Citizen DJ is a free tool for remixing and creating new songs from audio files that are in the public domain. The tool was developed by Brian Foo who is an Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress. 

On the Citizen DJ website you will find large collections of audio files that are in the public domain. Pick one of the collections to start remixing a song or spoken audio track with drum tracks. Citizen DJ lets you select and isolate notes and rhythms from an audio recording to then mix with drum tracks that you can also remix. You can mix and match as much or as little as you like. When you’ve developed a remix that you like you can record it and save it as an audio file on your computer. Watch the video below that was created by Brian Foo to learn more about how Citizen DJ works (those viewing this in RSS or email may need to click through to see the video). 

Applications for Education

Another way to use it would be to have students create remixes to use as sound tracks in video or podcast projects. All of the music and spoken audio files available through Citizen DJ are free to use and remix which means the new works that students create will also be free of copyright restrictions.