OLD: mpdPup - Simplified MPD Music Server/Jukebox - v0.9.2

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PET-240
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue 22 May 2012, 17:38

#121 Post by PET-240 »

link for your persual,
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/conte ... ic-server/

Also I have Macs as well.........possibly one of the few.......but not.

Thoughts?

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#122 Post by ldolse »

For Mac users I'd recommend using XLD:
http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html

I like XLD better than EAC as it handles metadata better in general, and if you have non-ascii/unicode metadata XLD does a better job with it than dBpoweramp, but it doesn't support automatically creating folder.jpg which is something you really want your ripper to do (for MPoD and other mpd clients). XLD is also not terribly intuitive to use, but it's ok once you figure it out.

Overall I'd still give the nod to dBpoweramp unless you're either trying to save money or insistent on sticking with open source software.

audiosm
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri 25 May 2012, 13:44

#123 Post by audiosm »

Hello Idolse and thanks very much.
Music on my external hard drive using ntfs is up and working so can confirm the settings you sent work ready for the next version .

I made a WiFi connection using a fixed IP at mpd to Gnome running on a second laptop, the connection times out intermittently, however it auto reconnects, and cannot damp my current enthusiasm, best look at my network later.

The sound quality (the number 1 priority) on initial listening is better than my previous supposedly bit perfect windows player, unless my judgment is colored by the success of getting it going ? I need plenty more listening time.

Very Happy - Thanks again for your great project and assistance.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#124 Post by ldolse »

Great! Glad to hear it's working for you - keep me posted on your sound quality impressions once you've got some more listening time in.

By Gnome I assume you mean GMPC, a bit odd that it's disconnecting - I'm actually going to include GMPC in the next release, and it's been running fine. That said in my case it's on the same machine, so it's possible that there is some network issue on your side as you suspect.

wlowes
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri 08 Jun 2012, 02:30
Location: Toronto, Canada

sound muted after first install

#125 Post by wlowes »

I just installed on an Alix for the first time. I know system works as I have been using VoyageMPD. Uses Alix/WDlivebook/WaveIO USB.

Install of MPDPUP was perfect.

the sample sound during install was good. Found the NAS, and updated the DB.

GMPC client connects/sees db and plays WAV files. No problem.

But no sound. I know alsa comes up muted on most systems. This is what it feels like. How do I unmute? Alsamixer not found.

All suggestions welcome. I did change decoder { plugin "sndfile" enabled "no" in mpd.conf as I believe this is required for WaveIO.

thanks all,
Walter

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#126 Post by ldolse »

Strange, especially since Pet-240/Drew had no issues with the WaveIO.

Disabling sndfile is only required of older MPD releases - this was due to a bug that was resolved last august/september.

The waveIO showed up as a sound device when the setup wizard ran, correct? When the wizard asked you to play a test file did it make any noise?

It's also strange that you're saying alsamixer wasn't found - it's most definitely installed as I use it relatively frequently. Can you post exactly what the error message is when you type the command? It shouldn't be coming up muted - I have noticed with some sound devices it won't always reboot at 100% volume when the hardware volume control is enabled, but in general it makes noise.

Edit: I see you say the sample sound was good - that would indicate the WaveIO was working during the initial boot, almost wondering if it had some issue on the reboot.

edit2: Which volume control option did you select with the setup wizard? Disabling the volume would be a way to bypass alsamixer altogether.

Things to help me debug would be to paste the output of:
alsamixer
aplay -l
ps -e
ls /mnt/music

Thanks.

PET-240
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue 22 May 2012, 17:38

#127 Post by PET-240 »

Just been having an argument with MPod, I found that the iOmega drive Im using on my "network", its standalone.... needs to have booted before the Alix gets started, in a normal situation this would not be an issue as the NAS or whatever would be on all the time.
Still sorting the coverart thing with MPod, in regards to the webserver you build into this, how do I get Mpod to see the local folder for coverart? Do I need to turn on the webserver through Putty? What would its address be?
I have bodgied up an indicator cable for the wave, I get indication of 44.1 output and a streaming output, now to bodgy a spdif cable......

Can you advise re the webserver please Idolse?

Thanks,

Drew.

PET-240
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue 22 May 2012, 17:38

#128 Post by PET-240 »

as requested. hope its right....


