A simple script used to configure a docker-compose stack for Tidal Connect.
This repository does not contain the Tidal Connect software. There is only a docker-compose.yaml file, a configurator script, and a modified entrypoint which is just used for selecting the desired audio output more easily and reliably.
All the hard work has been done by the owner of the repository mentioned in the References section and in the other repositories from which this one has been forked. I am just trying to provide a way to run their container more easily in certain environments (where the index of your audio device is not the same on every restart).
This solution is not and will probably never be supported by Tidal. It might stop working at any time.
If you need to have a supported solution, look at Tidal Connect enabled products. A cheap one is the ubiquitous Wiim Mini/Pro/Pro+/Amp. Another option are Google Chromecast/Chromecast Audio devices. Also, if you use Apple devices, you can already stream to AirPlay-enabled devices.
Even your current TV might already be used as an endpoint for Tidal via the embedded Chromecast functionality, or via AirPlay.
Alternatively, if you are not scared of some DIY, you might want to create an upnp/dlna renderer, maybe with upmpdcli (you might use my docker image for upmpdcli) and mpd (you might use my docker image for mpd), and then use some Android app like BubbleUPnP or mConnect Lite (this one is also on iOS/iPadOS), connect those apps to Tidal and then stream to your upnp/dlna renderer.
Starting late November 2023, BubbleUPnP supports hires flac, see this post on Reddit. This is something that, from what I know, is not supported by this Tidal Connect application, and will probably never be.
Another solution might be my Tidal Plugin for Upmpdcli but again, there will be no support from Tidal. This solution works well with Tidal HiFi or with HiFi+ with MQA DACs, but currently does not support native HiRes flac.
Another alternative, if you have a HiFi subscription and/or are ok with being limited to 16bit/44.1kHz, is using Logitech Media Server and Squeezelite (you might use my docker image for squeezelite): you just need to register a mysqueezebox account, install and configure the Tidal, and Tidal will be available among your Apps in the LMS webapp. I would consider this solution to be quite reliable as it seems to have some support from Tidal. I use it frequently without any issue.
This entirely relies on this repository from GitHub user TonyTrump. A big thank you to the author for the great work.
It will also use his docker image.
I created this repository because it was very inconvenient for me to figure out the string to put for the PLAYBACK_DEVICE variable. I even failed for one of my DAC, I don't know honestly why, but as far as I understand, the ifi-pa-devs-get for some reason refuses to see the device. The most relevant issue I found about this issue is this, but it does not seems to have an easy solution.
Additionally, even if you can specify the correct string for your DAC, I found that the resulting configuration would be error-prone as the string reports both the device name and the device index. AFAIK the index can change across restarts, so outside of a known and controlled setup (which is probably represented by the Ifi devices) this situation can an will lead to errors or unwanted configurations.
Keep in mind that the audio device index can also be changed because one time the (usb) device is powered on during boot, and another time it isn't.
This is my experience, unless I am missing something obvious. If so, I will be glad to be corrected.
The work in this repository consists in slightly altering the container startup phase (the entrypoint.sh file), in such a way that a custom /etc/asound.conf is created with (hopefully) the correct device index, regardless of the order of the audio devices, which can vary across restarts. The underlying application then always uses the default audio device.
You will need a single-board computer (or anyway, a computer) with an armhf architecture (arm64 should work as well), running docker and docker-compose.
A Raspberry Pi 3/4 will work. If you plan to use a usb dac and hi-res audio, consider at least using a Pi 3b+ or, even better, a Pi 4b.
I am also running this on as Asus Tinkerboard. With this hardware, my suggestion is to not allow it to scale down the cpu frequency too much, or you might experience every kind of crackling noises along with what will remain of your music. In my experience, I am having good result if I set the minimum frequency at least about 600MHz, but, of course, YMMV.
Docker is a prerequisite. On debian and derived distributions (this includes Raspberry Pi OS, DietPi, Moode Audio, Volumio), we can install the necessary packages using the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker.io docker-compose
sudo usermod -a -G docker $USER
The last command adds the current user to the docker group. This is not mandatory; if you choose to skip this step, you might need to execute docker-compose commands by prepending sudo.
