piCoreCDSP

The goal of this project is to provide an easy way to install CamillaDSP 2.0.3 including GUI and automatic samplerate switching on a piCorePlayer installation.

Requirements

• a fresh piCorePlayer 9.2.0 installation without any modifications
• on an armv7 or arch64 compatible device

How to install

1. Increase piCorePlayer SD Card size to at least 200MB via Main Page > Additional functions > Resize FS
2. Run install_cdsp.sh on piCorePlayer from a terminal:
   • SSH onto the piCorePlayer as user tc
     • Usually ssh tc@pcp.local or ssh tc@<IP of your piCorePlayer>
     • How to find the IP address of your piCorePlayer
   • Run
     wget https://github.com/JWahle/piCoreCDSP/raw/main/install_cdsp.sh && chmod u+x install_cdsp.sh && ./install_cdsp.sh
   • Or if you want to run a modified version of the script or an older version, see the For developers and tinkerers section
3. Open CamillaGUI in the browser:
   • It will be running on port 5000 of piCorePlayer.
     Usually can be opened via pcp.local:5000 or <IP of your piCorePlayer>:5000
   • Under Playback device enter the settings for your DAC (by default, the Raspi headphone output is used)
     • These HAVE TO BE CORRECT, otherwise CamillaDSP and Squeezelite won't start!
       • device: The Alsa device name of the DAC
         • A list of available devices can be found in Squeezelite settings > Output setting
         • If you know the sampleformat for your DAC or want to find it through trial and error, then choose a device with hw: prefix. Otherwise, use one with plughw: prefix.
       • channels: a supported channel count for the DAC
         Usually 2 for a stereo DAC.
       • sampleformat: a supported sample format for the DAC. (Only important, when NOT using a plughw: device)
   • Hit Apply and save
     • You should see channel meters and State: RUNNING on the left
     • If things go wrong, check the CamillaDSP log file via the Show log file button for more info. After changing the settings, go to the pCP Main Page and press Restart to restart Squeezelite. If the settings are correct, the channel meters and State: RUNNING on the left side should be visible in CamillaGUI.

Troubleshooting

Check, your system meets all the requirements, reboot and try to install again.

Sometimes, the script's dependencies get corrupted while downloading.
In that case, you'll see messages like this somewhere in the log:
Checking MD5 of: openssl.tcz.....FAIL
There are a couple of things, you can try to work around this:

1. reboot and try to install again, repeat until successful
2. You can try to switch the extension repo:
   • Reboot, then go to Main Page > Extensions > wait for the check to complete (until you see 5 green check marks)
   • Then go to Available > Current repository > select "piCorePlayer mirror repository" and "Set".
   • Run the script again.

If the error persists, post the error message on the piCoreCDSP Thread on diyaudio.com or slimdevices.com.

How to update

I don't recommend trying to update, because it generally is not straight forward and involves some troubleshooting. Just do a fresh install and enjoy life.

How to uninstall

SSH onto the piCorePlayer and enter the following commands depending on what you want to uninstall.

piCoreCDSP extension

If you want to uninstall without setting up piCorePlayer again, you have to reconfigure your audio output device in the pCP UI. Then uninstall the piCoreCDSP Extension (In Main Page > Extensions > Installed > select piCoreCDSP.tcz, press Delete) and reboot.

piCoreCDSP installation script

rm -f /home/tc/install_cdsp.sh

CamillaDSP sound device

Remove the pcm.camilladsp entry from /etc/asound.conf. This is easy to do with the Nano text editor:

tce-load -wil -t /tmp nano
nano /etc/asound.conf

CamillaDSP configuration files and filters

rm -rf /etc/sysconfig/tcedir/camilladsp/

Save the changes

If you just restart, some changes will not be persistent. To make all your changes persistent, run: pcp backup

Implementation

The install_cdsp.sh script downloads the following projects including dependencies and installs them with convenient default settings:

• https://github.com/spfenwick/alsa_cdsp.git (forked from https://github.com/scripple/alsa_cdsp)
• https://github.com/HEnquist/camilladsp
• https://github.com/HEnquist/camillagui-backend

Audio Architecture

graph TD;
    A(Audio Source<br>SqueezeLite/AirPlay/Bluetooth) -- Opens audio stream --> B(CamillaDSP Alsa Plugin);
    B -- Starts and then sends audio to stdin of CamillaDSP.<br>This will show the green meters in CamillaGUI. --> C(CamillaDSP);
    C --> O(Audio output<br>Configured in your CDSP config);

Loading

For developers and tinkerers

In this section it is assumed, that your piCorePlayer is available on pcp.local. If this is not the case, replace occurrences of pcp.local with the IP-address/hostname of your piCorePlayer.

Modifying the installation script

If you made some changes to the installation script on your local machine and want to run it quickly on the piCorePlayer, run the following command from the location of the script:

scp install_cdsp.sh tc@pcp.local:~ && ssh tc@pcp.local "./install_cdsp.sh"

Running your own python scripts

You can run python scripts requiring pycamilladsp or pycamilladsp-plot like this:

1. Copy your script from your local machine to pCP: scp <your_script> tc@pcp.local:~
2. In Tweaks > User Commands set one of the commands to this:
   sudo -u tc sh -c 'source /usr/local/camillagui/environment/bin/activate; python3 /home/tc/<your_script>'
3. Save and reboot

If you need to access files in your script, make sure to use absolute paths.

Running CamillaDSP standalone

You can run CamillaDSP standalone. This might be useful, if you want to capture audio from some audio device. Although, in this case you won't be able to use any of the Squeezelite/airPlay/Bluetooth audio sources.

1. Go to Tweaks > Audio Tweaks and set Squeezelite to no.
2. Then go to Tweaks > User commands and set one of the commands to
   sudo -u tc sh -c '/usr/local/camilladsp -p 1234 -a 0.0.0.0 -o /tmp/camilladsp.log --statefile /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/camilladsp/camilladsp_statefile.yml'
   or if you want a fixed volume of e.g. -30dB, use this command:
   sudo -u tc sh -c '/usr/local/camilladsp -p 1234 -a 0.0.0.0 -o /tmp/camilladsp.log --statefile /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/camilladsp/camilladsp_statefile.yml -g-30'
3. Save and reboot