rAudio

r A u d i o

Audio player for:
- Raspberry Pis:
  - 64bit: 5 4 3 2 (BCM2837) Zero 2
  - 32bit: 3 2
  - Legacy: 1 Zero
- BeagleBone Black
- CubieBoard2
Features
Supported devices
How-to
Tips
Q&A
Image files / DIY

guide

Features

Player - Local files
- USB HDD
- USB Audio CD
- NAS
- SD card
Renderers / Clients - with metadata and coverarts
- AirPlay
- Bluetooth audio receiver
- SnapClient - Multiroom audio client
- Spotify Connect
- DLNA / UPnP
Streamers
- Bluetooth audio sender
- HTTP (no metadata)
- SnapServer - Multiroom audio client
- Web Radio
- DAB Radio (not on RPi Zero and 1)
Digital Signal Processors
- CamillaDSP (not on RPi Zero and 1)
- Equalizer
Based on Arch Linux Arm
Control via GUI
- Remote with any browsers
- Android - rAudio app
- Local display (not on RPi Zero and 1)
Share data and files between multiple rAudios
- Server rAudio : clients (Easy setup with server IP address only)
- File server : clients
- Live data update - refresh across all rAudios
Live display update - refresh across multiple GUI clients
Metadata Tag Editor - kid3-cli
Album mode with coverarts
File mode with thumbnail icons
Coverarts and bookmarks - add, replace and remove
WebRadio coverarts - online fetched
*.jpg, *.png and animated *.gif applicable
*.wav - album artists and sort tracks
*.cue - virtually as individual tracks in all modes and user playlists
VU meter as coverart (for remote screen)
Wi-Fi connection can be pre-configured for headless mode.
Access point - iwd
File sharing - samba
Easy update and extra features with Addons
Support boot from USB drive without SD card (DIY)

Supported devices

Bluetooth:
- Audio - Receiver / Sender
- Keyboard and mouse
USB:
- Bluetooth
- DAC
- Keyboard and mouse
- SDR (for DAB Radio)
- Storage
- Wi-Fi
GPIO:
- I²S audio module
- Character LCD (16x2, 20x4)
- Power on/off button
- Relay module
- Rotary encoder
- Spectrum OLED (128x64)
- TFT 3.5” LCD (320x420)
- VU LED (LEDs+Rs)
- NVMe / SATA HAT (via PCIe connector - RPi5)

Image files

Raspberry Pi - Release i20251109
DIY - Build image files with interactive process - rOS
BeagleBone Black - Custom DIY
CubieBoard2 - Custom DIY

