MoOde Player, its sound and how to install it on a Raspberry Pi

[LongtimeListener]

Hi everybody,

 

I am at the moment playing around with Daphile, Volumio, Runeaudio, and MoOde. They are all Linux based operation systems (OS) that run on different hardware and have a headless for sound optimized OS running. I started off with some topics here in the stereo.net.au like

music-sounds-warmer-from-cd-than-computer

volumio-vs-daphile-sound

 

I find digital music served from a computer mostly too harsh in the mid and high frequencies and too less prominent in the bass. My journey has brought me to an audiophile player based on Linux Raspbian that is called MoOde.

 

First of all let me tell you a bit about the hardware you need to serve the data from a harddisk to a DAC then to your system. I also would like to tell a bit about networking as all those computers run in a home network.

 

Your home network looks like something this:

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/CPT-NAT-1.svg/2000px-CPT-NAT-1.svg.png

 

Your music server is just a computer that will connect to your router. Since the Raspberry Pi (RPi) computer is coming without a keyboard, mouse and display, we have to use another computer that is connected to your router, to connect to the RPi to use it. Using means, to set it up in the beginning and to use is later to play the music from it.
With other words: you are not directly working on it but rather over the home network login into it remotely. This is necessary as we don't need a overblown OS like Windows with all the bells and whistles, but just a barebone Linux OS that runs nothing that could interfere with our beloved sound.

It is VERY IMPORTANT to understand that step here, otherwise I will loose you further down the track!

 

OK, let's start to get MoOde!

 

While Daphile, Volumio and Runeaudio install straight away, MoOde needs to be compiled for your  RPi system.

1. You need a Raspberry Pi computer for roughly $60 and a RPi power supply (eg https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/)
2. Get the free 'Raspbian Stretch Lite' from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
3. Write the image to a mirco SD card
4. Insert the micro SD card into the RPi slot
5. Connect the RPi via ethernet cable to your router
6. Boot the RPi by switching on the power supply, eg the power socket and wait a minute
7. Got to your computer, eg Laptop or Desktop
8. Open your web browser and put in eg 192.168.1.1, that will bring up your router page. Check there what the IP of your RPi is (the number can differ, refer to your manual). Depending on your router that IP should be something like 192.168.1.5 etc. Write this number down.
9. Open a terminal on your computer
10. At your terminal prompt type:  
ssh pi@192.168.1.5
user is pi , and
the password is raspberry
11. Answer the question with yes
12. You should be now logged on your RPi
13. At the moment Raspbian Linux OS is running on your RPi. This is not the MoOde player Linux OS. Raspbian is only used to compile the MoOde Linux OS. Don't worry it is very easy
14. Get a USB stick ready. The reason for this is that when you start the script below, the MoOde player Linux OS is compiled from scratch and then  written on the USB stick. I used a USB stick for Micro SD card since you need a micro SD card to boot the RPi (see here lexar-microsd-usb-adapter)
15. Now go to http://moodeaudio.org/ and click on Support, that will scroll you down to the section with the script commands, put them in line by line, and also WAIT till the prompt re-appears before you proceed to the next line. There is some downloads happening. Especially the last command mosbuild takes a long time as your little RPi is busy compiling. All the questions coming up on the prompt can be answered with confirming the default. Also wireless can be configured later when the player is up and running.
cd /home/pi
sudo wget -q http://moodeaudio.org/downloads/mos/mosbuild.sh -O /home/pi/mosbuild.sh
sudo chmod +x /home/pi/mosbuild.sh
sudo ./mosbuild.sh
16. In the end the MoOde player Linux OS should be on your micro sd.
17. Power down your RPi and inserted now the micro SD with the MoOde player Linux OS, power on your RPi and wait a minute
18. Go back to your computer and insert moode.local into your browser and you should see the MoOde player interface

 

Now to the sound: For me the jury is still out. While the bass is nicer, it sounds not as good as Volumio on my system. Since my DAC is not in the MoOde list I am not sure I have chosen the correct settings. I have to contact the MoOde developer to get more information about this.

 

I hope this little cooking recipe helps somebody...

