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Brand new to forum, looking for guidance setting up raspberry pi 4 as dedicated music server, the best player to use, no streaming.

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Evang

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Alright, second reupload and it's working, think I'm done for the night. Thanks for all the help, i'll start learnin up on router configuration.
So is rpi a reliable music server or are these problems typical of what I should expect? Does it have to be left on all the time, i was planning on turning it off at night? I'm not trying to be a troll but is the pi really a good server? I got it because I've read so many great things about it online and that it could have better audio quality then a pc, have people actually measured this. It seems like a mini pc would offer much, much more, be multifunctional, more reliable, and much more user friendly, are there really audio drawbacks to a fanless mini pc? I couldn't find any tests or reviews here. There seem to be alot of options around a hundred dollars on ebay. Not trying to make people feel bad bout there choice of pi as a server or start anything just trying to get objective reviews and info for others looking to make a server that I would have liked to be able to find going into this. Sounds like it's been so problematic for a large percentage of people that they very understandably give up on making it work. Surely that, along with audio quality, is one of the most significant factors to consider when deciding what to use as a music server? Especially for someone new to this. Anyway, thanks for the help, I'm sure I'll need more.
 
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Evang

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Yes rkbates, thanks, took a few tries and a little time but I'm now able to see volumio in fing, just worried the same thing will happen tomorrow and the next day and the next as I didn't actually change any settings.
 

rkbates

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Alright, second reupload and it's working, think I'm done for the night. Thanks for all the help, i'll start learnin up on router configuration.
So is rpi a reliable music server or are these problems typical of what I should expect? Does it have to be left on all the time, i was planning on turning it off at night? I'm not trying to be a troll but is the pi really a good server? I got it because I've read so many great things about it online and that it could have better audio quality then a pc, have people actually measured this. It seems like a mini pc would offer much, much more, be multifunctional, more reliable, and much more user friendly, are there really audio drawbacks to a fanless mini pc? I couldn't find any tests or reviews here. There seem to be alot of options around a hundred dollars on ebay. Not trying to make people feel bad bout there choice of pi as a server or start anything just trying to get objective reviews and info for others looking to make a server that I would have liked to be able to find going into this. Sounds like it's been so problematic for a large percentage of people that they very understandably give up on making it work. Surely that, along with audio quality, is one of the most significant factors to consider when deciding what to use as a music server? Especially for someone new to this. Anyway, thanks for the help, I'm sure I'll need more.
As far as audio quality goes, just about any half decent pc will work. I tend to avoid windows, it seems to me (don't have the tech background to back it up) that windows randomly periodically decides that something else is far more important than playing music and just glitches. I have 2 pi's for music, a pi for video and a yamaha wxad-10 for music - happy with all of them but they do all need to be rebooted once in a while. I find the pi's have undocumented 'features' that can be painful to set up, but once they're set up everything works fine. The big advantage to me is when new a new player or new feature is released you can try it for $0 compared to a dedicated streamer which will be obsolete after a few years. I always leave the pis turned on - power consumption is virtually zero and reliability is no issue. Personally, I don't like wireless - there always seems to be periodic connection problems and dropouts with any device so I use wired whenever possible. Bottom line is that a dedicated streamer is easier, but learning is fun.
 

quattr0

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Alright, second reupload and it's working, think I'm done for the night. Thanks for all the help, i'll start learnin up on router configuration.
So is rpi a reliable music server or are these problems typical of what I should expect? Does it have to be left on all the time, i was planning on turning it off at night? I'm not trying to be a troll but is the pi really a good server?

Measurement...https://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/12/measurements-intel-i7-pc-and-raspberry.html

Fanless peecee is overkill imho. If you look at the resource pi uses to play music...barely anything out of pi3 or 4.
 
