Article: Geek Speak: How To Build A BeagleBone Black MPD Music Server

[The Computer Audiophile]

You can view the page at http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content.php?r=533-Geek-Speak-How-To-Build-A-BeagleBone-Black-MPD-Music-Server

[The Computer Audiophile]

Will this work with an asynch USB DAC?

Certainly. Not every async DAC but most with the XMOS chip.

[The Computer Audiophile]

This is exactly what I was looking for. I ordered a BeagleBone Black not really knowing what I was going to do with it but had something like this in mind, and along comes this. Lots to learn. Hopefully my Halide Bridge will work in this setup. Anxiously waiting for all the parts to come through in the mail.

Halide will work just fine.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Nice article...so one could stream 192/24 files to this thing without any issues? Audio is HDMI only right? If you had an old amp in basement with no HDMI could this still work?

24/192 is no problem. I use a USB DAC for digital output not the HDMI output.

[The Computer Audiophile]

What is this device? I gather it must be used with either a PC or Mac, what are its advantages and disadvantages?

Actually this can be used without a PC or Mac. Use a control point like an iPhone or iPad to select music on a NAS and send it to a BeagleBone Black. This solution is really anti PC or Mac.

[The Computer Audiophile]

could you use the DragonFly as the DAC? Any then run a split RCA wire from teh DragonFly? I have a Sonos system at home, but it would be nice to run hires through this mini system. Would this DAC work? Or is there a recommended usb only DAC.

I'll try my Dragon Fly this weekend. It should work, but the DF has had issues with Linux.

[The Computer Audiophile]

This sounds really interesting, and at a price point one cannot refute.

 

I do understand that this is very open as far as options go, and the basically the sky's the limit, but I'm more wondering as to the basics of the systems you are reviewing/reporting on.

 

So does this BBB unit just replace the CAPS/NUC, or the NAS internal server software, or both? Do I still require the Renderer or do I only require only an outboard DAC between the BBB to the amplification?

 

For the system I am interested in I was looking at the Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 as it is about 1/2 the cost of the Linn Sneaky, and I'm not sure I could tell the difference. I also use a Synology DS213. My home network is on a ASUS RT-N56U router and I have an ASUS 8-port gigabit switch in there too.

 

I'm not sure which is better for my application: all data through ethernet and to avoid USB/Optical or otherwise.

 

Heck. the more stuff you review, the more confused I get!!!

 

Any input from you guys would be appreciated.

The BBB is a computer that connects to a DAC via USB. It's the same concept as the CAPS Lagoon. All storage is on a NAS. This unit doesn't do upnp and doesn't compete with any upnp /DLNA products.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Maybe when they get up to around 2Ghz multicore CPUs and 2 GB of RAM etc. these little boards will be more than toys.

You may want to check out the Wandboard with 1 GHz four core processor and 2 GB of RAM.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Add your music folder to the shared folders in the sharing settings. The name of this folder will be the share name, for example //10.0.1.111/music

 

Let us know if that helps.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I believe that is how I have it set up. I know I'm doing something wrong. I'll keep trying, don't want to turn this comment section into a personal help board. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Don't worry just keep asking for help. If you have a question or problem the chances are great that many others do as well.

[The Computer Audiophile]

My guess is it's a mounting issue and I seem to find an infinite number of answers when searching. It's possible it has to do with the syntax of how I'm referring to the SMB share on my Mac. I see that there are others on this thread that were looking to do the same thing with their Macs instead of using a NAS. If any of you have had success, any recommendations on what you were able to do to get it to work?

I got it working using OS X 10.8.4. Here are the details.

 

line in fstab:

//10.0.1.54/Desktop /mnt/music cifs user=my_short_username,password=mypassword,nounix,sec=ntlmssp,noperm,rw

 

My Sharing settings:

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just have to ask. Library updates fine, and MPAD is connected. The only thing I'm having problems with now is the player is stuck on pause. If I hit play it just goes back to pause immediately. USB DAC is listed as an output. Not sure what has changed. Lots to still learn I see.

Did you get this to work? You ay have to restart the BBB if your DAC was unplugged and replugged in because the BBB won't send power to the DAC unless the DAC is there at boot.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Unfortunately not, but what you mention makes sense. I ran the shutdown command to turn the BBB off, connected the Halide Bridge, but no luck. I think I may have to reboot it once it's connected to make sure it is getting power. My DAC is not locking on to the Bridge, I'm guessing now because the Bridge isn't getting power.

Shut it down, pull the power, connect the Bridge, reconnect the power. Should work fine.

 

Id run the command "aplay -l" to make sure the device is visible.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - Just an update.

 

I linked to the newest version of the Debian image file in the instructions. And, I did some testing with NFS versus SMB/CIFS. Using NFS I couldn't get playback without pops and ticks. I switched back to SMB/CIFS and all is well. Probably a config issue on my end. Not sure what to tweak.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I am a complete Linux newbie.

 

Trying the instructions above but cannot download the Debian Wheezy image from the weblink you provided. When I click on the link I get a text only page. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

Here is a link to the available images

 

Index of /deb/flasher/wheezy

[The Computer Audiophile]

Thanks for the link.

BBB (hopefully) configured correctly and ncmpc is indexing media on the NAS.

MPaD installed but cannot see BBB on the network.

 

Couple questions:

1. How will I know when the media indexing is completed?

2. When configuring connection to MPD in MPad, Server= My.NAS.Address, password=root...is that correct?

 

Thanks

In ncmpc there will be a little letter U in the upper right when the database is updating.