 

Cheers

Edited December 30, 2017 by LongtimeListener

[rand129678]

2 hours ago, LongtimeListener said:

14. Get a USB stick ready. The reason for this is that when you start the script below, the MoOde player Linux OS is compiled from scratch and then  written on the USB stick.

 

Thanks so much for these instructions.

 

I really miss the old way of installing Moode - burn an image to MicroSD card with Etcher and you're off and running.

 

Regarding Step 14 - do you need the USB stick again? If not, at which step can it be removed (no longer required).

 

Cheers!

 

Edited December 30, 2017 by Sean84

[LongtimeListener]

46 minutes ago, Sean84 said:

 

Thanks so much for these instructions.

 

I really miss the old way of installing Moode - burn an image to MicroSD card with Etcher and you're off and running.

 

Regarding Step 14 - do you need the USB stick again? If not, at which step can it be removed (no longer required).

 

Cheers!

 

The USB stick preferable with a micro SD card in it is the MoOde Linux OS. You don't need the USB stick anymore if you used the micro SD card to boot the RPi. If you used a plain USB stick, then you have to boot from that USB stick the MoOde Linux OS. Hence my suggestion to use a USB stick with a micro SD card slot and having the MoOde Linux OS on the micro SD card in the end.

 

The output message on the screen of the terminal will tell you when to remove the stick...

 

Cheers

 

Edited December 30, 2017 by LongtimeListener

[rand129678]

6 minutes ago, LongtimeListener said:

You don't need the USB stick anymore if you used the micro SD card to boot the RPi.

 

So if you used a USB stick with microSD card inside, then when the installation is done, you swap out the Rasbian microSD card out for the Moode OS microSD card?

 

[rand129678]

Phew, finally got there! 

 

Just some additional points to the above:

 

- Using Terminal on a Mac, I needed to add a blank file named "ssh" (no extension, no contents) to the "boot" folder of the Rasbian SD card. Without that, it's not possible to ssh into Rasbian.

 

- Immediately after ssh'ing into the pi, I used the following to change the default password: sudo passwd pi

 

- Here is the output after the last command pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo ./mosbuild.sh: 

 

****************************************************************

**

**  Moode OS Image Builder v1.0

**

**  Welcome to the automated process for creating the wonderful

**  custom Linux OS that runs moOde audio player.

**

**  You will need a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian with SSH

**  enabled, at least 2.5GB free space on the boot SDCard and

**  a spare USB or USB-SDCard drive that the new OS will be

**  written to during the build process.

**

**  Be sure to backup the SDCard used to boot your Pi

**

****************************************************************

 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

//

// STEP 1 - Download Raspbian Lite and create a new, base image

//

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

** Check free disk space

** Do you have a backup of your boot SDCard (y/n)? y

** Unplug all USB storage devices from the Pi

** Are all USB storage devices unplugged (y/n)? y

** Plug in target USB drive for the new OS

** Is target USB drive plugged in (y/n)? y

** USB drive detected on /dev/sda

** Partitions unmounted on /dev/sda

** Option 1-5: use a proxy server for Internet access (y/n)? n

** Option 2-5: use a WiFi connection instead of Ethernet (y/n)? n

** Option 3-5: configure /var/www as squashfs (y/n)? y

** Option 4-5: install latest Linux Kernel (y/n)? y

** Option 5-5: Airplay, Ashuffle, LocalUI, Scrobbler, Squeezelite and UPnP/DLNA

** Install additional components (y/n)? y

** Ready for automated image build

** Proceed (y/n)? y

 

and then:

 

** New base OS image created

**

** Remove the USB drive and use it to boot a Raspberry Pi

** The build will automatically continue at STEP 2 after boot

**

** Save base OS img for additional builds (y/n)? n

 

 

You then need to wait for Moode OS to install. After around 40minutes in total (it will self reboot a couple times) when you go to http://moode.local/ you get:

 

Welcome to nginx!
If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and working. Further configuration is required.

 

This is normal. Wait another 20 minutes or so and you should get the Moode page after that.

 

- For background, the reason why this is such a long winded process now (never used to be like this) is here: 

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/271811-moode-audio-player-raspberry-pi-1231.html#post5288560

 

Phew!

