Quick and easy guide for adding music to Emulatonstation on RetroPie. Noob friendly!

prog-amateur

Thank you very much for your help. It didn't worked. I have applied it to

autostart.sh : (sleep 10; mpg123 -Z $HOME/bgm/*.mp3 >/dev/null 2>&1) &
.bashrc : sudo nano $HOME/.bashrc
and the music folder : mkdir $HOME/bgm

By the way, something that I had to adjust was :

to remove the following line in autostart.sh because omxplayer is only compatible with ARM CPUs, not with x86 CPUs (so I was affraid about any error code) :
while pgrep omxplayer >/dev/null; do sleep 1; done
in .bashrc, there was nothing called neither retropie_welcome nor # RETROPIE PROFILE END, so I have just pasted [[ $(tty) == "/dev/tty1" ]] && pkill mpg123 at the end of the document.

Maybe I did something wrong ? I am sure it is a matter of small code, please feel free to help me (and other people as I have also seen my request asked by others but never answered). I am sure it can help, thank you so much for your kind help.

cyperghost

Added fadein/fadeout feature for mpg123. You can read this thread for setup. I've tested the script for a few weeks and it seems to be stable.

So instead of adding the pkill -CONT or -STOP mpg123 command to runcommand-onend.sh or runcommand-onstart.sh you add

runcommand-onstart.sh --> $HOME/scripts/BGM_vol_fade.sh -STOP
runcommand-onend.sh--> (sleep 2 && $HOME/scripts/BGM_vol_fade.sh -CONT) &

If you don't use -STOP and -CONT switches then the script will toggle status itself. This will work in 99.99% of all cases to get 100% hitrate then use the force.

birthmarkered

Hi, thanks for this! running great as expected. However is there a way I can hide the boot text?

I already did this: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/14299/tutorial-remove-boot-text-on-the-raspberry-pi-for-noobs

But after installing the background music, there is a little boot text reappearing + the emulation station splash (which I also want to hide)

If I can hide that my retropie is perfect!

Emerikant

Just curious if anything has changed regarding whether it's possible to have different music per console screen? ie. Song 1 plays in ES, song 2 plays in Mame, song 3 plays in Nes, song 4 plays in Snes and so on and so on.

cyperghost

@Emerikant no this is not possible. If you want this feature you can use Recalbox or Batocera - there it is present. It is a part of Emulation Station and has barely nothing to do with the topic here.

Emerikant

@cyperghost Thanks, new to all this, just saw it mentioned earlier in this post but was so long ago wasn't sure if anything had changed.

Naprosnia

Hi everyone, i made a simple installer to implement mpg123, plus options menu on RetroPie settings menu to change volume and turn music on/off.
Feel free to try it.
https://github.com/Naprosnia/RetroPie_BGM_Player

Tomorrow i will record a video to post on youtube, showing the installation steps and usage.

Naprosnia

@Naprosnia said in Quick and easy guide for adding music to Emulatonstation on RetroPie. Noob friendly!:

Hi everyone, i made a simple installer to implement mpg123, plus options menu on RetroPie settings menu to change volume and turn music on/off.
Feel free to try it.
https://github.com/Naprosnia/RetroPie_BGM_Player

Tomorrow i will record a video to post on youtube, showing the installation steps and usage.

Installation video:

cyperghost

@Naprosnia Nice video and really noob friendly
You are using tons of sudo commands and I would advise you to avoid the unneeded usage of these whenever possible. The idea with the volume is realy nice - sadly mpg123 does not support inline volume change.

You can take a look at my RetroPie Shares scripts here. Everything starting with BGM has something to do with mpg123 and background music. There is a realtime Volumefading and a Music Selection scripts available. The selection topic includes some hints discovered during coding phase.

Naprosnia

@cyperghost Thanks for your feedback. Im rewriting all the code and applying your fade method (works like a charm, thanks), and add new settings (enable / disable fade; enable / disable "BGM stop" on emulator start [some people want their music playing while they play games] ). Now im using a settings file to save user choices, and reduce the number of files used, for a clear environment.
Im trying to finish this today.

If anyone has more ideas of new options that can be added please say.

WarC0zes

@Naprosnia

Hi,
I install your script, but I don't have the Background Music Settings option on RetroPie settings menu.
Otherwise, how uninstalling your script.

My config:
pi3B
Retropie 4.4.7
Emulationstation 2.8.1rp

Naprosnia

Hello @WarC0zes, when RetroPie and EmulationStation loads, press F4 to access command line, then,
execute this code:

sudo ls RetroPie/retropiemenu/

next, a list of files will appear, check if there is one called "Background Music Settings.sh"
- if yes, execute the following code to open Emulation Station again emulationstation press Enter
  - next, inside Emulation Station press the button ("start") to access Main Menu, go to "OTHER SETTINGS" and check if "PARSE GAMELISTS ONLY" is set to ON, if it is, please put it to OFF and restart your system, and check if the Background Music Settings appear.
- If no, you can execute the following command on command line to disable BGM touch /home/pi/.bgmstop

Please leave some feedback.

WarC0zes

@Naprosnia

You have solved my problem, I had the option "PARSE GAMELISTS ONLY" set to ON.
I put it to OFF and restart my system and I have the option now.
Thanks

sorry for my english.

cyperghost

@Naprosnia said in Quick and easy guide for adding music to Emulatonstation on RetroPie. Noob friendly!:

@cyperghost Thanks for your feedback. Im rewriting all the code and applying your fade method (works like a charm, thanks),

You're welcome, please add the link to the original code into your modification if you make heavy use of these scripts.

new settings (enable / disable fade; enable / disable "BGM stop" on emulator start [some people want their music playing while they play games] )

I would avoid such settings. Therefore we have the User Menu from runcommand. There you can select to enable BGM again and with exit 2 you finsh runcommand and load your ROM. I think this makes more sense.

Read here about the Runcommand menu

sudo ls RetroPie/retropiemenu/

There is really no need to execute scripts with root level. Your scripts need heavy code review to avoid right privilege errors.

Then make the code more lightweight. If there is a action you are doing again and again then use functions and loops.
A good example the the dowload of the config files -- Use an array with a loop
Or the download of the example music use the expression {1..7} to count from 1 till 7

Naprosnia

Hello @cyperghost , has I said, I'm rewriting everything from scratch. I'm trying to follow some of your tip, such as reduce sudo a lot.
I will certainly put your name and git link in the description of the scripts.

cyperghost

@Naprosnia You are welcome
I will comment on your github account.

EDIT: Added my first comment as "issue"

cyperghost

@Naprosnia Added annother "Issue" for code cleanup ;) the second regards the volume control. This is a real interesting feature ;)
As long as your coding works for you it is okay. But look if you might change a path or a call you've to edit it 10x in your scripting. With my solution it's just one edit.
Issue #2
Issue #1

Naprosnia

New version released, now with fade effect , and possibility of listen your musics while playing games.
Special thanks to @cyperghost for the fade script!

Video:

cyperghost

@Naprosnia A nice set of scripts that will surly help less advanced users to quick install a mp3 BGM player. There is still room for improvements to the code but this looks much better now. You are heavily mixing shell and bash expressions together ... try to use one style.

Btw: for variables it is not needed to seperate them
like BGM=$PATH1"/more/pathes/"$PATH2
just use BGM="$PATH1/more/pathes/$PATH2" so you will avoid globbing even if it's very uncommon in every other programming language I know but you will appreciate this behaviour.

johnholmes

Thank you for this nice tutorial. Have followed all instructions and i will be glad now playing my favourite music in background.