Logo
< Back to home

Audio Pi & App

The app was built to control the Audio Pi, is using Angular 5. It has been broken down into small components which are used together make up the pages. The communication between the app and the server is occurs through websockets. The server also communicates with the google play music api, this data retrieved is stored in playlist .m3u format to be played by the MPD service.

Building the Audio Pi

Equipment

Install raspbian onto the pi, I used win32DiskImager and an zip file containing raspbian jessie lite (lite doesn’t have a graphical interface). Raspbian Zip file download and install instructions.

The default user of raspbian is ‘pi’ with the password ‘raspberry’. I would recommend changing the password of this user or creating a new user account and deleting the pi user to make your pi more secure.

If you are using wifi then you’ll need to set it up to connect to the network. So type in the command:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Then add to the bottom of the file:

network={
	ssid="testing"
	psk="testingPassword"
}

Where ssid is the name of the wifi network, and psk is the password to access it. Save the file and reboot the pi, it should not be able to access the wifi.

I’d also recommend expanding the file system to fit the SD card you’ve installed raspbian, you can do this by typing

sudo raspi-config

And then selecting the first option: Expand filesystem. A reboot will be required to do the expansion.

If you wish to access the pi remotely using SSH, you’ll need to enable it as later versions of raspbian have it disabled by default. It is recommended that all users that can log into the pi must have passwords. To turn it on, type into the shell:

sudo raspi-config

Then go into ‘Advanced options’, and then ‘SSH’, where you can choose to turn it on.

For the audio server

Originally I tried running modipy as my music server, however I found it unreliable as it seemed to cut out in the middle of playing a song. I looked around at others that were out there, for example volumio, but found it didn’t have in-built support for google music. In the end I decided to build my own built upon mpd, GMusicProxy and node.js to run the website Front-End and to communicate with the other services.

Using hifiberry DAC+ pro (optional)

The audio quality output from the raspberry pi is not very good, so it’s advisable to by an GPIO DAC extension for the pi. I choose the hifiberry DAC+ pro because the hifiberry products have some good reviews and it was the best model I could afford with my Amazon gift card.

The DAC+ pro slots on top of the pi sliding into the GPIO pins, it also comes with spacers to secure the board.

To enable the DAC+ pro as a sound output for the pi, find the following file:

/boot/config.txt

And find the following line:

dtparam=audio=on

And replace with:

dtoverlay=hifiberry-dacplus

Then reboot the pi and it will now use the DAC+ pro for audio output.

Last steps

Connect your sound card to your hifi with a compatible audio cable.