 

 

 

 

[keinesorge]

Aww man.

 

I'm sticking to 3.81 - 3.84 where these steps are not necessary.

 

Thanks for the write up though.

[2LOUD2OLD]

Still confused about the usb
Do i first install raspbian on microsd for the pi then need a second micro sd in a usb plugged into the pi which moode will install on then just switch microsd?

[LongtimeListener]

1 hour ago, Sean84 said:

Phew, finally got there!

Thanks for the ssh tip. Did not have the problem on my Pi but read about it. Thanks for adding this...

My Pi was a bit faster after the "** Save base OS img for additional builds (y/n)? n?" so I never saw the other messages . Thanks also for adding this

 

How do you like the sound?

 

[LongtimeListener]

2 minutes ago, 2LOUD2OLD said:

Still confused about the usb
Do i first install raspbian on microsd for the pi then need a second micro sd in a usb plugged into the pi which moode will install on then just switch microsd?

You need two storage devices: One is a micro SD for Raspian, another one for the MoOde OS (micro SD or USB stick). You boot from the micro SD the Raspian, then compile from there the MoOde OS which is written on the second storage device (either this is a micro SD or a USB stick). When the compilation is finished and written on the second USB stick or micro SD, you swap the Raspian micro SD against the MoOde OS micro SD and boot the PI with the MoOde SD. If you have the MoOde OS on a USB stick because you did not have a micro SD/USB stick with micro SD adapter handy, you have to write the image from the USB stick to your laptop and from there to a micro SD card.

As far as I know the Pi needs the booting OS in the micro SD slot. But perhaps somebody else can help out here.

Cheers

 

[2LOUD2OLD]

Makes sense
Thank you

[rand129678]

1 hour ago, hifix said:

Aww man.

 

I'm sticking to 3.81 - 3.84 where these steps are not necessary.

 

Thanks for the write up though.

 

Ha mate I wish I'd kept a copy of the 3.8.4 image that I paid for. And Tim won't re-send it, for the reasons I linked in my post above. I was crying inside after having lost my backup copy of my 3.8.4 image and reading the instructions with this new method. That's the only reason I've gone through this pain. Holy moly.

 

Like anything, once you have the detailed step-by-step instructions and write down your own little notes, then the 2nd time should be a peace of cake. Just a learning curve with the first time.

 

44 minutes ago, LongtimeListener said:

My Pi was a bit faster after the "** Save base OS img for additional builds (y/n)? n?" so I never saw the other messages . Thanks also for adding this

 

How do you like the sound?

Interesting. Mines a Model 3B Pi, so not sure why mine's slower. No drama though. For anyone else reading this, just leave it for an hour after putting in the newly created Moode microSD card and come back to moode.local and it should be ready.

 

I've always preferred Moode's sound to all others (DietPi, Volumio etc). I've been using 3.8.4 (and prev versions) for a long while. I think it's one of the most lightweight OS's on the Pi3 with the lowest CPU usage which might be a reason. That's just personal taste though. 

 

I remember doing a shoddy little experiment with DSD256 and RoonBridge installed for USB output to a USB DAC. DietPi and even RoPieee and others had clicking and crackling but Moode (with RoonBridge installed) didn't. DSD256 stresses the Pi's CPU/ethernet/USB obviously but after that I just thought I'd stick with Moode from then on. Not a scientific test at all, so take all that with a bag of salt 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2017 by Sean84

[LongtimeListener]

14 hours ago, Sean84 said:

Mines a Model 3B Pi, so not sure why mine's slower.

Probably I was just not patient enough . I recompile my MoOde Linux OS today again to see whether I was interrupting the final process. Background is that I am not quite happy with the MoOde sound as I am with Volumio...

 

Cheers

[rand129678]

47 minutes ago, LongtimeListener said:

 I am not quite happy with the MoOde sound as I am with Volumio...

 

Cheers

No worries.

 

What are the differences that you're finding, apart from the bass you mentioned yesterday.

 

Also, for background, do you use your Pi as only an "endpoint" while using another software (eg a UPnP endpoint) or using your Pi with Moode as a server (all in one)?