VESA BIOS Extensions not detected.
VESA BIOS Extensions not detected.
# alsamixer
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory
# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 1: L20 [Luckit USB Audio 2.0], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
# ps -e
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:02 busybox
2 ? 00:00:00 kthreadd
3 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
4 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:0
5 ? 00:00:00 kworker/u:0
6 ? 00:00:00 migration/0
7 ? 00:00:00 cpuset
8 ? 00:00:00 khelper
9 ? 00:00:00 sync_supers
10 ? 00:00:00 bdi-default
11 ? 00:00:00 kblockd
12 ? 00:00:00 ata_sff
13 ? 00:00:00 khubd
14 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:1
15 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
16 ? 00:00:00 ksmd
17 ? 00:00:00 fsnotify_mark
18 ? 00:00:00 xfs_mru_cache
19 ? 00:00:00 xfslogd
20 ? 00:00:00 xfsdatad
21 ? 00:00:00 xfsconvertd
23 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_0
24 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_1
25 ? 00:00:00 kworker/u:1
26 ? 00:00:00 kworker/u:2
27 ? 00:00:00 kpsmoused
303 ? 00:00:00 flush-8:0
434 ? 00:00:00 loop1
537 ? 00:00:00 loop0
683 ? 00:00:00 flush-7:1
768 ? 00:00:00 udevd
886 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:2
932 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:3
933 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:4
1517 tty1 00:00:00 sh
1522 tty2 00:00:00 getty
1525 ttyS0 00:00:00 getty
1619 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon
1620 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon
1630 ? 00:00:00 sshd
1651 ? 00:00:00 udevd
1656 ? 00:00:00 udevd
1685 ? 00:00:00 cifsd
1695 ? 00:00:08 mpd
1701 ? 00:00:00 lighttpd
1710 ? 00:00:00 sshd
1715 pts/0 00:00:00 sh
1799 pts/0 00:00:00 ps-FULL
# ls /mnt/music
Audio Adrenaline Guy Sebastian Matchbox 20
Brooke Fraser Jars of Clay Michael Bublé
Creedence Clearwater Revival Jason Upton Naturally 7
dc Talk Jet SONICFLOOd
DefaultPicture.png Jewel The Corrs
Delirious- Johnny Cash Third Day
Delta Goodrem Leigh Nash Third Day Flac
Eric Clapton-B.B. King Lenny Kravitz Thumbs.db
Francesca Battistelli Mandy Moore Van Morrison


Let me know what I did wrong if this isn"t what you need!

Thanks,

Drew.

PET-240
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue 22 May 2012, 17:38

#129 Post by PET-240 »

I'm guessing you figured I didnt make music either...

However, I am assuming that Yamaha called their SPDIF inputs coaxial and put them under the Toslink ports........

So if you dont find something it may not be mpdpup, though Im curious why alsamixer isn't found, I did select bit perfect, no volume control in the wizard....

Thanks Idolse!

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#130 Post by ldolse »

That error isn't that you don't have alsamixer, it's just returning 'can't open mixer', which means it's not finding a top level/default mixer. That error I've actually seen before - my Audiophilleo does the exact same thing, but all the other sound cards I've tested with have been fine, the Wave is the first that's done the same thing as Audiophilleo.

Type the following to get to your mixer:

Code: Select all

alsamixer -c 1
Then use the up arrow to bring the volume to 100%, and escape to exit.

If you disabled the volume in the initial setup wizard I believe this shouldn't matter, but if you did enable the volume I think it makes a difference, I don't quite remember all the variations I played with before. (edit - I see you set it to be disabled, so really not sure exactly what's going on - hopefully getting into the mixer as described above will resolve it)

Note if you did select the hardware volume control odds are that it's broken - that was the case with the Audiophilleo - I'll be reworking how the hardware volume is configured by the wizards. Basically you need the following lines in mpd.conf to get the mpd volume control working correctly (in the alsa sound device config section at the bottom):

Code: Select all

        mixer_device        "hw:1"
        mixer_type        "hardware"
Regarding folder.jpg, go into MPoD's settings, click 'MPD Server', then drill down into the server configuration you made. Scroll to the bottom, and where it says 'local cover art' add this url

Code: Select all

http://<your Alix IP address>/
You could also give tunes.local instead of the IP a shot if that worked for you before.

In the box below that use the cover art filename convention you're using inside each album folder, e.g. folder.jpg.

After looking at my MPoD config it looks like I was also having problems with it discovering tunes.local, I have it configured to use the IP. On my iPad with MPaD it has no problems discovering tunes.local automatically, so I think something might be broken in MPoD, need to ping the developer on that.
Last edited by ldolse on Fri 08 Jun 2012, 15:45, edited 2 times in total.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#131 Post by ldolse »

One other thing to debug for me - do this before you mess with alsamixer if you can, I want to see how it was set up by default.

Type this at the CLI and paste the output:

Code: Select all

amixer -c 1
I suspect that it may be booting up muted, though that means I need to figure out why the sound test was working. Anyway the theory is from this Arch wiki article:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Alsa

If my theory is right I'll use the setup scripts to have amixer unmute the card.

wlowes
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri 08 Jun 2012, 02:30
Location: Toronto, Canada

Mute on Alix -SOLVED!

