What features or improvements would you like to see next?

[palavido-dev]

We are always looking for ways to make Vinyl Streamer better, and the best ideas come from the people actually using it. This is the place to share what you would love to see in future releases.

Some areas we have been thinking about:

• Multi-room streaming -- AirPlay to multiple speakers simultaneously
• Mobile companion app -- Control playback from your phone without the browser
• Discogs integration -- Auto-populate your catalog from your Discogs collection
• Recording improvements -- Better split detection, automatic track naming, metadata tagging
• Listening stats -- More detailed analytics, play history, listening streaks
• Theme customization -- Dark mode, custom color schemes, different layouts

These are just starting points. What matters most to you? Drop your ideas below -- whether it is a big feature, a small quality-of-life tweak, or something we have not even considered. Upvote the ideas you like most so we can see what the community is excited about.

No idea is too small!

[skoregon]

Is it not possible to have the Pi just listen for audio at all times and use fingerprinting to identify the songs and split/organize them? If the recording is redundant it can prompt to delete/ignore? Or is it required to record against a pre-identified album?

[palavido-dev]

Great question! This is actually something we explored extensively in the early development of Vinyl Streamer, and I want to give you a thorough answer because the idea is very intuitive but the reality is unfortunately tricky.

The short answer: Audio fingerprinting doesn't work reliably on vinyl recordings, so we moved away from it entirely.

Why it doesn't work:

The way services like Shazam, AcoustID, and MusicBrainz fingerprinting work is by generating a compact "fingerprint" from the audio and then matching it against a database of known fingerprints. The problem is that those reference fingerprints are generated from purely digital masters (CD rips, streaming files, etc.). A vinyl recording is a fundamentally different acoustic event. The analog playback chain introduces surface noise, wow/flutter, subtle speed variations, and the RIAA equalization curve of the phono preamp. Even a pristine pressing on a high-end turntable produces an audio signal that diverges enough from the digital reference that fingerprint matching becomes unreliable.

We tested this with both Chromaprint (the open-source fingerprinting library behind AcoustID/MusicBrainz) and looked into the AcoustID web service. The match rates were too low to build a reliable feature on top of. You might get a correct match on a clean, modern pressing of a popular album, but older pressings, noisy records, or anything with even moderate surface wear would fail. That kind of inconsistency makes it worse than having no auto-detection at all, because the user can't trust the results.

What we do instead:

The current approach is album-based recording. You select the album from your catalog first (added manually or via Discogs import), then record. The system already knows the track listing, expected durations, and side layout, which it uses for automatic track splitting, silence detection, and side-flip prompts. This gives you reliable, predictable results every time regardless of pressing quality.

As for continuous listening, the Pi would need to keep the ADC stream open at all times and constantly analyze audio, which would add CPU load, wear on the SD card from buffering, and still have the fingerprinting accuracy problem on top of it.

It's a great idea in theory and I wish it worked! If fingerprinting databases ever start including vinyl-sourced references, or if the algorithms improve enough to handle the analog signal chain, it's something we could revisit. But for now the album-first workflow is the most reliable path.

[ltdan-88]

Here are some feature ideas for future consideration (building on the excellent foundation already in place):

Library & Browsing Improvements
• Classic List View — Add an optional table/list mode for the library with customizable columns (artist, year, genre, rating, play count, etc.) for power users who prefer dense data over cards.
• Adjustable Cover Scaling — Let users resize album art thumbnails in grid view for better visibility on different screen sizes.
• Search Enhancements — Auto-start playback of the top result (incl. tracks) when pressing Enter in the search bar.

Discovery & Metadata
• Auto-Recommendations — Suggest albums based on listening stats, favorites, or similar genres (local only).
• Lyrics Integration — Display synchronized or static lyrics for tracks (sourced locally or via optional open APIs).
• Encyclopedic Info — Pull additional details like critic ratings, biographies, or reviews from MusicBrainz, Wikipedia, or AllMusic (with clear opt-in and attribution).

Listening Stats Enhancements
• Organize stats into tabs or sections (e.g., Overview, Top Albums/Tracks, Genre Breakdown, History Timeline).
• Add a Reset Statistics option and export capabilities.

Audio & Hardware Features
• Volume normalization for playback
• Software Phono Preamp + RIAA EQ — Option to use the ADC directly with built-in digital phono preamp and RIAA equalization (for turntables without a dedicated preamp).
• Declicker / Anti-Pop — Optional real-time and post-recording click/pop/crackle removal using FFmpeg (adeclick/adeclip) or similar. Include sensitivity presets, before/after previews, and non-destructive originals for cleaner streams and FLACs.
• Auto-stop recording — Auto-stop recording at the end of a vinyl record side based on silence.
• Record Condition Tracking (e.g. sync with Discogs data) — Dedicated fields in album details for vinyl condition ratings (NM/VG+/G+ etc.), play/wear counters, last cleaned date, and notes — with sortable views and collection reports.

UI & System Flexibility
• Role-Based Presets — Configurable Raspberry Pi use-case presets (e.g., “Dedicated Jukebox Kiosk”, “Headless Streamer”, “Amplifier Mode”). These would automatically adjust UI visibility, default audio outputs/routing, startup behavior, auto-streaming, and screensaver for different setups.

What do you think? Excited to see where the project goes!