 

Only asking out of interest. I may give Volumio another try, since it's been some months since I tried it.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Sean84

[LongtimeListener]

3 hours ago, Sean84 said:

Only asking out of interest.

I use the Pi as a server only. All services are switched off. There is a external HDD via USB with the music and a external asynchronous USB DAC connected.

 

The sound is in a way that the sharpness of the mid and high range are better, the low range is clearer. However, overall the soundstage is worse and the sound seems a bit compressed and less transparent.

Volumio has a very nice soundstage, very transparent and detailed. But the sharpness in the mid and high and the leaner (weaker) bass is a bit annoying. This is a problem with classical vocal like female voices in opera.

 

Cheers

[LongtimeListener]

Did a re-compilation of MoOde, still Volumio sounds so much clearer and more transparent, although I miss a bit the smoothness of female voices there and also the warmth of large string instruments like contra bass. That is a small trade off because MoOde stifles on my system the brilliant high tunes like high piano keys, celestra, the shine of brass. Also Volumio has a nice transparency which seems a bit  muffled in MoOde...

 

Anyway, was a nice project

 

Cheers and Happy New Year

[keinesorge]

Moode with an audiophonics i-sabre DAC... One word..."thundercougarfalconbird".  It's just that good

Edited January 1, 2018 by hifix

[LongtimeListener]

15 minutes ago, hifix said:

One word..."thundercougarfalconbird"

seems to be good especially for hard rock

 

Happy New Year everybody

[aussievintage]

On 12/30/2017 at 1:09 PM, LongtimeListener said:

 

Now to the sound: For me the jury is still out. While the bass is nicer, it sounds not as good as Volumio on my system. Since my DAC is not in the MoOde list I am not sure I have chosen the correct settings. I have to contact the MoOde developer to get more information about this.

 

 

Thanks for the instructions on how to get MoOde.  I have only tried Rune and Volumio so far.       

 

With regards to the sound, I am wondering how they can sound different, as they all play music via MPD don't they?  Certainly Rune and Volumio do.

 

btw.  due to the slow laggy interface on Rune and Volumio when scrolling long lists, I have been using MPD clients on my tablet, like M.A.L.P.   Again, I am thinking the sound should still be the same.

[allhifi]

On 12/29/2017 at 10:09 PM, LongtimeListener said:

Hi everybody,

 

I am at the moment playing around with Daphile, Volumio, Runeaudio, and MoOde. They are all Linux based operation systems (OS) that run on different hardware and have a headless for sound optimized OS running. I started off with some topics here in the stereo.net.au like

music-sounds-warmer-from-cd-than-computer

volumio-vs-daphile-sound

 

I find digital music served from a computer mostly too harsh in the mid and high frequencies and too less prominent in the bass. My journey has brought me to an audiophile player based on Linux Raspbian that is called MoOde.

 

First of all let me tell you a bit about the hardware you need to serve the data from a harddisk to a DAC then to your system. I also would like to tell a bit about networking as all those computers run in a home network.

 

Your home network looks like something this:

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/CPT-NAT-1.svg/2000px-CPT-NAT-1.svg.png

 

Your music server is just a computer that will connect to your router. Since the Raspberry Pi (RPi) computer is coming without a keyboard, mouse and display, we have to use another computer that is connected to your router, to connect to the RPi to use it. Using means, to set it up in the beginning and to use is later to play the music from it.
With other words: you are not directly working on it but rather over the home network login into it remotely. This is necessary as we don't need a overblown OS like Windows with all the bells and whistles, but just a barebone Linux OS that runs nothing that could interfere with our beloved sound.

It is VERY IMPORTANT to understand that step here, otherwise I will loose you further down the track!

 

OK, let's start to get MoOde!

 

While Daphile, Volumio and Runeaudio install straight away, MoOde needs to be compiled for your  RPi system.