 

You shouldn't need a username and password to connect mpad to the BBB.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Dont see a U on the ncmpc page, and there are no tracks listed. No error message either

Checked the log on my NAS and cant see any entries confirming that the BBB is connecting correctly

Any suggestions on how to proceed?

Type the word mount at the command line and see if your NAS is listed as being mounted.

 

Make sure you pressed ctrl and U to update via ncmpc.

 

See if you can browse the NAS by switching directories to /mnt/music. Use cd /mnt/music then type ls and hit enter to list everything.

 

also try typing service mpd restart and see if you get any errors.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Indexing is complete- all music visible using ncmpc or MPad!

BBB connected to DAC via USB (Wyred 4 Sound mINT)

I can open and play music files in MPad but there is no sound coming from the mINT...

Almost there, but not quite...

Any further help appreciated!

If you type aplay -l is the DAC listed?

Using ncmpc will a track play or does it say paused at the bottom when you try to play it?

[The Computer Audiophile]

the aplay -l command shows the mINT:

 

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

card 0: Black [TI BeagleBone Black], device 0: HDMI nxp-hdmi-hifi-0 []

Subdevices: 1/1

Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 1: USB [MINT Async USB], device 0: USB Audio [uSB Audio]

Subdevices: 1/1

Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 1: USB [MINT Async USB], device 1: USB Audio [uSB Audio #1]

Subdevices: 1/1

Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

 

All tracks stay paused whether using MPaD or ncmpc

Is your audio output device listed as device "hw:1,0" in mpf.conf?

type nano /etc/mpd.conf to check

 

 

audio_output {

type "alsa"

name "USB DAC"

device "hw:1,0" # optional

# format "44100:16:2" # optional

# mixer_device "default" # optional

# mixer_control "PCM" # optional

# mixer_index "0" # optional

}

- After entering this information press Control O (Control key plus the letter O) then his enter to save the file.

- Hit Control X (Control key plus the letter X) to close the file.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Problem solved:

1,0 was transposed in the mpd.conf file.

Its playing now- tremendously helpful!!

I have a lot of 24/88 and some 24/96kHz recordings. Will the BBB support those natively, and if so how do I configure the device for playback of these hi res files?

 

MANY thanks!

It will play all your high resolution material without any other configuration changes. It's all bit perfect without any resampling.

 

Happy to help.

[The Computer Audiophile]

24/192 STUTTERS !

Hello together - now i need help too After trying Raspyfi without luck ( USB Problems ) i bought a Beaglebone Black and did this Guide Step by Step. (At least) everything works like charm - really cool ! Only one Problem left: My async USB Dac Musical Fidelity V90 supports only 24/96 flacs via USB. I own a few 24/192 files - these should get downsampled by ALSA to 24/96 what theoretically works:

cat /proc/asound/card1/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params access:

RW_INTERLEAVED

format: S24_3LE

subformat: STD

channels: 2

rate: 96000 (96000/1)

period_size: 12000

buffer_size: 48000

BUT THE SOUND STUTTERS - CPU is 99% . Playing original 24/96 Files need 5-10% CPU.

Here is my ALSA Config in mpd.conf:

audio_output {

type "alsa"

name "USB DAC"

device "hw:1,0"

mixer_device "none"

# period_time "50000"

# auto_resample "no"

# format "44100:16:2"

}

As you can see i already tried a view things here...but without luck

Any Ideas ? Thanks and Greets from Germany/Munich

Hi Markus - It looks like ALSA is downsampling the 192 files but the CPU can't keep up without dropouts. You may have to convert the files to 96 kHz offline rather than at playback.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Chris - thanks for your answer ! But this solution would be too easy for now

I believe in another possibility: there must be a way for changing the downsampler mode . In the moment I´m reading Manuals and Howtos with the Keywords:

samplerate_converter , libasound_module_rate_speexrate.so , libresample etc.

starting e.g. here: Tuning - Music Player Daemon Community Wiki . I hope I´m on the right way... - I will report

That's a great page for addressing this issue. Please let me know how it works.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Today I received my BBB and gave it a try, several times. I followed the setup from Chris, mostly with copy and paste so there were no typo’s. I am a complete newbie to Unix so i got stuck. Maybe someone is willing to help me to overcome the situation.

I used the most recent Debian Wheezy image.

I use a Synology NAS for storage of music files. I can play these files with JRiver and Logitech Media Server. IP address 192.168.1.246

In /etc/fstab I added: //192.168.1.246/Muziek /mnt/music cifs defaults,username=admin,password=mypassword 0 0

In /etc/mpd.conf I did not change the music player name

In /etc/mpd.conf there are 2 lines # bind_to_address. I removed # only in front of the the line where I had to change localhost in 0.0.0.0

/etc/default/cpufrequtils appeared to be am empty file. I added GOVERNOR=“performance”

In the end I typed ncmpc and a window appeared

I hit the letter Q and tried MPaD. MPaD showed nothing.

I assume I did something wrong. I repeated the whole even three times

At some point ssh root did not work. After googling I solved this by typing ssh-keygen -R 192.168.1.221

At some point mount -a gave an error, so I started over again.

Right now I feel pretty stupid not be able to get this thing going.

Any help would be appreciated

Using ncmpc can you play music?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Windows sharing is enabled and I use //192.168.1.246/Muziek

Can you map that drive on Windows?

[The Computer Audiophile]

I never tried to map it on a windows machine. I mount it on my Mac easily. I use that to copy my music files from my Mac to the NAS. Is it possible that there is a difference between the last Debian build and the one you used that might be crucial?

Not likely. Can you map the drive from your Mac using SMB or are you using AFP?