Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More)

[buzzardbait]

Long time listener, first time caller on the forums.

Just installed this last night and I'm really pleased with it- great job. It does what I want it to do, which is play random mp3s from a selection of about 40 songs over my menus. I kind of like to "set it and forget it" when it comes to BG music.

I'm not currently using it, but I like the A-SIDE/B-SIDE idea to allow for a different group I could select and randomly play from.. Would it be possible to have an option where upon startup it would RANDOMLY select either A or B and play in shuffle mode, provided the user has set up both folders? Not dissimilar to a theme randomizer in EmulationStation.

Using a Pi 4 in a Rec Room Masters cab with a Pixelcade LED marquee.

Thanks- great job with this! Works great.

[RapidEdwin08]

@buzzardbait said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

Would it be possible to have an option where upon startup it would RANDOMLY select either A or B and play in shuffle mode, provided the user has set up both folders? Not dissimilar to a theme randomizer in EmulationStation.

Pretty sure this is possible.
Pretty sure this is a cool idea.
I will see what I can do.
Thanks for the input.

[mrmadcatz]

Just installed today on a Pi 3B+ running RetroPie 4.7.20. Took me less than 5 minutes via command line by following the instructions, no weird surprises during installation.

The music player works REALLY well! One thing to note is that the Music Player Volume may need to be turned down a bit. I have my system volume set to 100% and the Music Player at 60%. I control my speaker volume from and Amplifier inside my Arcade Cabinet and having the Music Player Volume at 100% was making my speakers clip pretty badly.

The two built-in Internet Radio stations are a REALLY nice touch. Would love to see a way to add our own via the UI or instructions on how to do so in any configs.

This is an awesome Player and will be a permanent staple for my Arcade Cabinet Setup for as long as it exists. Thank you so much!

[mrmadcatz]

@RapidEdwin08 After playing around a bit I was able to add NightRide FM (internet radio station that plays SynthWave) to the Player! Not sure what the rules are on what you are and are not allowed to add as part of your official builds, but it's a really cool station if you're looking for more to add.

Thanks again! I love this thing :)

[RapidEdwin08]

@mrmadcatz said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

Music Player Volume may need to be turned down a bit. I have my system volume set to 100% and the Music Player at 60%. I control my speaker volume from and Amplifier inside my Arcade Cabinet and having the Music Player Volume at 100% was making my speakers clip pretty badly.
...
I was able to add NightRide FM (internet radio station that plays SynthWave) to the Player!

Thanks for the input, much appreciated.
I don't have a Cabinet so I'm glad you shared the results.
Thinking %50 or %60 Volume would be good for out-of-box Install Setting?

For NightrideFM, I'm not too familiar, but if they are a reliable station, I might add in next release...
Care to share how you implemented? Such as .pls/.msu file, and example address?

[mrmadcatz]

@rapidedwin08 Oh wow you replied! Feel like I'm meeting a celebrity cuz I gotta say I'm LOVING IMP. It's amazing. Thank you so much for making it. In response to your message:

1. I was able to fix the audio clipping issue with some audio changes on my Retropie. Originally, I was running audio out through the audio jack. After switching to HDMI, I was able to get the volume up to 100% and not get clipping with most songs. What I did notice is that the E1M1 and E1M2 songs you have pre-installed clip for me on any volume above 50%, but it may just be how my cabinet's amplifier is handling the audio signal. Just wanted to mention that, otherwise I keep the volume at 80% most of the time. This helps avoid clipping but also keeps the music a little quieter than my video previews for the games I have installed.

2. Anecdotally I've found NightRideFM to be extremely reliable when I save it as a .pls file just like the MP3 Radio station that comes pre-installed. I just dragged/dropped it into the /home/RetroPie/roms/music folder and then edited it's metadata via EmulationStation (was having a hard time getting the changes to stick when editing the .emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/retropie.xml directly). I haven't messed with Custom IMP yet, but I suspect if I were to edit some files/folders in the install folder I could get IMP to install those stations for me next time. I also added my own image for the station that I just downloaded from their site and saved in the /home/RetroPie/retropiemenu/icons folder.

I ended up doing the same thing with another station called Rainwave.cc which plays awesome video game music, remixes and remakes all day long. I've also had success with it working consistently in the same way. They offer a downloadable .m3u you can use as well (like SLAYradio) which I used and seemed to work. I switched to a .pls because I wanted to see if it would also work (I like to tinker). It has and I just haven't changed back.

Anyway, all of that to say I am absolutely loving IMP. This was my first RetroPie build, let alone an arcade, so I'm a little new to all of this. That said, IMP is going to be a staple in any of my builds forevermore. I love it. Thank you for making it!

