Quickstart

MusicPlayerPlus Quickstart

Required setup

• Create a music library if you do not already have one
  • Default MusicPlayerPlus location for the music library is $HOME/Music
  • Recommended structure of the music library is artist/album/songs
• Install the latest Arch, Debian, or RPM format installation package from the MusicPlayerPlus Releases page
• Run the mppinit command as your normal user
  • Searches $HOME/Music and $HOME/music for music library location
  • The music library location can be specified with mppinit -l /path/to/library

Optional additional setup steps

For many installations, installing the MusicPlayerPlus package and initializing the user configuration with the mppinit command is all that need be done.

Some common additional setup steps that can be performed include:

• Configuring the music library location
• Download albums in your Bandcamp collections
• Download favorites in your Soundcloud account
• Converting WAV/M4A format media files to MP3 format
• Importing a music library into the Beets library management system
• Downloading album cover art
• Downloading additional lyrics
• Activation of YAMS scrobbler for Last.fm
• Analysis and retrieval of audio-based information for media matching a query

Configure the music library location by editing ~/.config/mpprc and setting MUSIC_DIR to your music library location (default setting is ~/Music). Optionally configure any additional settings in ~/.config/mpprc such as your preferred terminal emulator, Bandcamp username, Soundcloud slug, or more. Any changes to ~/.config/mpprc must be followed by running the command mppinit sync.

[Important Note:] MusicPlayerPlus integrates several services, each of which has its own configuration for the location of the music library. Because of this, MusicPlayerPlus provides its own configuration file ~/.config/mpprc. The MUSIC_DIR setting in that config file is used as the source of truth for the location of the music library. In order to keep all of the services in sync with respect to the music library location, set the location in ~/.config/mpprc and run the command mppinit sync. If the music library is moved to a new location, repeat this procedure.

Download albums in your Bandcamp collections with mppinit bandcamp.

Download favorites in your Soundcloud account with mppinit soundcloud.

Two step post-initialization setup

The following optional post-initialization steps can be performed individually as described below or they can be performed in two steps using mppinit.

Step 1, import the music library into Beets:

mppinit import

The mppinit import command converts any WAV format media to MP3 format and imports the music library into the Beets media library management system.

[Note:] A Beets import can take hours for a large music library. A test import using a music library over 500GB in size, with nearly 4000 artists, 3000 albums, and over 30,000 tracks consumed nearly 12 hours. Import times will vary from system to system and library to library depending on several factors. The above test may provide a ballpark idea of the length of time a Beets library import might take.

When the import is complete

Step 2, retrieve additional metadata:

mppinit metadata

The mppinit metadata command identifies and deletes duplicate tracks, retrieves album genres from Last.fm, downloads album cover art, and (optionally) analyzes and retrieves metadata for all songs in the music library.

[Note:] A Beets metadata retrieval can take hours for a large music library. The MusicPlayerPlus default Beets configuration uses ffmpeg to compute checksums for every track in the library to find duplicates.

An optional audio analysis can be performed during metadata retrieval. MusicPlayerPlus provides several optional methods for acoustic analysis. The method used for acoustic analysis and retrieval can be specified on the command line:

• AcousticBrainz metadata retrieval (deprecated)
  • mppinit -a metadata
• Blissify acoustic analysis of the MPD music library (the default)
  • mppinit -b metadata
• Essentia acoustic analysis and Beets metadata retrieval (long)
  • mppinit -e metadata

If none of the -a, -b, or -e options are specified then acoustic analysis, extraction, and retrieval is performed by Essentia.

The AcousticBrainz service is the fastest method but is being retired in 2023, the service is no longer being updated, and it is often inaccurate.

The Essentia acoustic analysis is the most thorough, adds acoustic metadata to the Beets library management system, and provides the greatest flexibility but at a cost of possibly days of analysis and extraction time. Metadata analysis and extraction with Essentia is the default behavior.

The Blissify analysis creates a similarity database of all songs in the music library. This can be used to automate the creation of playlists and other actions. The drawback of using Blissify is it does not add acoustic metadata to the Beets library so the results of a Blissify analysis are only available to Blissify and not Beets.

