Apr 27 2009
Building a mini DJ
The media capabilities of the Mac mini make it quite the party animal. This certainly isn’t the only way to rock the party with your mini, but it is the only way I’m going to detail for you here.
What you’ll need
- Your mini
- Wireless option of your choice (Bluetooth/Airport)
- Another Mac (a laptop preferred) or Bluetooth phone for wireless control
- Video projector, preferably with DVI input)
- Mini-jack to RCA cable
- Amp/mixer and speaker system
- USB mic
The projector and audio hardware are available at many rental stops. If you have any ties to a college campus, they are ideal places to rent projectors inexpensively.
If the rental guy fails to mention it, I should say that video burn-in is death to projectors, so you’ll want to have a screen saver going on your mini.
So, let’s put it together. It is a good general rule with audio equipment to start with all levels at zero. In order to get all the preamp equalization we can from iTunes, you’ll want to bring your iTunes and speaker-output levels to about 75% and adjust the mixer or amp accordingly.
I’m not going to get too deep on software here, but you’ll want to run a remote control solution. For Bluetooth control from your mobile phone, grab Salling Clicker ($19.95) or Romeo (Free). To modify the playlist, and iTunes, from another Mac get iHam on iRye (Free) or netTunes ($19.95). Each one of these are well documented, so I’ll leave you with those.
Now, to give you a voice we’ll use a USB mic. Utilities like LineIn can help mix your mic with the music. And, I don’t want to encourage too much of this, but this mic will open up the floor for some karaoke, provided you bring the music. Oh, and please don’t send me any tapes.
Put it all together and you’re rocking. And this is just the beginning. Don’t get bored – there are plenty of visuals out there, many of which are controllable live via keyboard shortcuts.