the controls feel very nice it is all aluminum (including the controls) and there is no hiss or noise from the amp and it drives all speakers perfectly even the sub, performs better than I had hoped and also has BlueTooth built in so allows the whole speaker box to also act as a large BT speaker (which allows it to also operate without the top touchscreen PC as just an audio player).
Pictured here is a basic test of the small amp with the actual sub I was going to use and some spare yamaha speakers I was just using for a test.
So with all these issues now mostly sorted and a basic test of the audio system proving to be a success, I was set to start spending money on raw materials and start the actual fun of making something and finding out if things would look and sound as good as I hoped.
I really love the initial start of a project, when you have your list of materials you need and a vision of what you want to achieve, building things by hand is such a rewarding thing to do when it all works out.
I headed down to my local hardware store and started loading the main materials to get started. A few sheets of MDF and some timber to get started, I would need a lot more parts but I like to space things out and not invest in everything at once because often things change, some ideas may change through the build and sometimes things just do not work and you scrap an idea all together so to start with, just what was needed for the main cabinet.
I started out by first cutting all the main cabinet pieces and assembling the top part of the cabinet to make sure the PC would fit and the angle was right. I used a combination of pocket screws and wood glue for the assembly which has always proved a strong and quick assembly technique.
A key to making it fit together well and sturdy is cuts have to be accurate and square, this is easily achieved with careful measuring using the correct squaring tools and accurate cut guides or saw table. I do not own a saw table so instead use a large piece of foam as a cutting surface and a special “Saw Glide” track with an adapter fitted to the saw allowing perfectly straight cuts fast
Next I assembled the pieces of the speaker cabinet and tested the fit of the LED strip lighting. The front speaker panel was cut 10mm smaller on all sides than the actual cabinet to allow for a channel for the LED strip lighting. I simply placed a frame behind this to allow the front panel to sit flush within the cabinet and then fixed from the inside so no external screws would show.
Because the sub box was quite heavy I added an internal brace timber that would make the cabinet more robust but also act as a fixing point for the sub box and a mount for the speaker crossovers
I then had to figure out the exact placement of all the speakers so they would fit and not cause issues with anything else.
I installed and wired everything up for an initial test which also required me to fit the rear of the speaker box for the proper acoustics and I was so pleased the sound was excellent. The woofers were plenty deep enough without the sub for just general listening with the sub able to then fill in extra low end and it went pretty loud, louder than I would have it at any typical house party that is for sure.
I painted the front speaker panel black and would then install a 10mm wooden trim around the front edge to allow speaker cloth to cover all the speakers:
The speaker cloth I ordered was only just wide enough to stretch over the front and did not allow me to wrap it around the back to stapel it, I had to staple to the sides of the panel which made the edges look quite rough so I fitted a trim around the edge which looked nice, however this caused an issue where the LED strip and the cover for it would not fit around the edge of the speaker due to the extra width of the trim so I had to remove it.
This is also where I discovered another oversight. While it looked and functioned just fine there was a potential issue in how I mounted the speakers from the front side. It looked nicer having all the speakers mounted from the front as the holes did not have to be cut perfect and the frame of the speakers looked nice. However this was all mostly hidden away under the speaker cover and it meant if a speaker failed or needed to be removed, I would have to take all the front fabric off to remove them, something that likely would all need to be redone and possibly the whole front panel since there were so many staples holding the cover on.
Hopefully that day never comes but if it does I will redo the front panel and mount them from the back.
Although I had planned a lot in advance and had designed things in CAD a lot of decision making was done on the fly since while I am good on technical and building, being colour blind and useless with visualising how something will actually look in colour, I had no real clue at this stage if I would paint the whole cabinet, cover in carpet, how I would make the apron to go around the monitor.
First I sorted out the actual mounting bracket for the monitor. For this I used the monitors VESA mounting and mounted to a timber bracket with slots cut in it to allow for adjustment. Because this monitor/pc is quite heavy, screwing into the MDF from the inside to hold it was not going to work so I used some “nut set” mounts that are usually used to rivet into sheet metal to make a screw point but they are also great flush mountable bolt nuts for wood. I drilled a hole just smaller than the nutset then glued and tapped it into the side of the cabinet so a bolt can now simply screw into it and this allows the monitor to bee firmly fixed into the cabinet. I also used similar ones for holding the front apron onto the front of the cab making it simple to remove and install.
I cut and formed an apron for the monitor out of 5mm Ply and planned to use some stick-on checker plate cover to wrap around it to give the appearance of checker plating metal. However this proved to just not stick even when I applied additional spray on glue, it simply would start lifting off and looked rather tacky so I scrapped that idea and just painted the apron purple. However this would change again because while I planned the whole cabinet to be covered in black carpet I could not locate the correct stuff in a 1mx3m length so instead had to choose a marine deep blue as the carpet colour which was then starting to make the whole thing a little too blue/purple for my liking. I decided at this point to focus on getting the speaker box done first then see how it was looking to decide what to do about the appearance of the top part.