1. You need a Raspberry Pi computer for roughly $60 and a RPi power supply (eg https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/)
2. Get the free 'Raspbian Stretch Lite' from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
3. Write the image to a mirco SD card
4. Insert the micro SD card into the RPi slot
5. Connect the RPi via ethernet cable to your router
6. Boot the RPi by switching on the power supply, eg the power socket and wait a minute
7. Got to your computer, eg Laptop or Desktop
8. Open your web browser and put in eg 192.168.1.1, that will bring up your router page. Check there what the IP of your RPi is (the number can differ, refer to your manual). Depending on your router that IP should be something like 192.168.1.5 etc. Write this number down.
9. Open a terminal on your computer
10. At your terminal prompt type:  
ssh pi@192.168.1.5
user is pi , and
the password is raspberry
11. Answer the question with yes
12. You should be now logged on your RPi
13. At the moment Raspbian Linux OS is running on your RPi. This is not the MoOde player Linux OS. Raspbian is only used to compile the MoOde Linux OS. Don't worry it is very easy
14. Get a USB stick ready. The reason for this is that when you start the script below, the MoOde player Linux OS is compiled from scratch and then  written on the USB stick. I used a USB stick for Micro SD card since you need a micro SD card to boot the RPi (see here lexar-microsd-usb-adapter)
15. Now go to http://moodeaudio.org/ and click on Support, that will scroll you down to the section with the script commands, put them in line by line, and also WAIT till the prompt re-appears before you proceed to the next line. There is some downloads happening. Especially the last command mosbuild takes a long time as your little RPi is busy compiling. All the questions coming up on the prompt can be answered with confirming the default. Also wireless can be configured later when the player is up and running.
cd /home/pi
sudo wget -q http://moodeaudio.org/downloads/mos/mosbuild.sh -O /home/pi/mosbuild.sh
sudo chmod +x /home/pi/mosbuild.sh
sudo ./mosbuild.sh
16. In the end the MoOde player Linux OS should be on your micro sd.
17. Power down your RPi and inserted now the micro SD with the MoOde player Linux OS, power on your RPi and wait a minute
18. Go back to your computer and insert moode.local into your browser and you should see the MoOde player interface

 

Now to the sound: For me the jury is still out. While the bass is nicer, it sounds not as good as Volumio on my system. Since my DAC is not in the MoOde list I am not sure I have chosen the correct settings. I have to contact the MoOde developer to get more information about this.

 

I hope this little cooking recipe helps somebody...

 

Cheers

 

LTL: Great article/instructions. Thank you.

 

I recently began audio streaming via Raspbery Pi 3B (running moode/MPD -3.8.1 -latest before current 4.0) and am thrilled by the SQ.

(I remain stuck trying to get 4.0 on a SD card (it comes as a "zip" file, so am uncertain if it must be "un-zipped" (which I've done) but it is not talking to the Pi ? I used another empty SD card and copied this "rel...XX" file to te card. Nada. Nothing Zip. Zilch. I'll re-read your (excellent) step-by-step instructions below/above -lol.)

 

To everyone else: "Get rid of the household computer for hi-fi !" lol

A separate computer (Pi 3B) is the way to go. For those unaware, this credit-card sized device (running moode, for example) competes with mega-buck (hardware) alternatives. 

 

pj

 

[LongtimeListener]

On 1/12/2018 at 2:27 AM, allhifi said:

I recently began audio streaming via Raspbery Pi 3B (running moode/MPD -3.8.1 -latest before current 4.0) and am thrilled by the SQ.

(I remain stuck trying to get 4.0 on a SD card (it comes as a "zip" file, so am uncertain if it must be "un-zipped" (which I've done) but it is not talking to the Pi ? I used another empty SD card and copied this "rel...XX" file to te card. Nada. Nothing Zip. Zilch. I'll re-read your (excellent) step-by-step instructions below/above -lol.)

Sounds interesting I am happy to give MoOde another try. Is the version with the MPD 4 on their website?

 

Otherwise completely support your opinion: get rid of your desktop/laptop as sound server....

 

UPDATE: Just re-read your message. You don't have to download the zip file from the MoOde. I don't even know why he got it there.

Just re-read my instructions above. Especially the bit with the commands to run from  the terminal.

In a nutshell: You install RASPIAN on your Pi, then ssh into the running RASPIAN and run those commands above. With those commands RASPIAN downloads everything for MoODE 4 from Tim's MoODE website and creates the MoODE image which then gets written in that process to a second USB device (MicroSD or USB stick). With that MoODE image on your MicroSD you swap out with the RASPIAN MicroSD and boot the MoODE MicroSD with MoODE on it...

