Pi Music Box Questions (SoundCard, PI Model,...)

Hi everyone,

I recently discovered the Pi music box and I love the idea of it. Since I have some active speakers around which I haven’t used enough, I decided to make a Pi music box for myself. I am planning on just setting it up in a small case and use it with an external sound card to stream music from spotify etc. However, I have a few questions:

  1. What raspberry PI would you recommend for the easiest setup? I read that the PI 3 B doesn’t work with the MusicBox natively, but the A+ needs an additional wifi dongle?

  2. Has anyone tried to use a Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ soundcard with the PI? I have a spare one at home and the audio quality is superb. However, will I run into big troubles trying to an external USB soundcard like that?

  3. Is there an easy way to set up MusicBox with a touch screen for music selection? Or is it best to control it using a phone/browser?

I should maybe mention that I have very little programming knowledge (tiny bit of C++ and Matlab), but I am always willing to learn and try a few things.

Thanks for any help, it’s much appreciated.

Hi,

There is an image for the pi zero here that I think works with Pi 3 B, I’m sure I used it on mine. kingosticks has mentioned there is a new version imminent once he has his Pi Zero W.

Not sure about the soundcard, I use a usb soundcard on Pi Zero after some trial and error it now works fine- best to get set up and try it, I only use the headphone socket on the Pi 3

There is a touchscreen info here I prefer to use either the browser or remote control.

So would you recommend to get the Pi3 B rather than any of the other ones? I also can’t seem to access the link you posted for a remote control.

Link was wrong - sorry try this

I have Pimusicbox running on A+, B, Zero & Pi3 B but don’t notice much difference between them, however I only play Spotify playlists, I think if you are doing a lot of searching and cpu intensive work the later models might be better.

Sounds good. I might wait a little while and get myself a pi zero W so. Thanks for the help so far! Once I have the device, the real trouble will probably start with trying to set up the soundcard.

Hi, Just found your link to the image for the pi zero, going by the file name was this made in 2015? 20150116-RPi0.zip
Is there not a newer version for the zero? Do you know if it possible to build from github source on top of jessie?

I couldn’t wait and ordered myself a pi zero W. Would a normal image for a pi zero work on it (older one you linked, or a newer one grenade44 asked for), or should I wait for a new release especially for the zero W?

I’m not sure, as I haven’t tried it yet. If it rains this afternoon I’ll give it a try later. Tried it and it didn’t work. I’ve tried updating and upgrading my existing image but still no good - it just broke it.
If you can’t wait for new musicbox image setting up mopidy with jessie lite is quite straight forward

Yes I guess the image is that old - I’m not sure about an updated image - mine does what I want so have had no need for update.

Not that I’m aware of.

[quote=“grenade44, post:6, topic:1519”]
Do you know if it possible to build from github source on top of jessie?
[/quote]I don’t think so.

Ive used the image for the pi zero you posted but do you know the login details for it. trying to access rasp-config?

‘pi and raspberry’ or ‘root and musicbox’ in that order

I get access denied on both

Sorry, Just tried it myself - don’t know how that happened, must have changed it at some time by mistake

Easiest way to solve it open up musicbox.local or go to the ip address for the machine.

Browse down to the settings page, select the Musicbox option and halfway down page is the 'Root Password option, write a new password in there, reboot, then log in using Root and your new password

you could also go to the config/settings.ini using your pc and enter the root password almost at the bottom of the page

I have just downloaded and tried the same one as you and apart from the password situation all seems to work fine on the Pi Zero.

If you are interested, the latest release candidate for v0.7.0 is at https://github.com/pimusicbox/pimusicbox/releases/tag/v0.7.0RC3. It supports Pi 3 and Zero but it does not support the on-board wifi of the Pi 3 or Pi Zero W boards. I wish I knew why. It’d be nice if someone could fix that…

@kingosticks, PM me.

@kingosticks do you think we’ll see support for onboard wifi on the pi zero W? I just bought one thinking I’d be able to use it for Pi Music Box. It works with Mopidy, but would prefer to use Music Box.

Not in v0.7 unless someone helps and gets it working.

I’m going back to working on the next major version now, which is based on latest Raspbian and therefore does work with the onboard wifi.

Just tried it and it works great, particularly like the alphabetically sorted playlists. I can’t access it either on the web interface or with PuTTy via musicbox.local only by using the ip address. Has the name been changed?

I’ve been using just http://musicbox/ and had no problems, but I have had the exact same report from someone else. All the avahi libraries (but not config) have been updated so it’s possible we’ve lost some compatibility along the way. Can I assume you are using a Windows machine to connect from? Have you tried a mobile or tablet device?

You assume correctly, I’m away for a while, will check on phone and tablet later this afternoon and let you know. Thanks.