#132 Post by wlowes »

Turns out is was the alsamixer mute. I had the same on VoyageMPD, but here could not launch alsamixer. Your command "amixer -c 1" showed the gui. While volume was at max, each channel is muted. To unmute, you have to go to each channel and toggle mute with the 'M' key. Voila! Sound. First impression is sound is very good. It is different from VoyageMPD on same hdw. Not a lot, but slight different presentation. Both are great. At first impression, I think mpdpup might be a little more laid back and flowing. Will do some critical listening to really get to know it, and then pop the VoyageMPD CF back in and see if there really is a difference or just my imagination. mpdpup is an absolute winner in ease of use. I suspect it will have the edge on SQ due to its smaller footprint.

Thanks for the help and for the wonderful mpdpup!!

Here is the output requested from Alix for completeness. I have to go back thru it and make sure I get everything back to original config to really hear it.

# alsamixer
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory
#
# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 1: L20 [Luckit USB Audio 2.0], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
#
# ps -e
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:02 busybox
2 ? 00:00:00 kthreadd
3 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
4 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:0
5 ? 00:00:00 kworker/u:0
6 ? 00:00:00 migration/0
7 ? 00:00:00 cpuset
8 ? 00:00:00 khelper
9 ? 00:00:00 sync_supers
10 ? 00:00:00 bdi-default
11 ? 00:00:00 kblockd
12 ? 00:00:00 ata_sff
13 ? 00:00:00 khubd
14 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:1
15 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
16 ? 00:00:00 ksmd
17 ? 00:00:00 fsnotify_mark
18 ? 00:00:00 xfs_mru_cache
19 ? 00:00:00 xfslogd
20 ? 00:00:00 xfsdatad
21 ? 00:00:00 xfsconvertd
23 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_0
24 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_1
25 ? 00:00:00 kworker/u:1
26 ? 00:00:00 kworker/u:2
27 ? 00:00:00 kpsmoused
298 ? 00:00:00 flush-8:0
428 ? 00:00:00 loop1
518 ? 00:00:00 loop0
664 ? 00:00:00 flush-7:1
749 ? 00:00:00 udevd
884 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:2
891 ? 00:00:00 kworker/0:3
1425 tty1 00:00:00 sh
1427 tty2 00:00:00 getty
1430 ttyS0 00:00:00 getty
1528 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon
1529 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon
1540 ? 00:00:00 sshd
1561 ? 00:00:00 udevd
1567 ? 00:00:00 udevd
1595 ? 00:00:01 cifsd
1605 ? 00:00:02 mpd
1611 ? 00:00:00 lighttpd
1620 ? 00:00:00 sshd
1625 pts/0 00:00:00 sh
1709 pts/0 00:00:00 ps-FULL
#
# ls /mnt/music
MPD Pictures Shared Videos Temporary Items
MusicLib Shared Music Software Videos
Network Trash Folder Shared Pictures Stereo Project
#
┌──────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.0.24.2 ─────────────────────────────

wlowes
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri 08 Jun 2012, 02:30
Location: Toronto, Canada

Alix mpd.conf options

#133 Post by wlowes »

OK, this is great and all is working perfectly.

PET-240,
Once you get mpdpup making beautiful sound, may I tempt you with some SQ tweaks. I don't pretend to suggest this is perfect, its a work in progress.
My WaveIO has a very good power supply which already gives it a pretty good sound stage. mpdpup as configured by default makes great sound on the WaveIO/Alix combo. In my room its 10 feet behind the speakers and very nice. It is very analogous to CICS/CPLAY on an optimized WinXP.

To my ear on my system (YMMV) there are a couple of things that open up the sound and produce an expansive 3D stage.
buffer_before_play "100%"
opens up the sound

The following explodes the sound stage. Brings it out in front of the speakers and makes it wider than the speakers. Still stays deep, but very 3D. Some may like it more or less. Seems like there is some room to experiment here.

audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "WaveIO"
period_time "21333"
fragment_size "4096"
device "hw:1,0"
buffer_time "250000"
mixer_type "none"
mixer_device "disabled"
auto_resample "no"
auto_format "no"
}

Enjoy, and lets compare notes. Enjoy the WaveIO. Awesome with mpdpup! 8)

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#134 Post by ldolse »

Excellent, very happy to hear we've gotten to the bottom of this. Appreciate the comparison to Voyage, I think the two of you are the first to try it out on the Alix 2D - my embedded system testing was on another board.

I still have a lot to learn about ALSA though - of all the cards people have tried with mpdPup the Wave is the first one that exhibited this behavior. I've personally used lots of different USB DACs/Converters for testing and never run into this. So does something in the hardware actually tell ALSA how to configure the driver?