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Evang

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Awesome, that's why I love this forum, thank you guys, great answers! Yeah I don't think I'll ever play music wirelessly, I'm sure it's bias on my part but I'll always connect my audio sources with cables. Having a tablet remote is pretty great though. Glad to see there's no audio drawbacks to a PC, I had read somewhere that "some" pc's can have audio problems and the pi was the better option, should have dismissed it out of hand. I wasn't trying to say the pi doesn't work great, it's pretty amazing and of course definitely the cheapest thing out there but when you factor in buying SD cards, reader, cables, PS and most importantly way too much time spent to learn how to set up and troubleshoot it, it's os's reliability problems plus the functional limitations it has with no audio benefit over a pc, certainly for fifty dollars more a mini pc would objectively be a much better option for most people. My time is worth much more than that to me.
Not trying to insult anyones gear or be ungrateful for the help, it's great to have a server set up and I wouldn't have been able to do it without the help, thanks. I think the thing I would miss most is volumio as a player, i have yet to find another music player that doesn't drive me crazy. It's just a shame it has to be installed as an os, it would be great to be able to play music from artists and albums I'm just looking at online. Also to be able to change album and track names, am I right that the volumio doesn't do that. Oh and a pc could directly download music to my drive instead of having to manually add music from another computer.
What plugins would you all recommend for adjusting audio settings, or in general. Right now I'm set to mixer: None, no volume adjustment, but the volume adjustment on my dac works? Do the plugins cause problems?, every time I adjust the audio settings in volumio right now it stops working for a bit. Does volumio have trouble with extremely large libraries? I haven't transferred all my music yet but if it's going to be an issue that might not work for me.
And can anyone recommend a music player for pc (or mac) that has a user interface like volumio, something well thought out and not full of problems, I'm not looking to spend a ton of time trying out different players or any troubleshooting one. I tried media monkey, nothing like that. I tried the audirvana sample, was unimpressed and it was glitchy, and I find their claims and business model dishonest.
Anyway, thanks for all the help.
 

Guermantes

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I've used various Windows, Linux and MacOS systems for audio purposes both domestically and professionally for years and have experienced pros and cons for each one. Glitching in audio has often been a hardware driver issue rather than something typical of the platform except for occasions where processor states have been optimised for office use rather than audio processing. Network issues, when they occur, have been similarly intractable across all platforms. But to be realistic, playing two channel audio is a fairly trivial task for modern systems, even the RPi.

[EDIT] Something that is quite different between Windows and MacOS is that CoreAudio apparently has a "safety buffer" which is there to guard against glitching caused by CPU spikes.

My favourite database+player software for regular PC builds is JRiver Media Center, which is cross-platform and has a remote app, but it's relatively expensive. I also use Foobar2000 a lot because it's well supported, tweakable and free. Neither of those is going to give you the "music appliance" look of Volumio, though.

The point of players like Volumio, MoOde, PiCorePlayer, etc., is that they offer a streamlined OS for running just the music player and library on the RPi without unnecessary components that might tax hardware and memory resources. They turn the RPi into a music appliance: switch it on and it loads the player and library navigation software headlessly. If you want to start using internet browsers, audio editors and other desktop-like applications, then you really need to look at a full-blown OS to integrate all those use-cases.

Here is my setup:
  • Lounge room: RPi 4 running MoOde + USB DAC + USB hub with local library of music files on hard disk.
    • silent device with small power requirements; hidden from curious hands; set up as server and DLNA/UPnP client via Wi-Fi; Bluetooth for streaming; it gets switched off at the wall every night with all the other entertainment appliances.
  • Study room: Windows and Linux PCs
    • ripping and tagging CDs; downloading music from online stores; audio DSP and editing heavy lifting; transferring files to RPi hard disk or streaming via network.
  • Mobile devices (tablets and phones):
    • browsers to control MoOde; apps to stream from online services (Spotify, Amazon) to MoOde via Bluetooth or play from MoOde to local device (e.g. if I want to listen to something on headphones while the family is watching TV).
 
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Nemo

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I've used various Windows, Linux and MacOS systems for audio purposes both domestically and professionally for years and have experienced pros and cons for each one. Glitching in audio has often been a hardware driver issue rather than something typical of the platform except for occasions where processor states have been optimised for office use rather than audio processing. Network issues, when they occur, have been similarly intractable across all platforms. But to be realistic, playing two channel audio is a fairly trivial task for modern systems, even the RPi.

[EDIT] Something that is quite different between Windows and MacOS is that CoreAudio apparently has a "safety buffer" which is there to guard against glitching caused by CPU spikes.

My favourite database+player software for regular PC builds is JRiver Media Center, which is cross-platform and has a remote app, but it's relatively expensive. I also use Foobar2000 a lot because it's well supported, tweakable and free. Neither of those is going to give you the "music appliance" look of Volumio, though.

The point of players like Volumio, MoOde, PiCorePlayer, etc., is that they offer a streamlined OS for running just the music player and library on the RPi without unnecessary components that might tax hardware and memory resources. They turn the RPi into a music appliance: switch it on and it loads the player and library navigation software headlessly. If you want to start using internet browsers, audio editors and other desktop-like applications, then you really need to look at a full-blown OS to integrate all those use-cases.

