Latest posts of series Raspberry Pi as a Hi-Fi component

I bought a Raspberry Pi 2 and its case. I could not reuse the existing SD card because it wants a MicroSD.

A wise person once told me:

First you do it, then you document it, then you automate it.

I had done the first two, and now I've redone the whole setup with ansible, here: stereo.tar.xz.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could use the hifi remote control to control mpd?

It turns out many wishes can come true when one has a GPIO board.

A friend of mine had a pile of IR receiver components in his stash and gave me one. It is labeled "38A 1424A", and the closest matching datasheet I found is this one.

I wired the receiver with the control pin on GPIO port 24, and set up lirc by following roughly this guide.

Enable lirc_rpi support

I had to add these lines to /boot/config.txt to enable lirc_rpi support:

dtoverlay=lirc-rpi,gpio_in_pin=24,gpio_out_pin=22
dtparam=gpio_in_pull=up

At first I had missed configuration of the internal pull up resistor, and reception worked but was very, very poor.

Then reboot.

Install and configure lirc

apt install lirc

I added these lines to /etc/lirc/hardware.conf:

DRIVER="default"
DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
MODULES="lirc_rpi"

Stopped lircd:

systemctl stop lirc

Tested that the receiver worked:

mode2 -d /dev/lirc0

Downloaded remote control codes for my hifi and put them in /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.

Started lircd

systemctl start lirc

Tested that lirc could parse commands from my remote control:

$ irw
0000400405506035 00 CD_PAUSE RAK-SC304W
0000400405506035 01 CD_PAUSE RAK-SC304W
0000400405506035 02 CD_PAUSE RAK-SC304W
0000400405505005 00 CD_PLAY RAK-SC304W
0000400405505005 01 CD_PLAY RAK-SC304W

Interface lirc with mpd

I made this simple lirc program and saved it in ~pi/.lircrc:

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = CD_NEXT
     config = mpc next
end

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = TAPE_FWD
     config = mpc next
end

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = TAPE_REW
     config = mpc prev
end

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = CD_PREV
     config = mpc prev
end

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = TAPE_PAUSE
     config = mpc pause
end

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = CD_PAUSE
     config = mpc pause
end

begin
     prog = irexec
     button = CD_PLAY
     config = mpc toggle
end

begin
     prog = debug
     button = TAPE_PLAY_RIGHT
     config = mpc toggle
end

Then wrote a systemd unit file to start irexec and saved it as /etc/systemd/system/mpd-irexec.service:

[Unit]
Description=Control mpd via lirc remote control
After=lirc mpd

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/irexec
Restart=always
User=pi
WorkingDirectory=~

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then systemctl start mpd-irexec to start irexec, and systemctl enable mpd-irexec to start irexec at boot.

Profit!

All of this was done by me, with almost no electronics training, following online tutorials for the hardware parts.

To connect components I used a breadboard and female-male jumper leads, so I didn't have to solder, for which I have very little practice.

Now the Raspberry Pi is so much a part of my hifi component that I can even control it with the hifi remote control.

Given that I disconnected the CD and tape players, there are now at least 16 free buttons on the remote control that I can script however I like.

My Raspberry Pi hifi component setup lacked a way to cleanly shutdown the system without ssh.

I wished the Raspberry Pi had a button so I can tell it to shutdown.

I added one to the GPIO connector.

It turns out many wishes can come true when one has a GPIO board.

This is the /usr/local/bin/stereo-gpio script that reacts to the button press and triggers a shutdown:

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#!/usr/bin/python3
# http://razzpisampler.oreilly.com/ch07.html
# http://web.archive.org/web/20160305001215/http://razzpisampler.oreilly.com/ch07.html
from RPi import GPIO
import time
import subprocess

def on_button(pin):
    print("Button pressed", pin)

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

GPIO.setup(18, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down=GPIO.PUD_UP)

while True:
    pin = GPIO.wait_for_edge(18, GPIO.FALLING)
    if pin == 18:
        subprocess.check_call(["/bin/systemctl", "halt"])

This is the /etc/systemd/system/stereo-gpio.service systemd unit file that runs the script as a daemon:

[Unit]
Description=Stereo GPIO manager

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/stereo-gpio
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then systemctl start stereo-gpio to start the script, and systemctl enable stereo-gpio to start the script at boot.

