-The right music can make or break a good party but the idea of spending hours perfectly crafting a night's worth of music is enough to make me not want to throw party at all.
I'm Donald Bell.
Today, I'm gonna show you how to get rid of the anxiety of DJing your own party by putting your friends to work.
The key to this particular method is the free app called Jukebox Heroes.
It's available for both the iPhone and for
Android.
And in a lot of ways, it works just like a regular Jukebox, you fill it up with music and your guests get to play songs using free credits.
While I'm waiting for my guest to arrive, I'm gonna set up my Jukebox, which in this case is, my phone.
To get started, I'm gonna launch the app, then tap Create your Jukebox.
Now you have to sign up for a free account using either Facebook or your email address.
And then it's time to give your Jukebox a name that your guests are going to recognize and the location, if you like.
Then
define what songs the Jukebox is gonna play, you can choose your entire music collection or restricted just to a specific playlist.
Tap Create and be given a chance to invite your friends to join in.
We're gonna wait on that for now, and there you go.
Your music just starts playing right away.
Now, to get this connected up to your home stereo, there's a couple different ways you could go; you could go to AUX cable and connect this up right to your home stereo, if you are pretty trusting with your friends, or with a Bluetooth speaker but
then you kind of have to worry about wireless range.
For iPhone users, your best bet is to stream over AirPlay, either to an Apple TV or to an AirPort base station or to an AirPlay compatible speaker system.
To shoot this music over to the Apple TV here, I'm going to double tap on the Home button, flick the tray over here to the right and then tap the AirPlay button to select my Apple TV.
All right.
Now, the hard part is done, just in time since my guests are starting to arrive.
As they do, you're just gonna tell them to download Jukebox Hero to control the music they're hearing.
Eric here showed up with the Galaxy Note II Android phone, he'll download the app from the Play Store and when he opens it up, he should find the Party Juke Box I created is nearby.
He'll need to signup either using your Facebook or email, which is kind of a pain, but the payoff is worthwhile.
Once he gets connected, it's time to start picking some songs.
The interface shows which songs is currently playing along the look
ahead upcoming tracks and history of previously played songs and people who joined the Jukebox.
You can also see how many credits you have to spend, by default, each guest is given 25 credits to start.
To add the song to the growing queue, tap this button here.
You can browse the collection of available songs, select the track and you'll be presented with three options, each one comes with a price.
You can add the song to the back of the queue for one credit and patiently wait for it to come around.
If
Lyn doesn't wanna wait too long, she can use a few more credits and add the songs to a place next after the current song.
And if Brian really wants to change the song and doesn't wanna wait, he can make it play right now for a hefty premium.
This prevents anyone particular person from dominating the playlist and also makes it an expensive to be the jerk the keys booting off other people's music.
Of course, it's your party and it's your Jukebox, so you're in control.
You get unlimited credits, so you can play whatever you like and you can skip a track whenever you like, complete with the satisfying record scratch sound.
-I wanna be, I wanna be--
-What's going on?
-Seriously though?
-Hey.
-Sorry guys.
Sorry, carry on.
That's really all there is to it.
But here is some extra tip to help keep your party running smoothly; first off, it really is worth the time to create even a very general playlist of party-appropriate tunes.
If nobody selects the track,
the Jukebox is gonna pick one at random from whatever playlist you've defined.
That's great to prevent dead air but it could get embarrassing.
Second, check the settings on your Jukebox up here on the right corner.
You can change the default number of credits or give people more credits to spend if they're running low.
You can also use this to blast out a little text announcement to people using the Jukebox.
-Superstar.
Superstar.
Superstar.
-So really, that's all there is to it.
That's how to get your friends to DJ your party for you.
More tips like this,
head over to howto.cnet.com.
I'm Donald Bell.
Enjoy your party.
-Superstar.
Superstar.