Here is my setup:
  • Lounge room: RPi 4 running MoOde + USB DAC + USB hub with local library of music files on hard disk.
    • silent device with small power requirements; hidden from curious hands; set up as server and DLNA/UPnP client via Wi-Fi; Bluetooth for streaming; it gets switched off at the wall every night with all the other entertainment appliances.
  • Study room: Windows and Linux PCs
    • ripping and tagging CDs; downloading music from online stores; audio DSP and editing heavy lifting; transferring files to RPi hard disk or streaming via network.
  • Mobile devices (tablets and phones):
    • browsers to control MoOde; apps to stream from online services (Spotify, Amazon) to MoOde via Bluetooth or play from MoOde to local device (e.g. if I want to listen to something on headphones while the family is watching TV).
I see you are running MoOde from a local USB library, so perhaps you can help me: I just installed MoOde 7.2 on a Pi4 and got t working wireless (WiFi) connected to my USB DAC, but however, I cannot find how to choose my SSD USB (NTFS) as my library. The instructions call for plugging the drive and Menu > Update Library, but that does not work: any ideas?

Thanks!
 

Beershaun

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I see you are running MoOde from a local USB library, so perhaps you can help me: I just installed MoOde 7.2 on a Pi4 and got t working wireless (WiFi) connected to my USB DAC, but however, I cannot find how to choose my SSD USB (NTFS) as my library. The instructions call for plugging the drive and Menu > Update Library, but that does not work: any ideas?

Thanks!
Try restarting the device first.
Then see if you get a spinner when you try update library.

Note with a large drive it can take a very long time to see the index of the drive.
 

Nemo

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Try restarting the device first.
Then see if you get a spinner when you try update library.

Note with a large drive it can take a very long time to see the index of the drive.
Thanks for your response.

I cannot see the drive even after rebooting a few times, unplugging the SSD... When I hit refresh or update the circle appears for a few seconds, but of course it only sees the SD card: anything else I should try?? Thanks!!
 

Beershaun

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Thanks for your response.

I cannot see the drive even after rebooting a few times, unplugging the SSD... When I hit refresh or update the circle appears for a few seconds, but of course it only sees the SD card: anything else I should try?? Thanks!!

The USB port may not put out enough power for the drive to function.

Check by plugging it into a powered USB hub then plug that hub.into the pi.
 

Nemo

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The USB port may not put out enough power for the drive to function.

Check by plugging it into a powered USB hub then plug that hub.into the pi.
Thanks again,

That also made no difference, I'm afraid. The drive works perfectly on both my personal Mac and my Windows work computer. I also tried changing the USB protocol on the MoOde system configuration to no avail... The drive has an LED that shines Orange on the USB 2 hubs, and Blue on the USB 3 hubs on the Pi4, it seems a matter of software, but I cannot find the key....

Thanks again!
 

Beershaun

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How is the drive formatted? Is the format compatible with a raspberry pi?
 

Beershaun

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Also in moode, config, system. There is a setting to turn on "max usb current 2x." That will turn up the USB power output to 1.2a.
 

Nemo

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Guermantes

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Thanks for your response.

I cannot see the drive even after rebooting a few times, unplugging the SSD... When I hit refresh or update the circle appears for a few seconds, but of course it only sees the SD card: anything else I should try?? Thanks!!

Two things to check:
  1. Powered USB hub for the drive. This has been essential for me for solving problems with my external hard disk.
  2. The drive volume label. Are there any spaces or unusual characters?

If you are still having problems, I'd suggest posting on the MoOde forum as they can help you with running SSH commands to troubleshoot further.
http://moodeaudio.org/forum/index.php
 

Nemo

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Two things to check:
  1. Powered USB hub for the drive. This has been essential for me for solving problems with my external hard disk.
  2. The drive volume label. Are there any spaces or unusual characters?

If you are still having problems, I'd suggest posting on the MoOde forum as they can help you with running SSH commands to troubleshoot further.
http://moodeaudio.org/forum/index.php

Thank you for your response.

I tried connecting two other drives (128GB thumb drive, 4TB HDD) and both worked. All three drives were identically formatted to NTFS. The SSD still works perfectly in bth my Mac and (work) Windows computer, but it is not recognized by the Pi4, so I ended buying a new one and that is working right now ;)

Now I am struggling with the artwork: most albums up to the letter "L" are shown, and almost none after that!
Screenshot_2021-06-01 moOde Player(4).png

Screenshot_2021-06-01 moOde Player(6).png


To compound on my confusion, some of the albums artwork shows up when you do play them, but some do not:
Screenshot_2021-06-01 moOde Player(5).png

Screenshot_2021-06-01 moOde Player(8).png


Any ideas??

Thanks!
 

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Beershaun

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I would try refresh the library once a day for a few days and leave it running. Often with a big database getting loaded for the first time things time out and don't get loaded or indexed.
 
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