I have a 25 years old Technics hifi system that still works fine, and I gave it a new life by replacing the CD player and cassette player modules with a Raspberry Pi.

Connection

Each component of the hifi has a mains input and a mains plug that is used to power the next component. The element where the main power lead goes in is the radio component, which has a remote control receiver, a watch and a timer, and will power on the rest of the system when turned on by its power button, the remote control, or the alarm function.

I disconnected the cassette and cd player modules, and plugged the Raspberry Pi phone charger/power supply in the free plug behind the amplifier module, at the end of the (now very short) power lead chain.

I also connected the audio output of the Raspberry Pi to the CD input of my stereo. The advantage of CD over AUX is that the remote control buttons for switching audio sources don't cover the AUX inputs.

With alsamixer I adjusted the output volume to match that of the radio component, so that I can switch between the two without surprising jumps in volume. I used alsactl store to save the mixer levels.

Now when I turn the hifi on I also turn the Raspberry Pi on, and when I turn the hifi off, I also cut power from the Raspberry Pi.

Operating system

Operating system install instructions:

1. I downloaded a Raspbian Jessie Lite image
2. I put it on an SD card
3. I created an empty ssh file on the boot partition
4. I put the SD card on the Raspberry Pi and turned on the stereo.
5. ssh pi@raspberrypi password raspberry
6. sudo raspi-config to change the hostname, the password, and to enlarge the root partition to include all the rest of the space available in the SD card.

Music Player Daemon

This is the set up of the music player part, with mpd.

apt install mpd

The configuration file is /etc/mpd.conf. The changes I made are:

Make mpd accessible from my local network:

bind_to_address         "any"

Make mpd discoverable:

zeroconf_enabled                "yes"
zeroconf_name                   "stereo"

Allow anyone who visits me to control the playlist, and only me to run admin functions:

password                        "SECRET@read,add,control,admin"
default_permissions             "read,add,control"

At my first try, mpd hung when changing songs. I had to disable dmix by uncommenting the device option in the audio_output configuration. use_mmap is cargo-culted from the archlinux wiki.

audio_output {
        type            "alsa"
        name            "My ALSA Device"
        device          "hw:0,0"        # optional
        use_mmap        "yes"
}

If at some point I'll decide to use other audio software on the system, I'll probably want to play via pulseaudio.

Sending music to the stereo

I made a little script to sync the music directory on my laptop with /var/lib/mpd/music:

#!/bin/sh

rsync -avz --filter=". sync-stereo.filter" --copy-links --prune-empty-dirs --delete ./ pi@stereo:/var/lib/mpd/music

ssh pi@stereo "chmod u=rwX,go=rX -R /var/lib/mpd/music"

It uses this sync-stereo.filter rules file for rsync:

hide /_archive
include */
include **.mp3
hide *

mpd clients

mpc

$ mpc -h stereo status
UltraCat - Unexpected Little Happenings
[playing] #15/22   0:03/4:06 (1%)
volume: 80%   repeat: off   random: on    single: off   consume: off

M.A.L.P.

On my phone I installed M.A.L.P. and now I have a remote control for mpd.

In its settings, I made a profile for home where I just had to set the hostname for the stereo and the admin password.

Cantata

On my laptop I installed cantata, set the hostname and password in the preferences, and had the client ready.

Profit!

Now I can take the remote control of my hi-fi, turn it on, and after a while mpd will resume playing the song that was playing when I last shut it down.

I also have realtime player status on my phone and on my laptop, and can control music from either at any time. Friends who visit me can do that as well.

Everything was rather straightforward, well documented and easy to replicate. The hardware is cheap and very easy to come by.