Here are how my .pls files are set up for the two stations I added. I basically just copy/pasted your MP3 Radio one and changed the URL to the streaming URLS offered by these two services:
NightRideFM

[playlist]
numberofentries=1
File1=http://stream.nightride.fm/nightride.mp3
Title1=NightRide.FM Stream
Length1=-1
version=2

rainwave.pls

[playlist]
numberofentries=1
File1=http://allstream.rainwave.cc:8000/all.mp3
Title1=NightRide.FM Stream
Length1=-1
version=2

rainwave.m3u

#EXTINF:0,Rainwave All: Random Relay
http://allrelays.rainwave.cc/all.mp3
#EXTINF:0, Rainwave All: Rainwave (Toronto) Relay
https://relay.rainwave.cc:443/all.mp3

Here are their site URLs respectively (different from streaming URL):
https://nightride.fm/about?station=nightride
https://rainwave.cc/all/

Let me know if I can provide you any more info and thanks again!

[RapidEdwin08]

@mrmadcatz said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

rainwave.m3u

#EXTINF:0,Rainwave All: Random Relay
http://allrelays.rainwave.cc/all.mp3
#EXTINF:0, Rainwave All: Rainwave (Toronto) Relay
https://relay.rainwave.cc:443/all.mp3

You just helped me identify an Issue I missed with an already known issue...
mpg123 does not handle https, and IMP currently accommodates for this by replacing [https] -> [http].
But, if the address has :443 in it, it's still basically https and mpg123 will not play.
IMP does not accommodate for :443 at the moment.
I tested and you can simply remove :443 from the address and it will play.

#EXTINF:0,Rainwave All: Random Relay
http://allrelays.rainwave.cc/all.mp3
#EXTINF:0, Rainwave All: Rainwave (Toronto) Relay
http://relay.rainwave.cc/all.mp3

I will accommodate for :443 in the next version of IMP.
Thanks again for your input.

Also, I am enjoying NightrideFM, particularly ChillSynth.
Thanks for the recommendation.

[playlist]
numberofentries=1
File1=http://stream.nightride.fm/chillsynth.mp3
Title1=NightRide.FM Stream
Length1=-1
version=2

[mrmadcatz]

@rapidedwin08 I got a reply from you and I was helpful?! You're makin' my day! Haha.

I'll definitely check out the Chill Synth one. I'll keep an eye out for next iteration of IMP! Let me know if I can of any more service.

[mrmadcatz]

@rapidedwin08 Sorry to keep blowing you up with messages, but one more thing I wanted to mention that I noticed:

When trying to access the roms/music folder via \RETROPIE\roms\music in Windows File Explorer, it's permission protected and unable to be opened. I can access it via SSH just fine, or via RetroPie's command line. I've just been mv <temp/path/to/file/or/folder> /home/RetroPie/roms/music as needed.

These permissions might be inentional, and if so, please disregard. Wanted to mention just in case!

[RapidEdwin08]

@mrmadcatz said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@rapidedwin08
When trying to access the roms/music folder via \RETROPIE\roms\music in Windows File Explorer, it's permission protected and unable to be opened. I can access it via SSH just fine, or via RetroPie's command line.

Another issue identified...
The music folder in roms/music is actually a symbolic link. (like roms/genesis)
The music folder is moved by IMP upon install to a new location:

~/RetroPie/retropiemenu/imp/music

You will need to add another entry to smb.conf if you want to access it.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add these lines to the bottom:

[music]
comment = music
path = "/home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu/imp/music"
writeable = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask = 0644
directory mask = 0755
force user = pi

Restart samba service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd.service

I will attempt to accommodate and have the IMP Installer add an additional samba share for the IMP Music folder in next version.
Thanks for your input... again...

[cdaters]

@rapidedwin08, I just want to post this here to keep it all in one spot...

So i installed the latest RetroPie software on my Pi4, using the image from the site, on a new SD Card. Got it up and running, loaded some roms, etc. that I had scraped using ARRM so I could have images, box-art, videos, etc. Then I installed IMP for background music and the Bezel Project for those 4:3 emus. Things were great! Played some games, had a blast!

Then disaster...

I decided that I want to make sure everything was updated, so updated the install script and told it to update...after updated some of RetroPie. It asked if I wanted to update the underlying RaspberryOS. I said, sure! Why not?

Now I get this...

emulationstation: /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/tmp/build/emulationstation/es-app/src/FileData.cpp:218: void FileData::addChild(FileData*): Assertion `mType == FOLDER' failed.
Aborted

...and a blinking cursor!
I've seen some mention of modifying gamelist.xml to get it working again, but I just plain removed those rom directories that had any content and restarted emulationstation. Same error...I've searched and googled and nothing comes up. Has anyone else encountered this issue?

Using --debug, ES is getting hung up on ~/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/gamelist.xml but I don't understand what I am looking for? Other posts relating to that error suggest paths should not refer to files, only directories? I wondered if perhaps it was the html entities you have in the XML for "less than" or "greater than" symbols? I am not sure.