If you have further problems come back and let us know.

 

Cheers

 

PS: Cold in Canada atm I guess , +38C here today...

Edited January 14, 2018 by LongtimeListener

[aussievintage]

4 hours ago, LongtimeListener said:

Sounds interesting I am happy to give MoOde another try. Is the version with the MPD 4 on their website?

 

Otherwise completely support your opinion: get rid of your desktop/laptop as sound server....

 

UPDATE: Just re-read your message. You don't have to download the zip file from the MoOde. I don't even know why he got it there.

Just re-read my instructions above. Especially the bit with the commands to run from  the terminal.

In a nutshell: You install RASPIAN on your Pi, then ssh into the running RASPIAN and run those commands above. With those commands RASPIAN downloads everything for MoODE 4 from Tim's MoODE website and creates the MoODE image which then gets written in that process to a second USB device (MicroSD or USB stick). With that MoODE image on your MicroSD you swap out with the RASPIAN MicroSD and boot the MoODE MicroSD with MoODE on it...

If you have further problems come back and let us know.

 

Cheers

 

PS: Cold in Canada atm I guess , +38C here today...

 

I'll add that on the first boot of the created SD image, it takes a VERY long time before it starts up.  If it has booted and the green light is flashing, but you cannot connect to the web page for Moode, just go away and have a few coffees.   I think it has to do a lot of setup.

[LongtimeListener]

On 1/14/2018 at 4:40 PM, aussievintage said:

it takes a VERY long time before it starts up.

Second that, it would help if there would be a message in the browser when calling up moode.local that would give a idea where the little Pi is and whether it has finished...

But then again, that fantastic MoOde Linux OS is well made and free, no complaints from my side

 

Cheers

 

[aussievintage]

57 minutes ago, LongtimeListener said:

Second that, it would help if there would be a message in the browser when calling up moode.local that would give a idea where the little Pi is and whether it has finished...

But then again, that fantastic MoOde Linux OS is well made and free, no complaints from my side

 

Agree that it's very good.    Volumio has stuff I like but then Moode has other stuff.  For example, a simple click and Moode works as a player for Logitech Media Server as well. 

 

I wish the 2 communities could pool ideas and resources.

[allhifi]

On 1/14/2018 at 1:40 AM, aussievintage said:

 

I'll add that on the first boot of the created SD image, it takes a VERY long time before it starts up.  If it has booted and the green light is flashing, but you cannot connect to the web page for Moode, just go away and have a few coffees.   I think it has to do a lot of setup.

 

Thank you.

 

pj

[allhifi]

On 1/13/2018 at 8:04 PM, LongtimeListener said:

Sounds interesting I am happy to give MoOde another try. Is the version with the MPD 4 on their website?

 

Otherwise completely support your opinion: get rid of your desktop/laptop as sound server....

 

UPDATE: Just re-read your message. You don't have to download the zip file from the MoOde. I don't even know why he got it there.

Just re-read my instructions above. Especially the bit with the commands to run from  the terminal.

In a nutshell: You install RASPIAN on your Pi, then ssh into the running RASPIAN and run those commands above. With those commands RASPIAN downloads everything for MoODE 4 from Tim's MoODE website and creates the MoODE image which then gets written in that process to a second USB device (MicroSD or USB stick). With that MoODE image on your MicroSD you swap out with the RASPIAN MicroSD and boot the MoODE MicroSD with MoODE on it...

If you have further problems come back and let us know.

 

Cheers

 

PS: Cold in Canada atm I guess , +38C here today...

 

Hi LTL: Thank you kindly for your reply -update. I've been so excited since I miraculously got everything up/running; moode 3.8.1, / Local files / Tidal (90-day free trial) / Linn 'Kazoo'  a couple days ago I wasn't even thinking of moode 4.0 ! (lol).

But I'll get there.

Thank you again for your most welcome advice. 

 

Happy New Year (2018) to all ... 

pj  

(P.S. I nearly fell off my chair reading + 38 C. from my -20 C perspective. lol)

Edited January 15, 2018 by allhifi