Snapcast can be used with a number of different audio players and servers, and so it can be integrated into your favorite audio-player solution and make it synced-multiroom capable.
The only requirement is that the player's audio can be redirected into the Snapserver's fifo /tmp/snapfifo
. In the following configuration hints for MPD and Mopidy are given, which are base of other audio player solutions, like Volumio or RuneAudio (both MPD) or Pi MusicBox (Mopidy).
The goal is to build the following chain:
audio player software -> snapfifo -> snapserver -> network -> snapclient -> alsa
###MPD
To connect MPD to the Snapserver, edit /etc/mpd.conf
, so that mpd will feed the audio into the snapserver's named pipe
Disable alsa audio output by commenting out this section:
#audio_output {
# type "alsa"
# name "My ALSA Device"
# device "hw:0,0" # optional
# format "48000:16:2" # optional
# mixer_device "default" # optional
# mixer_control "PCM" # optional
# mixer_index "0" # optional
#}
Add a new audio output of the type "fifo", which will let mpd play audio into the named pipe /tmp/snapfifo
.
Make sure that the "format" setting is the same as the format setting of the Snapserver (default is "48000:16:2", which should make resampling unnecessary in most cases)
audio_output {
type "fifo"
name "my pipe"
path "/tmp/snapfifo"
format "48000:16:2"
mixer_type "software"
}
To test your mpd installation, you can add a radio station by
$ sudo su
$ echo "http://1live.akacast.akamaistream.net/7/706/119434/v1/gnl.akacast.akamaistream.net/1live" > /var/lib/mpd/playlists/einslive.m3u
###Mopidy
Mopidy can stream the audio output into the Snapserver's fifo with a filesink
as audio output in mopidy.conf
:
[audio]
#output = autoaudiosink
output = audioresample ! audioconvert ! audio/x-raw,rate=48000,channels=2,format=S16LE ! wavenc ! filesink location=/tmp/snapfifo
###FFmpeg Pipe FFmpeg's audio output to the snapfifo:
ffmpeg -y -i http://wms-15.streamsrus.com:11630 -f u16le -acodec pcm_s16le -ac 2 -ar 48000 /tmp/snapfifo
###MPlayer
Use -novideo
and -ao
to pipe MPlayer's audio output to the snapfifo:
mplayer http://wms-15.streamsrus.com:11630 -novideo -channels 2 -srate 48000 -af format=s16le -ao pcm:file=/tmp/snapfifo
###Alsa If the player cannot be configured to route the audio stream into the snapfifo, Alsa or PulseAudio can be redirected, resulting in this chain:
audio player software -> Alsa -> Alsa file plugin -> snapfifo -> snapserver -> network -> snapclient -> Alsa
Edit or create your Alsa config /etc/asound.conf
like this:
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm rate48000Hz
}
pcm.rate48000Hz {
type rate
slave {
pcm writeFile # Direct to the plugin which will write to a file
format S16_LE
rate 48000
}
}
pcm.writeFile {
type file
slave.pcm null
file "/tmp/snapfifo"
format "raw"
}
###PulseAudio Redirect the PulseAudio stream into the snapfifo:
audio player software -> PulseAudio -> PulsaAudio pipe sink -> snapfifo -> snapserver -> network -> snapclient -> Alsa
PulseAudio will create the pipe file for itself and will fail if it already exsits, see the Configuration section in the main readme file on how to change the pipe creation mode to read-only.
Load the module pipe-sink
like this:
pacmd load-module module-pipe-sink file=/tmp/snapfifo sink_name=Snapcast
pacmd update-sink-proplist Snapcast device.description=Snapcast
It might me neccessary to set the pulse audio latency environment variable to 60 msec: PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60
###AirPlay
Snapserver supports shairport-sync with stdout
backend.
- Build shairport-sync with
stdout
backend:./configure --with-stdout --with-avahi --with-ssl=openssl --with-metadata
- Copy the
shairport-sync
binary somewhere to yourPATH
, e.g./usr/local/bin/
- Configure snapserver with
-s "airplay:///shairport-sync?name=Airplay[&devicename=Snapcast][&port=5000]"
###Spotify
Snapserver supports librespot with stdout
backend.
- Build
librespot
withstdout
backend:cargo build --features stdout-backend
- Prebuild binaries are in releases
- Copy the
librespot
binary somewhere to yourPATH
, e.g./usr/local/bin/
- Configure snapserver with
-s "spotify:///librespot?name=Spotify&username=<my username>&password=<my password>[&devicename=Snapcast][&bitrate=320]"
- Valid bitrates are 96, 160, 320
###Process Snapserver can start any process and read PCM data from the stdout of the process:
Configure snapserver with -s "process:///path/to/process?name=Process[¶ms=<--my list --of params>][&logStderr=false]"