[Note:] Acoustic analysis with blissify is currently not available on Raspberry Pi installations due to lack of support for that architecture in the ffmpeg library.

It is sometimes desirable to augment one acoustic analysis with another. For example, the AcousticBrainz service seems to think a lot of songs have 0 beets per minute and tags them erroneously. After retrieving metadata using AcousticBrainz, list the songs that have a bpm value of 0:

beet list bpm:0

These songs can get an accurate setting for bpm and other audio parameters by following the mppinit -a metadata command with mpplus -X bpm:0.

Individual commands post-initialization setup

Download albums in your Bandcamp collections with mppinit bandcamp.

Download favorites in your Soundcloud account with mppinit soundcloud.

Convert WAV or M4A format media files in your library to MP3 format files with the command mpplus -F or mpplus -G. Conversion from WAV to MP3 allows these files to be imported into the Beets media library management system. Conversion from M4A (Apple ALAC) to MP3 allows these files to be streamed and played in all browsers supporting HTML5 audio (not necessary with Navidrome streaming).

If you wish to manage your music library with Beets, import the music library with the command mpplus -I.

Album cover art can be downloaded with the command mpplus -D art.

Bandcamp collections can be downloaded with the command mpplus -D bandcamp.

Soundcloud favorites can be downloaded with the command mpplus -D soundcloud.

Download additional lyrics with the command mpplus -L.

Activate the YAMS scrobbler for Last.fm with the command mpplus -Y.

Analysis and retrieval of audio-based information can be performed with the command mpplus -X 'query' where ‘query’ is a Beets library query. The special query term ‘all’ indicates the entire music library, i.e. mpplus -X all. Alternatively, query the AcousticBrainz service with mpplus -x all or create a “song similarity” database using Blissify with mpplus -B.

These common additional setup steps and more are covered in greater detail in the MusicPlayerPlus Beets section and the Post Installation Configuration section.

Quickstart summary

To summarize, a MusicPlayer quickstart can be accomplished by:

• Install the latest Arch, Debian, or RPM format installation package
• Run mppinit or mppinit -l /path/to/library as your normal user
• If the music library location was not properly detected:
  • Configure MUSIC_DIR by editing ~/.config/mpprc
  • Run the command mppinit sync
• Optionally:
  • Modify user-specific settings in ~/.config/mpprc and run mppinit sync
  • Download albums in your Bandcamp collections with mppinit bandcamp
  • Download favorites in your Soundcloud account with mppinit soundcloud
  • Perform these steps with the command mppinit import
    • Convert WAV format files to MP3 format with the command mpplus -F
    • Import your music library into Beets with the command mpplus -I
  • Perform these steps with the command mppinit metadata
    • Remove duplicate tracks with the command beet duplicates -d
    • Rename tracks left after duplicate removal with beet move
    • Download album cover art with the command mpplus -D art
    • Analyze and retrieve audio-based information with a command like:
      • mpplus -B creates a “song similarity” database with Blissify
        • mpplus -X all analyze the entire Beets library with Essentia
        • mpplus -X 'query' where ‘query’ is a Beets library query
        • mpplus -x all query AcousticBrainz for the entire Beets library
  • Activate the YAMS scrobbler for Last.fm with the command mpplus -Y
  • Download additional lyrics with the command mpplus -L

Full Tilt Boogie

The entire full tilt boogie initialization, for those with both Bandcamp and Soundcloud accounts with songs and albums in a collection or liked, and who wish to apply thorough, reliable, complete, and accurate metadata:

# Initialize MusicPlayerPlus, activate Music Player Daemon
# This is the only required setup step
mppinit

# For Bandcamp and Soundcloud users, a convenient way to download
mppinit bandcamp
mppinit soundcloud

# Beets library import (can take hours)
mppinit import

# Install, configure, and activate Mopidy music server
mppinit mopidy

# Install, configure, and activate Navidrome streaming music server
mppinit navidrome

# Perform analysis and extraction of acoustic metadata with Essentia
# This background process can take hours or even days for a large library
mppinit metadata