DIY touchscreen jukebox help

[Daddynoob]

I want to build a touchscreen jukebox
But am a noob to this, have done some research on google but not much help
I want to start off by getting a all in one touchscreen pc
The adapt it to a basic cabinet to start
Also want a descent sound
Was wanting to use Spotify or I I am in the middle of ripping about 10,000 albums onto external hdd and run from there
Can anyone point me in the right direction to get started
So I can get my head around stuff then want to upgrade to a arcade/jukebox/ karaoke touchscreen
So basics are pc and a separate touchscreen monitor
Or all in one
Then some basic software to get started
Will I need to convert my hdd music
Or can I just use Spotify
Any help would be appreciated

[Daddynoob]

I could[/img] buy a cheap second hand one and replace the buttons etc with a touchscreen
Then I would need to workout how to run it
With a pc ? Or a ai1
Any ideas

[lilshawn]

you can set it up any which way you want. your audio source is going to depend on what you want to listen to... and anything you can do on/with your computer, you can do with a jukebox...since, y'know... it's basically a computer in a fancy box.

i have over 60,000 mp3's ive ripped over the years, and i mainly listen to older music... so i wouldn't do spotify or anything like that. but that's me. if you have a spotify or itunes or siriusxm account or whatever and that's all you listen to, just set your box up to do that. if you want to do mp3's take a look at all the jukebox software and find one that looks good... dwjukebox is popular mainly cause it' integrates into mame so the people around here pokes about in the audio sub-forum so if you run into an issue setting it up he/she/it/they can help you out.

there's no right or wrong way, it's just daunting to get started 

[Daddynoob]

Cheers for that
That clears a lot up. Can you have voice activated like Alexa
And will a hifi  amp be ok to power the speakers?
Will have a bit play about with pc first then build the unit
Thanks again

[lilshawn]

Can you have voice activated like Alexa

there is a PC version of alexa app available on the amazon website. https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17549366011 i'm not sure how integrated you can get with it or how you'd configure things, as I'm a Google household. But i'm sure you could set it up to do what you would like. I don't think it's too far out of their apps wheelhouse as far as controls. it should then integrate with any other devices/speakers etc you have already. if i would garner a guess you'd just configure in the app your juke computer as "jukebox" then you'd could probably just say "Alexa play my jukebox" and it would. you'll have to see what you can do. I don't know if they have restrictions on the kinds of apps that can be run by Alexa or anything like that.

And will a hifi  amp be ok to power the speakers?

absolutely. anything really. you could install a bluetooth dongle and stream to wireless bluetooth speakers... wire up a power amp to the computer's audio output for big speakers or tie it into your home theater.... the sky's the limit really.

Will have a bit play about with pc first then build the unit
Thanks again

no worries. this is the best way to go. just play around... make lots of notes. make lots of mistakes. keep backups of installs on a usb stick if something goes south on you so you can start over easily. (basically keep a running instruction sheet .... install this this this and configure this like that and connect here and done.) once you have it working how you like, you can decide what/where/how you are going to use it.

keep in mind once you start this project you might have to make sacrifices in some areas for functionality... it may even completely change the scope of the project once you get into it... don't try and shoehorn an idea into something it might not be able to be. allow it to evolve naturally. you will be more satisfied with your end product. 

[Daddynoob]

Sorry it took so long to reply
Had to put this on the back burner as th wife wanted large pergola building
Then added loads of other bits on it

Thanks to everyone who replied
I am about to restart this project again BUT am going to try and keep it simple till I get the hang of it

So I downloaded digital media centre onto my laptop to get used to the software but i can’t find how to access my music files to play

So any recommendations for any free jukebox software to start with

Once I have got to grips on that I will try the next step

Thanks again

[mahkeymike]

You might want to try freebox jukebox. Its free, but there are donation options for the full home versions and commercial versions. Theres also an option to search online for songs/music videos.

http://www.freeboxjukebox.com/Forum/

[Daddynoob]

Spot on
Will give that a try

I have about 9000 albums in mo3 format on disks to copy onto a hdd
Have got a few done so will put a few albums on a thumb drive and see how that goes

Cheers

[mahkeymike]

Theres another jukebox software with lots of eye candy called Zenpoint but its not free and you have to go through a bunch of hurdles to get activated and i believe it requires the jukebox to be online to "call home" every so often or it deactivates.

[spamola]

I used a program called kodi along with an intel compute stick running windows 10, a USB hard drive, USB sound card and a dell 28" touchscreen monitor.

Kodi has a touchscreen adapted skin called Xonfluence, which I got to work well and look like I wanted by tweaking the available settings in the skin and kodi's core settings.

Currently I only play mp3 files but Kodi does have plugins to run spotify amazon, music, etc, so there are lots of options to play content outside of the locally stored mp3 library route.

Here's a few pics of the working product, (it's still in prototype mode since I haven't had the time to build a cabinet for it so these pics just show everything mounted to the back of the monitor and hung using an adjustable monitor mount):

https://imgur.com/gallery/W3G0aqr

Once I get some other projects wrapped up, I'll be working on a nice cabinet to enclose the screen and speakers and make it look more like a touchtunes juke you see in bars.

If you're interested in exploring this and have any questions I'm happy to help. I had a lot of fun creating it!

[Daddynoob]

Wow
You have helped me loads

That’s a great starting point
What is the box on the box
Is that to run kodi

I was thinking of putting kodi on a fire stick  and possibly a few music apps
And how are you running windows 10 from a stick

[spamola]

Glad my post was helpful!


This is the intel compute stick I used:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08TVM3M3B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's a pic with the components labeled:

https://imgur.com/a/mF2G72T

1. USB hub to connect the component to the intel compute stick.

2. USB SSD drive

3. Intel compute stick

4. USB sound card

I've not done much with a firestick, but I'm sure there are versions of Kodi that will run on one.

Let me know if you have any other questions, I'm glad to help and share what I've learned.