The fact that amixer -c 1 launched the GUI means I still have a problem to solve in terms of the setup scripts as well - ideally I need a way to unmute from a BASH script without popping up a GUI.

Also keep me posted as to whether the unmute survives reboots.

Drew, I saw your question about the volume control on MPoD on their blog comments - this is indeed because you disabled the mixer - if you want the volume control enabled then you can replace the mixer_device "disabled" line from wlowes config with the two lines I mentioned a few posts back. 100% volume should be bit perfect (though the WaveIO guys would need to confirm), below 100% behavior won't be bit perfect, but quality is dependent on how the WaveIO guys present their capabilities to ALSA, so you would need to check with them - some of the Converters/DACs do have very high quality dithered volume controls.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#135 Post by ldolse »

@wlowes, PET-240, I think I've got an idea on how to unmute all the channels in future releases - If either of you would be willing to help beta test the next release let me know. I'm pretty confident what I want to do will work in general, but not sure if it will persist across reboots.

PET-240
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue 22 May 2012, 17:38

#136 Post by PET-240 »

Count me in as required!

Will hope to do the unmute thing tonight, should I do the savefs ommaond thing again to try to ensure it boots unmuted?

Thanks Isolse!

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#137 Post by ldolse »

Thanks! I still need to sort out the wma thing, but after that I can send a beta link out. I've already updated my setup scripts to handle unmuting, hopefully a bit more reliably - the basic function is reliably unmuting and setting all channels to 100%, but I'm not 100% certain on the persisting across reboots just yet.

I've found the most reliable way to save the existing configuration is to do a full/clean reboot by using the 'reboot' command.

save2flash usually works, but I have seen it not work on occasion - I think it might be that it's still doing something in the background and I power off the system too quickly, but anyway I don't trust it as fully as a proper reboot.

wlowes
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri 08 Jun 2012, 02:30
Location: Toronto, Canada

Happy to be a tester

#138 Post by wlowes »

The unmute survives across boots. Same behaviour in VoyageMPD. You change is once and you are done. I see on the WaveIO thread that this alsa defualt mute is unique to WaveIO. Everyone experiences it who runs alsa and no one seems to see this outside of the WaveIO. Must be something in the XMOS firmware. Interesting to know if the XMOS refernce design has the same issue. I suspect so. Glad we discovered this and posted on WaveIO site. This is a very special card and especially so when run on these minimalist Linux systems. Previously I went down the full CICS/CPLAY route of cutting XP down to similar size. Got very good results but incredible amount of work. mpdpup is plug and play and to my ear better sound.

I am happy to be a tester on WaveIO. It's so easy to install its no problem to keep a 'production' instance on one CF and a QA CF to play with new stuff. More than happy to contribute.

I too have a lot to learn about alsa settings. I believe there is a great deal to learn and play with buffer settings. Like all things linux, there are lots of spots with documentation, but few places where there is a community of interest rallied around producing best possible sound without blowing tons of $$.

I learned of puppy thru another poster who used it with a minimalist processor board with great results. You made it easy to jump in.

I am also interested in understanding the impact on WaveIO (if any) of having very low latency OS or RT kernal. Now that I am onto puppy thanks to your easy install, I am interested in exploring these avenues as well. I see some folks have created turbo puppy extreme for low latency. Need to continue reading in this direction. So much to learn, so little time!

PET-240
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue 22 May 2012, 17:38

#139 Post by PET-240 »

Walter,

Plenty of reading for you....
http://www.symphonic-net.com/kubotayo/a ... .html#need
Granted its for voyage but the rt stuff may flow across.
The lines you showed in your earlier response re soundstage, how'd you get that to show up?
I really am a newbie, but Idolse has made me feel like I know much more than I do!

Look forward to trying the changes![/url]

wlowes
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri 08 Jun 2012, 02:30
Location: Toronto, Canada

#140 Post by wlowes »

PET-240
The parameters I showed with respect to sound stage are from the config file for mpd.

It is in the /etc directory and is called mpd.conf

From your client computer log into mpdpup with ssh. ssh root@local.tunes

you can get to the directory with

cd /etc

to see the files in the directory

ls -l

to view the file

less mpd.conf

to edit it I use a very basic editor called VI. You will need to google VI linux editor and learn some basic commands. its not really very intuitive.

You will see the output parameters describing WaveIO added to the very bottom of this file. Most of the file is just examples. Anything following a # is a comment. The only active lines do not have the # at the beginning of the line. if you make a change you save the file by typing
: wq
then restart mpd
killall mpd
mpd

You will quickly appreciate all the work mpdpup has done for us by configuring all this properly. I realize I am likely guilty of not showing all this step by step, but I hope I have given you enough to fill in with google and lots of experimenting.

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