I had planned to cover the cabinet in black carpet but could not find it at a decent price locally. Some I ordered online turned out to be more of an internal speaker box liner not external carpet so the option I was left with that I could get at a cheap enough cost was some Marine carpet specifically for this kind of thing. Hard wearing, easy to shape and holds perfectly with spray on glue. Comes in 1x3m rolls which was enough to do the whole cabinet.
First I filled in the pocket screw holes, cut the holes to mount in the amp and for carry handles then painted the outer edges black with self priming paint.
I then molded the carpet around the cabinet, clamped it down and placed out in the sun for an hour to soften it up and make it easier to work with
Using spray on adhesive I coated the cabinet and carpet, left to tack for about 10 minutes then pressed together while laying on the side with a board on top to help it stick. I decided to see how an aluminum propellor plate trim would look around the front edge, it was this, black or just plain aluminum and I really liked the propellor plate look so opted to go with that. and once the look was complete I installed the LED strip lighting, fitted the speakers and finished off the rest of the speaker cabinet.
At this stage I has not actually decided how the top part would be covered. I was considering just paint but after I saw how nice the carpet looked and how professional it looked with the aluminum trim I decided I would use the remaining carpet to cover the top and also add an aluminum checker plate apron for the screen which ment a trip to another hardware supplier to get a 5mm sheet cut to size then a careful session of cutting out the window and sanding it all smooth around the edges which was a few hours of work.
Finishing off the top half I had to first cut a small clearance on the inside which you can see in the second image to allow for the audio cable that stuck out the side of the PC so I could slide it in while it was plugged in. I also drilled a small hole where the power button is on the monitor and added a small piece of wooden dowel that can be pressed to push the power button physically.
Adding aluminum edging to the corners of the top part and the aluminum apron really tied the whole system together as a single unit and looked amazing. At this stage I also added carry handles to the top part to make it easier to lift, added shallow rubber feet to it as well because I still plan on this being able to take to other parties and connect up to a stereo system. I also added some lockdown buckles to keep the top secured firmly to the cabinet.
Finally on this side I added the small shelf which was just a scrap of ply board covered in the black felt liner I had planned to cover the cabinet in. This was simply sitting freely as I still had to add the buttons (which I should have drilled the holes before adding the fabric).
This was basically now all done from the perspective of appearance, all that was left was to wire up the power connections and add the function buttons.
Around the back on the bottom section there is a fixed panel at the top that holds the power input (fused and switchable) on the right and the RCA audio input on the left. This allows the rear panel to still be removed without having to detach these connections. A pull handle is also fitted as the whole cabinet has wheels on the back and adjustable fixed feet on the front
The top touchscreen part has a power input but then also has a switched output that connects to the bottom cabinet. You can see in image 3 the solid state relay that switches power to the extra output when power is received from the USB cable.
On the left side is 2 x RCA outputs from the top part, one goes to the speaker cabinet while the second allows connection of an additional amp or a wireless transmitter I have that can then connect to any stereo system wirelessly.
Both can operate completely without the other so it is possible to connect ANY audio source to the RCA input of the speaker or via BlueTooth while the touchscreen part can connect to any audio system and operate from a desktop. Best of both worlds!
What is not pictured is the additional HDMI and USB connections which i installed just after completing the whole system due to some parts having a slow journey to me.
The last thing to finish (other than additional lights and the HDMI/USB connections) was the button panel. This was something I really wanted to have as I like the old school idea of pressing a button to browse albums just like a real jukebox.
I started by noting down every function that was possible with keyboard shortcuts and window messages then figured out what functions I really wanted. I didn’t want too many buttons so I settled on 9 simple functions:
All these can be done from screen but now have dedicated buttons.
The second thing these would do is switch on the whole jukebox when it was off since the PC would detect it as a keyboard press.
I used a very cheap USB attached numpad where I simply removed the control board and rewired it to a terminal strip noting down the wire combinations for each key. I then planned out what wires connected to which buttons and pre-wired everything between the buttons and then to the terminal block.
The buttons are illuminated via 12v so I decided to just use an old 9v 200mA plug pack from an old cordless phone which worked just fine.
I then created a simple application that would convert the numpad key presses to the required shortcuts to send to the application for control. The neat thing is this also allows a wireless numpad to be used as a remote with some additional functions for the extra keys so full control ios also available wirelessly.
To secure this button panel I simply used velcro strips stapled to the panel and the cab and this allows quick removal and storage of remotes, wireless keyboard etc. in the top
This was another fun build that went mostly smoothly and was not overly complicated. It took about a month to fully complete and with the use of second hand parts the overall cost was around $700 for everything pictured, some additional costs for ideas I scrapped or things I purchased that I didn’t use/weren’t suitable.
I would like to improve the front speaker panel and mount the speakers from the rear so they are serviceable and fix lighting to the front side and replace the blue speaker fabric with black, I feel that would look much nicer and more traditional.
All in all tho I am more than pleased as it has gone exactly to plan and works very well. No issues running all day long, doesn’t skip a beat and is simple for anyone to just use without direction. Does make me wonder what I could possibly build next, maybe something not using a computer.
