Building the Ultimate Home Jukebox With Silverjuke

What I Want

I've always loved the idea of replicating the jukebox experience at home, but with full control over the music. No subscriptions, no lockouts, no file format restrictions. Just a machine that:

  • Stores my entire music library (MP3s, FLACs, etc.)
  • Lets guests easily browse and queue songs
  • Works with a touchscreen for ease of use

How I Got It

The project kicked off when I found a Lenovo IdeaCenter all-in-one PC (circa 2010) at a charity shop for £30.

It has a glass touchscreen and acts as a fully self-contained computer.

The IdeaCenter came with Windows 7, which I replaced with a clean Windows 10 install.

After some tinkering, I eventually installed a piece of multi-media software called Kodi, hoping to set up a jukebox-like experience with a queue.

Unfortunately, after tinkering with some of Kodi's plugins and digging through its settings, I wasn't able to set it up in a way that resembled the jukebox experiences I'm so fond of.

It was clear that I would need a more specialised jukebox software solution.

Silverjuke

After some searching, and lots of trial & error with various pieces of outdated, unsupported software, I had finally found my solution: Silverjuke. Silverjuke is a great piece of jukebox software that offers many customisation options.

Here's what makes it great:

  • It plays all of my music, including my MP3 and FLAC formatted files.
  • It offers a background music function, ensuring there's always something playing.
  • I can limit how often songs can be repeated, and even how many songs can be queued at a time.
  • Lastly, Silverjuke has a fully reskinnable interface, meaning its look can be adjusted to your preference. I personally use its built-in classic jukebox style.

More than than, Silverjuke is completely open-source, meaning anybody has the opportunity to contribute to the project. Additionally, Silverjuke doesn't require any activation servers to work, or a regular payment to continue to operate. Once activated (via an offline code), it just works.

The open-source version is available for free on Linux if you're savvy enough to put it together, but I opted for the one-time payment for a Windows copy of the software. An activation key was e-mailed to me, which I can use at any time, online or offline, to activate the software.

The Final Product

Overall, despite some minor drawbacks (E.G. guests having to double-press songs to play them), Silverjuke seems to be just about a perfect solution for a long-lasting jukebox experience at home, and it keeps you in control.

The customisation on offer is really impressive and I've barely scratched the surface with what it can do. That said, there are a few more features worth highlighting:

  • Cross-fading: Silverjuke has a great adjustable cross-fading option, allowing songs to gradually fade into each other.
  • Visualizers: There is a huge variety of visualizer options available for your music, and you can adjust the idle time after which they display. These add a visual liveliness alongside the music.
  • Karaoke: Even if it's not your thing, Silverjuke is capable of displaying song lyrics in the form of LRC files, which can be easily sourced online. Just drop the file in the same place as a song, and ensure both have the same file name. Silverjuke cam automatically display those lyrics when that song is playing.

Conveniently, the computer I'm using has a ridge towards the bottom of the screen, serving as a perfect place to put a small USB-powered light bar. I angled the light towards the computer's front-facing buttons, which run along a thin silver strip. As the light bar reacts to noise, light shines down and reflects in an effective display of colour.

I stuck an additional light bar on the back of the machine, which brightly illuminates any surface it happens to be up against.

Tips

If you plan on making your own home jukebox running Silverjuke, I suggest looking into a couple of things:

  • Running Silverjuke on start-up: I set my Windows 10 install to be passwordless, so it logs in automatically. Next, I set a simple batch script to run on startup to continuously start and restart Silverjuke in its fullscreen kiosk mode. This ensures that the program will quickly recover, should it crash for any reason. (I haven't experienced any crashes yet.)
  • Reducing the screen resolution: If you find that buttons are too small and easy to miss, I suggest going into your device's display settings and reducing its resolution. Silverjuke's buttons should appear much larger and be easier to press.
  • Change the skin! Silverjuke offers a few default looks, so try out different ones to see what fits best. I personally prefer the classic jukebox skin.

I'll update with pictures soon.