rpi4_music-player.md

How to create your own wifi-enabled (Sonos-like) music player for Soundcloud, Youtube, Spotify and your music files using a Raspberry Pi 4 with Mopidy

material

• raspberry pi 4
• sd card
• PC

installing Ubuntu 19.10.1

You will need a linux version that is compatible with Mopidy and its various extensions. In this tutorial, we will be using 32-bit version of Ubuntu 19.10.1 (Spotify will not work with an arm64 architecture). If you do not have this OS already running on your pi, install it as follows:

• on your PC, wipe your sd card: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-and-format-storage-drive-using-diskpart-windows-10
• download the armhf raspberry pi 4-compatible Ubuntu 19.10.1 image: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/eoan/release/ubuntu-19.10.1-preinstalled-server-armhf+raspi3.img.xz
  • extract/uncompress the downloaded file using something like 7zip
  • download and install win32 disk imager and write the downloaded img file to your sd card (follow the instructions listed here for more details on this: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-an-ubuntu-image-for-a-raspberry-pi-on-windows#2-on-your-windows-machine)
  • insert your sd card into your rpi4 and turn it on
  • on first boot, your username is ubuntu, as is your password (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi#First_boot_.28Username.2FPassword.29). you will then be prompted to change your password

installing Mopidy

• install mopidy running the lines of code indicated here: https://docs.mopidy.com/en/latest/installation/debian/
• in ~/.config/mopidy/mopidy.conf, change the hostname value to ::
  • You can now view the app root at ubuntuUsername@ipAddressOfYourRaspberryPi:6680 on any browser connected to your local wifi network

installing the necessary extentions

• So that you can install the musicbox gui that will allow you to control Mopidy, install pip: sudo apt install python3-pip
• install Spotify (https://mopidy.com/ext/spotify/): sudo apt install mopidy-spotify
  • follow the instructions at the bottom of the page, which tell you to paste the authenticated code at the bottom of your conf file (~/.config/mopidy/mopidy.conf), along with your username and password as indicated here https://github.com/mopidy/mopidy-spotify#configuration)
• install Soundcloud (https://mopidy.com/ext/soundcloud/): sudo apt install mopidy-soundcloud
  • follow the instructions at the bottom of the page (by pasting the authenticated code at the bottom of your conf file, like you did with Spotify)
• install Youtube (https://mopidy.com/ext/youtube/): sudo python3 -m pip install Mopidy-YouTube

Setting up Mopidy to run automatically on your machine

• if you want mopidy to run automatically on startup, then paste the Soundcloud and Spotify code you added to ~/.config/mopidy/mopidy.conf into /etc/mopidy/mopidy.conf (this is the config file for mopidyctl, the systemd version of mopidy which will start on system startup).
• You will also need to add the hostname value that you changed to /etc/mopidy/mopidy.conf as follows:

[http]
hostname = ::

• Then, to enable mopidy to run automatically on startup (https://docs.mopidy.com/en/latest/running/service/#service-management-with-systemd): sudo systemctl enable mopidy

Configuring your sound output

• Finally, you need to make sure your sound output is properly set up. Connect your raspberry pi via USB to a soundcard of your choice, amplifier and speakers. As mentioned here (https://docs.mopidy.com/en/latest/audiosinks/), run the following and if you hear an audible sound, then you should be good to go: gst-launch-1.0 audiotestsrc ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink. If you don't hear anything, then you need proceed with the following:

  • run sudo apt install alsa-base
  • set the following options snd-usb-audio index=0 in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
  • restart your raspberry pi (sudo shutdown -h -r now)
  • after startup, things should be running fine (try running gst-launch-1.0 audiotestsrc ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink again play or any song on your mopidy client)

• PS. You might want to increase the Spotify bitrate for better sound quality, so add the bitrate = 320 arg to /etc/mopidy/mopidy.conf under [spotify]