Here is the pastebin of the gamelist.xml that ES is failing on. The offending block of XML is related to the IMP background music player. When I comment out any attributes/elements related to IMP, save, and launch ES, everything works just fine.

This was working just fine prior to updating the underlying OS, so I wanted to know if there is some sort of discontinuity going on that others may have encountered...

Here is a link to my post in the general help and support forum in case this is not an IMP issue and something comes up there that can help others here...

[mrmadcatz]

@cdaters I had the same issue! What I ended up doing was uninstalling IMP via the /home/pi/imp/imp_setup.sh. Then I rebooted my RetroPie and it was working after that. The issue is that there is an XML file that tells Emulation Station how to organize all of the various IMP menu items within the RetroPie menu. The XML specifically in question is/home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropiemenu/gamelist.xml. The update does something to the XML that makes EmulationStation forget that some items are folders in that IMP menu. Because it can't parse the XML properly, it freaks out and won't load into EmulationStation.

In the IMP Setup script there is also an option for [retropiemenu] gamelist.xml refresh. I believe that this was intended to fix the XML issue I am describing, but when I tried it myself it didn't work and the uninstall/reinstall was the only fix that worked for me.

One thing that made the uninstall/reinstall less painful was the fact that the /home/RetroPie/roms/music folder seemed to remain intact with anything I had added on my own, although creating a backup is always a smart idea.

@RapidEdwin08 Might have a more elegant solution to all of this, but thought I'd share what worked for me so you're not stuck without being able to use your RetroPie.

[RapidEdwin08]

@mrmadcatz @cdaters Thanks for the input.

I think the problem might be HTML character codes (or lack there of)...

The RetroPie update might have struggled to parse the [gamelist.xml] correctly because of special characters that were neglected to be input in HTMLCode/NameCode.

NOT the issue, as pointed out to me, I was confusing this with XML Character Set

Issue could be that the RetroPie update Removed the .mp3 extension from [es_systems.cfg]

The game list xml Refresh currently does Not accommodate for this.

[cdaters]

@mrmadcatz, thank you for the suggestion, I briefly saw this when I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea that I would try just what you suggested when I woke this morning and was preparing to do just that when I happened to see @RapidEdwin08's response in the Help and Support thread that perhaps the RetroPie upgrade might have removed the mp3 extension entries from the es_systems.cfg file in /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg for the RetroPie Menu. By default, this is usually only .sh or .rp.

So I added those back in per @RapidEdwin08's suggestion and boom! Back up and running!

  <system>
    <name>retropie</name>
    <fullname>RetroPie</fullname>
    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu</path>
    <extension>.rp .sh .mp3 .MP3 .pls .PLS .m3u .M3U</extension>

[cdaters]

Okay...So I have overcome an update of RetroPie that had killed my [IMP] experience, and I have enabled SMB shares to get my music on my Pi via feedback from @RapidEdwin08 due to other feedback...

@mrmadcatz your feedback has gotten me back into streaming radio and I have to agree with your feedback, [IMP] is amazing and I think my go-to from here on!

I love! Love! Love! that we can create playlists, incorporate Internet Radio (I've already added a few of my own), etc. into our BGM experience! I am playing with the gamelist.xml file now creating "categories" for [Internet Radio]and [Personal Music] to sort of keep things nice and tidy...

@RapidEdwin08 , thanks again for this gem!

[Lolonois]

@cdaters to avoid further worries (and also for others stumbling across this): Place a customized copy of es_systems.cfg into ~/.emulationstation/ (user pi). This location takes precedence over /etc/emulationstation/ and is never changed automagically, neither by updates nor by adding extra emulators.

[cdaters]

@lolonois, thank you very much, done! 😄

[mrmadcatz]

@cdaters @RapidEdwin08 .mp3 being added as an extension in /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg makes total sense! I'll keep this in mind. Glad everyone has things working :)

[RapidEdwin08]

@lolonois said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@cdaters to avoid further worries (and also for others stumbling across this): Place a customized copy of es_systems.cfg into ~/.emulationstation/ (user pi). This location takes precedence over /etc/emulationstation/ and is never changed automagically, neither by updates nor by adding extra emulators.

The Installer is accommodating for Both locations already, but the 0nly time it does so is at Install.
This explains why the Re-Install Resolved the issues @mrmadcatz , but the gamelist refresh did N0T @cdaters .

New release coming soon, it will check es_systems.cfg(s) for this at B00T.

[mrmadcatz]

@rapidedwin08 Just saw the new commit and that you've added NightRideFM and RainwaveCC to it! Thank you so much! So cool. I really like how RainWave's channels are all listed and available. I'm noticing that NightRideFM is set up as a station with all of it's stations within a single playlist and not selectable like RainwaveCC. Is this intentional? If not, just wanted to bring it to your attention!