Juke Box (on Beechbrook.com)

[LumenLux]

Grrreat Ken! Your Jukebox is a superb outcome of your "whim." Just shows to go you what you can do when you get those trains out of your daily life. Your wife gets a new computer and custom made software. Your grandkids get PTE shows categorized in 6 dimensions. And we get a whiz-bang coin-slot to our musical past.

I think your layout is perfect - very clean and functional. Cleverly you have any song end with the mouse tap to start the next one. Who would have believed in 1960 in the burger den that you would someday have all the songs from all the jukeboxes in America for half a century all contained in a very portable jukebox sitting on your lap. And that you had, with simple tools, designed and built! Your girl isn't starry-eyed enough with that song? just click on the next one!

I did, a time or two manage to tangle the shows as I too-eagerly moved from song to song. But I think it only did it because my security settings made a window pop up for authorization the first time I ran each year.

Finally, I vote with you on the years you chose to have active. Those were the right years. I'm not sure they were alwaysthat innocent, but they were the prime years for (non-angry) rock & roll. You managed to select several of my favorites. Now we'll see if my grandkids are interested in what Papa used to listen to. Thanks Nickles!

[ronwil]

That was great. It is what my sons and grandsons were listening to, so obviously I couldn't miss listening to it as well. I'm of the Big Band era. The mind boggles at the size of the file if full length and all the years were covered

Ron [uK]

[Severn Bore]

Just to add my own appreciation for Jukebox. It covers music from my formative years at Grammar School and then early career, so brought back loads of memories.

Super job! Thanks

Andrew

[nickles]

Hey Guys:

Thanks for your nice comments. This one’s not very photographic but does demonstrate the capabilities of PTE.

I must admit “I’m kind of proud of this one”. A little difficult to find photos, especially for the “one hit wonders”.

I was gonna upload a version that had one record that “hung-up” on the jukebox and if you didn’t depress a button in a period of time you got a message that said “kick me”. My wife thought that would be to distracting.

I found that sometimes a song will fail to play so you end up with 30 seconds of silence. This seems to be intermittent. May have something to do with PTE’s built in MP3 player. Did y’all have this problem? Also, my anti-virus software had an effect on the speed of transitions between years. If I disabled my anti-virus software it plays a lot quicker.

You’re very right Ron; the files can get quite large. Each year is a slideshow…10 full songs at 128kbs averages 30-35mb. This is really a little impractical using PTE…but I think the concept would make a neat MP3 player. If the blue buttons were “Playlists” and you “dragged” your songs to the brown buttons…would be neat. Some one more skilled than I, such as Igor or Boxig, could probably do wonders with this concept.

Bob, I think you’re right…angry is probaly a better description than innocent…things changed during the Vietnam era. I think the juke box probably suffers some from the “multiple button click syndrome” and you can most likely get two or more years playing simultaneously. As you could probably tell…the show sequences from one year to the next…if you select a different song or year the show will sequence from that point.

Andrew….hmm…you enjoyed this music in grammar school…and I enjoyed starting around the same time….could we be about the same age? I came into the world in 1947.

I’ve got a “fine-tuned” version I will upload in the near future and post in the forum. It has some neat enhancements to the jukebox turntable sounds as the show cycles between years…without being obtrusive. Will wait a little bit to see if anyone has any problems with the present show.

Thanks for your comments,

ken

[Severn Bore]

Hi Ken

Firstly, I have had no trouble playing the show so far.

Secondly, you have a few years advantage on me as I am 64 next month, making my arrival on the planet 1942, or about 10years BJ (?) - Before Jukebox. I am unsure when the juke box first arrived, but I think I only became aware of it in the early to mid fifties. Mind you, I was probably too young to appreciate such things before then.

Best regards

Andrew

[ronwil]

I was at grammar school when my parents had their first electric turntable. Prior to that it was the wind-up gramophone. One of my father's records was a Columbia "Fascisti Hymn" and "Garibaldi Hymn". When the war started in 1939 my elder brother took it out into the garden and stamped on it.

Ron [uK]

[LumenLux]

Ken, after initially playing and exploring a little bit, I did let your Jukebox run from start to finish - all years. I did not notice any problems.

I had forgot to mention how much I appreciated the photos and what good choices you made on those. Though many songs were favorites or familiar, some had performers who were yet unknown to me.

Just for continued explorations, have you considered loading a DVD full of mp3's and running the show from the DVD instead of HD?

[lathompson]

Ken, your jukebox was great. Sorry you couldn't do all the songs. I went wanting for more.

You're memories are similar to mine, songwise.

A perfect way to remember where you were when the songs were popular.

Good job!

lt

[nickles]

Hello LT,

Thank you for your comments...and I'm glad that you enjoyed the show.

Those old songs...even when in bits and pieces do bring back lot's of memories don't they?

Some good and hopefully very few bad.

thanks again,

ken

Just for continued explorations, have you considered loading a DVD full of mp3's and running the show from the DVD instead of HD?

Hey Bob, that's a good suggestion...I'll give that a try with the "full song" show....also try with a regular CD...I'll post my results here.

ken