Raspberry Pi Music Server

Raspberry Pi Music Server.md

First, install Raspbian.

Configuring your sound card

This configuration works with HiFiBerry DACs and the Sabre ES9023 chip.

If you are using WiFi, turn off WiFi Power Management.

$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

Configure the device tree overlay by editing boot config.

$ sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Remove the following line if it exists. This will disable the onboard sound card.

dtparam=audio=on

Add the following line to the end of the file.

dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac

Reboot your Pi and make sure device shows up.

$ sudo reboot now

$ aplay -l

Look for card 0: sndrpihifiberry. Your card ID may be different from 0.

Create /etc/asound.conf with the following content. Replace 0 with your card ID from above.

pcm.!default {
	type hw
	card 0
}

ctl.!default {
	type hw
	card 0
}

Reboot your Pi and make sure the ALSA settings have taken effect.

$ sudo reboot now
$ alsamixer

You should see Card: snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac displayed in the top left corner.

Setting up Spotify Connect using librespot

Install https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot using the commands below.

First, install Rust and Cargo using rustup.

$ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Source the cargo env file to add the cargo binary into your PATH.

$ source $HOME/.cargo/env

Now, install git and build dependencies.

$ sudo apt install git build-essential libasound2-dev

Clone the repo and navigate to the directory.

$ git clone https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot.git
$ cd librespot

Optional step: Change the number of volume steps from 64 to 16. I prefer this because it matches the iPhone's volume control. 🙂

$ nano connect/src/spirc.rs

Look for repeated.push(64) and change it to repeated.push(16).

Build librespot. This step will take a very long time on a Raspberry Pi - most likely 30 minutes or more.

$ cargo build --release

Now, let's create a system service for librespot.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/librespot.service

Copy the following into the service configuration file.

[Unit]
Description=Spotify Connect daemon
StartLimitIntervalSec=0
Documentation=https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
After=sound.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/pi/librespot/target/release/librespot -u [spotify_username] -p [spotify_password] -n "Librespot" -b 320 -c /tmp/librespot
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now we can start the service.

$ sudo systemctl start librespot

And set it to start automatically on every boot.

$ sudo systemctl enable librespot

You can check the status of the service at any time by running the following command.

$ systemctl status librespot

Setting up Airplay using Shairport Sync

The following is modified from the install instructions located at https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/blob/master/INSTALL.md.

$ git clone https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync.git

$ sudo apt install build-essential git xmltoman
$ sudo apt install autoconf automake libtool libdaemon-dev libpopt-dev libconfig-dev
$ sudo apt install libasound2-dev
$ sudo apt install avahi-daemon libavahi-client-dev
$ sudo apt install libssl-dev
$ sudo apt install libsoxr-dev

$ autoreconf -i -f
$ ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --with-alsa --with-avahi --with-ssl=openssl --with-soxr --with-systemd
$ make
$ sudo make install

Now, edit this file:

sudo nano /etc/shairport-sync.conf

Change these values:

general = {
	name = "whatever you want!";
	interpolation = "soxr";
};

Now we can start the service.

$ sudo systemctl start shairport-sync

And set it to start automatically on every boot.

$ sudo systemctl enable shairport-sync

You can check the status of the service at any time by running the following command.

$ systemctl status shairport-sync

Avoiding conflicts over the sound card

If you have both librespot and shairport-sync running, they'll fight over the sound card and you'll have to manually stop one before using the other. The solution to this is to stop librespot every time shairport-sync begins playing audio. See discussion here: mikebrady/shairport-sync#152.

First, add a sudoer file for shairport-sync by copying the default sudoer file.

sudo cp /etc/sudoers.d/010_pi-nopasswd /etc/sudoers.d/010_shairport-sync-nopasswd

Now edit that file.

$ sudo nano /etc/sudoers.d/010_shairport-sync-nopasswd

Change the username to give shairport-sync permission to use sudo

shairport-sync ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Now edit the shairport-sync config again.

$ sudo nano /etc/shairport-sync.conf

Find the section called "sessioncontrol" and make it look like this.

sessioncontrol =
{
        run_this_before_play_begins = "/usr/bin/sudo systemctl stop librespot";
        run_this_after_play_ends = "/usr/bin/sudo systemctl start librespot";
};

Finally, reboot for your changes to take effect.

$ sudo reboot now

Great job! 🥃