Randy the new RPi streamer and player on the block

Possibly expose the option as a triple toggle. Off, On, album or On, tracks :)
This would allow single album listening without any adjustments from replay gain when set to off and when set to on a smoother experience with random tracks and multiple albums.
Currently I am enjoying the randomness of Randy when working at my bench but have to stop frequently to adjust volume as tracks change.

Some claim a slight downside in audio quality but I have yet to hear any and the benefits far outweigh any possible detriment.
Replay gain tags make no changes to the quality of audio files and are saved as metadata to be used for level adjustment with a compatible player.
Album gain preserves the individual tracks relative levels within an album but adjusts album's overall levels to match.
Track gain adjusts each tracks relative level to other tracks .

Looking at the tags so far I see that my albums have both sets written so the album gain would overide the track gain unless a toggle to select either was present...

Currently tagging with rsgain which handles more file types, including .wav, than others.


https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Rsgain#Linux
 
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I am wondering also how do you guys feel about:
  • volume control?
  • normalisation (keeping volume of different tracks consistent)
* both may have some effect on sound quality

Good stuff and lots of movement!
Gideon
Hi Gideon,

You inquired about volume control & normalization long time ago :)
For me normalization is not very important, but I would like to have volume control.
It could be a setting, I don’t change it often (100% volume is a bit much on headphones :) )
Do people use the slider for fast forward/reverse?
 
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Hi Gideon

Hope you have been keeping well! I just loaded up your current RPi version and all is working well! (all 104k tracks!) The player still sounds amazing for every track! mpv is so awesome. :hphones:

The sound card selection is a nice touch. Reminds me to remove the unnecessary modules wasting power. 😊

I was writing as there needs to be some edits to the Wiki page on smb mounts. Needs a bit of clean-up and update to reload after fstab changes a systemctl daemon-reload is required before testing the auto-mount. I have a public git account also so perhaps can edit that way. Let me know.
Screenshot 2024-01-21 223211 - Copy.png
 
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Hi,
I’m using Randy purely for radio streams, not for albums.
What I’m missing is volume control via the web interface. Atm I have to do that via alsamixer in ssh.

It is possible to use mpd to control the volume.
I would like to control it via the slider in the bottom (see the arrow), or via an up/down control in the top right.

So, I need to alter the web page a bit.
For a front end developer that is probably very easy, I’m not one :)
I will try it anyway; if anyone is interested, please check my fork.
(Or, share your fork if you already modified it :) )

It’s a work in progress, so far I have moved the Power off functionality to the main page.
Other changes are removing changing the device’s host name on install and the google tracking.
Screenshot 2024-05-17 at 12.11.22.png
 
Hi @PjVervoorn @Roncauston @Sumaco !

Due to recent work (and also lack of work) obligations I just noticed how much I am missed from all your latest and earlier messages.

@PjVervoorn - Volume coming soon thanks for the nudge! after seeing your message I had some time while bringing my daughter to the swimming pool to test out some ideas and it looks like working well, I just need to wrap it up into a release.

@Roncauston
1. How can I use Bluetooth headphones?
-- There's some bluetooth libraries for RPIs I have looked into but they were a bit of a PITA at the time.
If you are installing Randy on an OS that already has bluetooth working then the connected device should appear under settings->audio devices, for example here is a screenshot from Randy running on my Macbook
1716125733465.png

2. Easier way to connect to nas.
-- As I don't have a NAS, its a bit hard for me to build something and test it out, the best right now is to follow @Sumaco excellent wiki steps here - https://github.com/PapaSimons/Randy/wiki/Setting-up-a-NAS
3. Cd player (usb) not working?
-- hmm.. it's an interesting use case and can be really cool for people who still have lots of CDs!
Some questions/thoughts:
  • are you plugging it into a RPI and does it show up under settings in any way?
  • There may be some necessary driver packages to install?
  • Maybe mpv has some different way to read tracks from a CD?

@Sumaco - thanks so much, I am not a very savvy github user but I can look into how to add you over this week, meanwhile you can share with me your github handle.

I'll aim to put up a post this week with the latest release.
At the same time the next effort will be mainly focused on making the installation more accessible so that a wider set of people can try Randy out.

Meanwhile, every day Randy is playing radio tracks and lots of great music on my system!
 
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