You need to clone the repository. Make sure that git is installed using the following command on debian and derived distributions (again, this includes Raspberry Pi OS, DietPi, Moode Audio, Volumio):
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y git
Move to the your home directory and clone the repository using the commands:
cd
git clone https://github.com/GioF71/tidal-connect.git
If you just downloaded the repository, you can skip this step.
If you previously cloned the repository, it might have been updated in the meantime. Move to the directory and pull the changes:
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
git pull
From the repository directory, just run the configure.sh bash script, specifying the following parameters:
| PARAM | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| -n | Sound card name (e.g. DAC), if not specified and also card index isn't, sysdefault is used. |
| -i | Sound card index, not recommended: if not specified and also card name isn't, sysdefault is used. |
| -d | Sound card device, optional |
| -f | Friendly name, defaults to TIDAL connect |
| -m | Model name, defaults to Audio Streamer |
| -s | Card format, optional (S32_LE, S16_LE, etc) |
| -c | MQA Codec, defaults to false |
| -p | MQA Passthrough, defaults to false |
| -t | Sleep time in seconds be, defaults to 3 |
| -d | DNS Server list, defaults to 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 (Google's DNS servers) |
I recommend to use the -n parameter instead of -i, because the index of the devices might change across restarts.
If you already used the configure.sh command and you are experiencing issues (because of the card has changed its index), you can run the command again. In the latest version, the card index is calculated during the container startup phase and hopefully there will not be any need to use configure.sh again unless you change the audio device you want to use.
Configure for sound card named "DAC", using friendly name "Aune S6 USB DAC" and model name "Asus Tinkerboard":
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
bash configure.sh -n DAC -f "Aune S6 USB DAC" -m "Asus Tinkerboard"
If no error is reported, you will find a new (or updated) .env file.
If you find a spurious .asound.conf file there, it probably was generated by a previous version of the configure.sh script, and you can safely delete it.
So now you can run the docker-compose.yaml as usual:
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
docker-compose up -d
The container can be entirely configured using the environment variables listed on the following table:
| VARIABLE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| CARD_NAME | Alsa name of the audio card. Example for xmos dac might be DAC while e.g. it is D10 for a Topping D10 |
| CARD_INDEX | Alsa index of the audio card |
| CARD_DEVICE | Audio device, optional |
| CARD_FORMAT | Audio format, optional (S32_LE, S16_LE, etc) |
| FORCE_PLAYBACK_DEVICE | If set and if the file asound.conf is provided in /userconfig, this will be the playback device |
| FRIENDLY_NAME | Friendly name of the device, will be shown on Tidal Apps. Defaults to TIDAL connect. |
| ASOUND_FILE_PREFIX | Search asound.conf with this prefix, a . is used as separator |
| CREATED_ASOUND_CARD_NAME | When creating asound.conf, use this as the declared device name |
| MODEL_NAME | Model name of the device. Defaults to Audio Streamer. |
| MQA_CODEC | Can't comment a lot on this, defaults to false. |
| MQA_PASSTHROUGH | Can't comment a lot on this, defaults to false. |
| SLEEP_TIME_SEC | Sleep time before starting the real app, after starting tmux. Defaults to 3. |
| RESTART_ON_FAIL | Enables auto restart (see issue #16), defaults to 1 (which means restart is enabled). |
| RESTART_WAIT_SEC | Wait time in seconds before trying restart (see RESTART_ON_FAIL), defaults to 30. |
| DNS_SERVER_LIST | The DNS serves to be used, defaults to 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 (Google's DNS servers). |
Please note that if both CARD_NAME and CARD_INDEX are specified, only CARD_NAME will be considered.
Also, if both CARD_NAME and CARD_INDEX are not specified, sysdefault (the system default audio device) will be used.
Here is the list of volumes:
| VOLUME | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| /userconfig | Might contain user-provided configurations. |
If you put an asound.conf file in the userconfig directory of the repository, this file will be copied to /etc/asound.conf, so you can implement your custom configuration. You might need to set the variable FORCE_PLAYBACK_DEVICE according to the contents of the provided file, unless the device you want to play to is named custom.
It is possible to use this solution for easy installation of Tidal Connect on Moode Audio and Volumio.
It is required to have a ssh connection to the Moode/Volumio audio box. In order to enable ssh on Volumio, refer to this page.
