DJ Cabinet

Here at the X-INfERNO we like to jam. As anyone with a garage band may know, there is a lot of equipment involved with making all this happen. We have guitars, drums, vocal mics, instrument mics, effects processors, recorders, players, amps and cords galore and they all need to be connected together by some physical means to get everyone outputting and sounding or recording right. Well since a lot of these things are 19″ rack mount, I thought it would be great to have a cabinet on wheels to organise everything in. It would be easier to move around and take to gigs and such. So that’s how this project started.

• Why? It would make it much easier to transport all the music equipment if it was on wheels in one cabinet all hooked up internally.
• How? By using a 19″ rack frame and building a lumber cabinet around it and using speaker cabinet parts and carpet to finish it off and make it look professional.
• Purpose? To live in the shop be ready for transport to anywhere we need to blast music, live or DJ.

		The IdeaThis is just a random sketch I made when I was coming up with the idea. It looks kind of like a washing machine but up top there is a CD player, mixer, and behind those is a computer monitor so that I can build a computer into a 19″ rack case that will live in the cabinet.
		3d ModelI always find it helpful to build my projects in a virtual environment first to see if they are plausible. I went from the sketch to the PC, modeling it in 3ds Max. I had a 19″ rack that I needed to build a frame around so I modeled it in 3d first to figure out the dimensions.
		FramingHere it is, the primary frame. My 3d model worked out great and I just built it right to spec from that. The next step is to skin it.
		Plywood SkinHere it is with the sides on it, it’s getting more rigid all the time and it’s looking like it might work out! I have the wheels on now, big 360-degree casters for all four of them.
		Front WrapHere is the skin wrapped around the front, starting to look nice! I put in the first rack mount device to make sure everything lined up, so far so good!
		Rear ViewThe plywood skin is complete! I obviously need a back door for wiring and such, but I wanted it to be discrete. I built a panel that fits inside of this hole perfectly and I will embed rare earth magnets on each piece to hold it in.
		Carpet TimeTime to make it look legit. I got this carpet on eBay from a speaker builder. I’ve never done this before so I hope it works out. I’m attaching it with liberal amounts of 3M Super 90 adhesive.
		Carpet WrapI want as few seams as possible especially because I have no experience doing this, so I wrapped the entire cabinet all the way around in one piece with a seam across the back, broken up by the back door.
		Looking GoodA little cut out and carpeting the top pieces and now it’s looking really professional. I’ve got the handles in, the 15″ monitor, and corners on. I wrapped all of the corners so there is no exposed wood and the seams came out really well.
		Space TestThrow in the Crown 400 amp, and top it off with a Mackie 12 channel mixer, and Stanton digital turn table and we’re almost ready to go. Just need to populate the rack.
		Ready GoHere we are all done, ready for the club, ready for the live jam, ready for anything.
		CompleteIt’s fully equipped with a 12 channel Mackie mixer, 15″ HP monitor, and Stanton CD turn table on the top. In the rack we’ve got a main power distributor, custom effects processor, Roland flash-memory recorder, Crown 400 two channel amplifier, full PC in a server rack case, and 4U locking drawer.

So that’s the X-INfERNO DJ cabinet. Really it is more of a Multi-Purpose Audio Cabinet but we just eventually started calling it the DJ cabinet because it was easy to say. It served it’s purpose perfectly at friends Nick and Heather’s wedding where it did duty as PA system/music for the ceremony and reception and then full on DJ station for the dancing segment of the celebration. In April it served as the whole system for Shamrock Ten’s live performance for my engagement. Not to mention countless hours of jam sessions. Anyways if you want to talk about it leave a comment!