Project: Computerised DJ Deck

chet84

chet84

chet84

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Joined
7 Apr 2004
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1,508
Location
Coventry
In my spare time I do a bit of DJ'ing for birthday parties, weddings etc. It all started when my girlfriends dad (I know :eek: ) was asked if he wanted to buy some equipment. He said yes and asked me if I wanted to help him start up. We started DJ'ing on keptr putting the money earned back into the equipment to upgrade. Now 4 years down the line we have decided to go computerised!

I had the idea of having 2 seperate mini itx computers and putting them through one of the Numark usb decks. I put a rough spec together and this is what I came up with:

Spec for single computer:

7" Touchscreen
Epia M1000 Mini-itx
512mb Ram
80gb Hard Drive - Windows and programs
200gb Hard Drive - Music
Mini Keyboard
20x4 LCD
Shuttle PSU

Anyway, having put this spec together, I bought 2 lots of everything - except the 7" touchscreens are now 8" lol. I have also bought the Numark deck and am ready to build a case to hold it all in.

I have a couple of nagging problems at the moment though -

1. Winamp - I want a easy to use, touchscreen skin that has big buttons for play, pause etc, a playlist and a list of all the songs ewith a search function. Can I find one... no! Any idea?

2. Is windows the best software to use? Is there anyway I could boot into a music program - or have winamp boot an startup? Whats the best thing to do?

Anyway I will be posting pictures of the equipment later and possible deck designs... any ideas or comments are welcome!

Thanks for looking :)
 
BigDom said:
Any reason yours using Winamp over a more capable DJ software such as SAM?

Windows can of course start any application at boot up so no issues there.
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I have no knowledge of DJ software mate... and its only a music player effectively as there are two computers... all fading, mixing is done on the mixer.

Cheers Basmic - now all I have to do is find a suitable skin
 
hi guys thatnks for all the relys... the thing is that I wanted to keep it as simple as possible! I'm not a club DJ... just a bog standard cheesy disco one lol. Thats why I went for the deck etc... but I didn't want to use just one computer because the chance of it going wrong is very high imo.
 
Looks great mate, but would be a pain to use with touchscreens... I'm basically looking for a normal mp3 player tbh which is like winamp or easier to use! I've ssen one called Touchtone Audio player but can't find that many reviews on it. Any thoughts?
 
Hi guys... i think you're all missing the point! I have already bought the bits for two computers, I just need some advice on the software I can load to use them with touchscreens. I don't need mixing etc... as I'm a cheese DJ that does weddings, partys etc :)
 
But not on a touchsceen!!! I want to use play, pause, skip backwards and forwards. And then an easy to use search function so I can search all the songs on the HDD, all with big buttons so I don't need a mouse! Winamp would do the job but buttons are a bit to small!
 
BigDom - Cheers BigDom - Looking into it now....

Seft - Ipods, no thanks...

jaxon - a laptop doesn't give me much upgrade scope. Also I want to get away from decks all together; we carry around 5 flight cases worth of cds!

Plus in the future I want to be able to run karaoke off this thing as well as maybe have a video feed of the crowd etc... all gimmicks I know, but you can't do this with any of the other things. Hopefully once i've built it, somebody will agree with me lol.

Anyway... heres the situation at the moment with it!!



Its a thumbnail btw... click to enlarge!
 
cheers mate... i'm actually custom building a case, which will end up looking like a rectangle shaped box with the top face slanting downwards for ease of use etc. The box is going to be made out of MDF, and then carpeted with dark grey carpet. Then going to use corner reinforcers for strength. Also have bright white LEDs on a switch to light up the whole thing so easy to use in the dark.

Software wise, I haven't decided yet. There is a program called touchtone audio system, which i'm thinking of using in conjunction with winamp. This is so I can use the LCD plugin to output current song playing and time left on the blue LCDs in the picture.
 
Thought I would bring this thread back from the dead... as you can see my first post was in February... since then I've been and got myself a degree!

And I've started to make some headway with the actual deck unit! (See pics below)

Here's the inside so far... I have to build a frame to house all of the components inside. I also want to light up the inside with ultrabright white LEDs so it is easy to plug things in and out.



The case has been made from 12mm MDF and then coated in hardwearing felt. There are bulgin switches on each side of the deck - one for each pc. All the components have been made flush with the case. Still to do on the outside is light up the mixer with ultrabright LEDs so I can see it in the dark!





Tell me what you think so far....
 
VeNT said:
you're going to need to connect all the parts up onto a metal base plate (like the motherboard tray inside a case) this is important so that the EARTH is commen to ALL the parts (motherboard, PSU etc), this is not a worry in most cases as they are metal and thus fully earthed though the PSU, but in this case I'd REALY sugest buying a sheet of metal for the base or taking some trays out of old cases.
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Have you got any ideas on how I would properly ground all of the equipment mate?
 
welshtom said:
connect up every mobo stand off to a grounding wire
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Why didn't I think of that! :rolleyes:

gibbs said:
type of keyboard?
Click to expand...

I have 2 mini usb keysonic keyboards but on-screen touch is preffered!

pinkegobox

I've looked into that software - looks really good. I'll have to try it out. The sound quality sounded fine when I tried it but if not I have 2 x audigy 2's on standby!

I thought about a ups as well... again I'll probably end up buying one!

Cheers for all the advice - keep it coming! Comment also welcome!
 
pinkegobox said:
a piece of software i recommend is called Jazler Show.

a few things i would add:
-is the sound quality good enough from those poxy boards, would it not be better w/ each machine having some kind of decent sound card to pump out choons. after all, it is their primary purpose. (i might have missed you mentioning something about this earlier in the thread and if i did, i apologise)
-i'd consider getting a small UPS - so that an unexpected powercut doesn't hard your very precious hard drives in the middle of a gig (and finding yourself a dj without any music). for that reason too, consider taking a removable usb hdd with "emergency music" on you, that you can plug directly into the mixer if it all goes to poo.

the case looks nice though! v.impressed.
Click to expand...

I had a think about this mate... the sound cards are built into the mixer!!! Loading software on it now... will post results here!
 
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