Those two platforms do not ship docker out of the box (unsurprisingly), so docker installation is required. See Docker Installation earlier in this page.
If you have just installed docker with the previous commands, it is probably a good idea to logoff your current ssh session, then log back in. Otherwise, just open a ssh connection to your box.
We need to configure the audio output you want to use for Tidal Connect.
If your device only has one output, or if that output is also configured as the default output, no configuration might be needed other than the Friendly and Model name.
On one of my boxes, I have a Hifiberry Dac+ Pro Hat, so when I use the command:
cat /proc/asound/cards
I get:
pi@moode-living:~/git/tidal-connect $ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [sndrpihifiberry]: HifiberryDacp - snd_rpi_hifiberry_dacplus
snd_rpi_hifiberry_dacplus
Great, the operating system has just disabled the onboard audio and set the Hifiberry HAT as the default card.
So let's configure Tidal Connect:
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
./configure.sh -f "Living Aux1" -m "Raspberry Pi"
We are not specifying anything (not the card index and neither the name) because there is only one output available.
Replace the first and second strings to your liking. Once configured, start the service as usual:
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
docker-compose up -d
On another one of my boxes, I have an usb dac connected, so when I use the command:
cat /proc/asound/cards
I get:
moode@moode:~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [b1 ]: bcm2835_hdmi - bcm2835 HDMI 1
bcm2835 HDMI 1
1 [Headphones ]: bcm2835_headpho - bcm2835 Headphones
bcm2835 Headphones
2 [X20 ]: USB-Audio - XMOS USB Audio 2.0
XMOS XMOS USB Audio 2.0 at usb-0000:01:00.0-1.2, high speed
So in this setup, the operating system has not disabled the onboard audio. Even if you have configured Moode so that is will use the USB DAC, this might not be enough for Tidal Connect to automatically select that card.
The safest way (at least IMO) is to use the string that identifies the dac as card name:
So let's configure Tidal Connect:
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
./configure.sh -n "X20" -f "Desktop" -m "Raspberry Pi"
Replace the second and third strings to your liking. Once configured, start the service as usual:
cd $HOME/tidal-connect
docker-compose up -d
Remember that, should you change something to your Moode/Volumio setup, maybe replacing the audio-hat with an USB DAC, you will most likely need to reconfigure Tidal Connect accordingly.
Please be aware that this solution will not be completely equivalent to the built-in premium feature of Volumio. That solution (probably) allows the attached (touch) display to show the currently playing song, while this solution for sure does not allow that or any other related features.
Tidal connect won't work if your system does not support ipv6. See this issue.
Afaik, there is no solution or workaround available other than, somehow, enabling ipv6.
On DietPi (which I am running on my Asus Tinkerboard), you might need to enable avahi-daemon, if this is not enabled yet.
You might find the following on the logs:
[tisoc] [error] [avahiImpl.cpp:358] avahi_client_new() FAILED: Daemon not running
This can be fixed by installing the avahi-daemon. It is not installed by default on DietPi, so we can installing it with this command:
sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon
An already started tidal-connect container should start working immediately, at least that is what happened with my setup.
| Date | Comment |
|---|---|
| 2024-01-30 | Add support for ASOUND_FILE_PREFIX, see #101 |
| 2024-01-26 | Assume custom playback device when asound.conf is provided, see #90 |
| 2024-01-25 | Support custom asound.conf, support forced PLAYBACK device, see #80 |
| 2024-01-25 | Revert latest change, see (#78) |
| 2024-01-24 | Always create sysdefault in asound.conf and log device names, see #76 |
| 2024-01-23 | Add support for optional card device (CARD_DEVICE) and format (CARD_FORMAT), see #72 |
| 2023-09-12 | Clarify how to install on Volumio, see issue #29 |
| 2023-09-04 | Allow default audio card selection, see issue #22 |
| 2023-07-18 | Allow user-specified dns server(s), see issue #13 |
| 2023-07-07 | Fixed asound.conf generation from card index, see issue #2 |
| 2023-06-02 | First unfolding seems to be working |
| 2023-06-02 | Some effort to avoid resampling |
| 2023-06-02 | MQA passthrough defaults to false |
| 2023-06-01 | Using hardware mode |
| 2023-06-01 | Resolve device name at container startup |
| 2023-05-29 | First working version |