How-to

Write rAudio to SD card
Before power on:
- Display / Monitor: (optional)
  - Reccommend for 1st time user
  - Connect and power on before boot
  - HDMI on RPi 4 and 5 - Use HDMI0 port
  - Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2: Settings
- Network
  - Wires LAN - No setup required (Recommend)
  - Wireless LAN / Wi-Fi /BOOT/wifi
    - BOOT - SD card drive (1st partition)
    - Edit template file:
      - Rename wifi0 to wifi
      - Edit ESSID and Key.
  - Wi-Fi access point mode /BOOT/accesspoint
    - Auto start: No IP address assigned from connected wired/wireless network
    - Force enable access point only: Place blank accesspoint file in BOOT before power on.
    - On client devices, select rAudio from Wi-Fi network list to connect with password raudioap.
    - On browser, open web user interface with URL raudio.local
    - Settings > Networks > Wi-Fi - search
    - Select access point to connect
    - Reboot
    - Browser refreshes when ready. (Manually refresh if it’s too long.)
Existing users:
- Keep current setup SD card.
- Try with a spare one before moving forward.
- Use only backup made from rAudio with the latest update
- Restore database and settings (optional)
  - Copy rAudio backup_file.gz to BOOT
  - Wi-Fi connection included
  - Use only backup made from rAudio with the latest update
- Wireless LAN / Wi-Fi /BOOT/wifi - Any of:
  - Edit template file:
    - Rename wifi0 in BOOT to wifi
    - Edit ESSID and Key.
  - From existing
    - Copy an existing profile file from /etc/netctl
    - Rename it to wifi then copy it to BOOT before power on.
Boot duration
- RPi4: 20+ seconds
- RPi3: 30+ seconds
- RPi1, Zero: 60+ seconds
After initial boot:
- If there’s a connected display:
- IP address for connecting from remote devices will be displayed.
  - Continue on this display or from remote browser
- Open browser on remote device at http://IP_address or http://rAudio.local
- On 1st screen: (run once)
  - Set root password - Accept default or set new one
  - Set Raspberry Pi with no display (headless):
    - Unchecke - There is a connected display
    - Check - Connect from remote browser only
      - Disable browser on Raspberry Pi
      - Ligther, boot faster
- Restore settings and database:
  - If not pre-configured, Settings > System > Backup/Restore Settings
- Build Library database:
  - Automatically run on boot if database is empty with connected USB and NAS
  - Force build / update - Settings > update Library (icon next to Sources)
  - Tracks on existing database can be played during updating.
  - Before database is available, default WebRadio stations are available for playing.
- Parse coverarts for Album and directory thumbnails :
  - Only if never run before or to force update
  - Library > Album > coverart icon (next to ALBUM heading)
- User guide
  - Settings > last icon next to Addons

Not working?

Power off and wait a few seconds then power on
If not connected, temporarily connect wired LAN then remove after Wi-Fi setup successfully.
Still no - Start over writing image file again

Tips

Best sound quality:
- Settings > Player > Bit-perfect - Enable
- Use only amplifier volume (Unless quality of DAC hardware volume is better.)
Disable features if not use to lower CPU usage:
- Settings > Features
Full screen UI
- Android - rAudio app - APK for obsolete Android: rAudio app
- Add to Home Screen (Safari on iOS, Chrome on Android)
Coverart as large playback control buttons
- Tap top of coverart to see controls guide.
Hide top and bottom bars
- No needs for top and bottom bars
- Use coverart controls instead of top bar buttons
- Swipe to switch between pages <- Library <-> Playback <-> Playlist ->
Drag to arrange order
- Library home blocks
- Playlist tracks
- Saved playlist tracks
Some coverarts missing from album directories
- Subdirectories listed after partial Library database update from context menu.
- Subdirectories - context menu > Exclude directory
Some music files missing from library
- Make sure embedded metadata in each file is in UTF-8 encoding.
- Settings > MPD > question mark icon -scroll- FFmpeg Decoder
- Enable if filetypes list contains ones of the missing files.
No albums found after update very large Library
- Settings > MPD > Output Buffer - Increase by 8192 at a time
- Update Library
CUE sheet
- *.cue filenames must be identical to each coresponding music file.
- Can be directly edited by Tag Editor.
Minimum permission for music files (on Linux ext filesystem)
- Directories: rwxr-xr-x (755)
- Files: rw-r--r-- (644)
RPi to router connection:
- With wired LAN if possible - Disable Wi-Fi
- With WiFi if necessary
- With RPi accesspoint only if there’s no router
Connect to rAudio with IP address instead of raudio.local
- Get IP address: Menu > Network > Network Interfaces list
Backup SD card which already setup
- On Linux: bash <( curl -sL https://github.com/rern/rOS/raw/main/imagecreate.sh )
  - Shrink ROOT partition to minimum
  - Create and compress image file
Custom startup / shutdown script
- Copy custom script named startup.sh / shutdown.sh to BOOT

Q&A

rAudio Discussions - Questions, comments and bug reports

Image files / DIY

Raspberry Pi - (see How-to)
DIY - Build image files with interactive process - rOS
BeagleBone Black - Custom DIY
CubieBoard2 - Custom DIY

Default root password: ros (Do not change if enabled: SnapClient, Multiple rAudios or Shared Data)