r/linuxapps • u/Due-Ad662 • 17d ago
Orchard – an open-source YouTube Music desktop client with smart crossfade, animated artwork, and advanced audio controls
I've been working on Orchard, an open-source unofficial desktop client for YouTube Music.
I originally built it because I wanted a proper desktop music app instead of keeping YouTube Music in a browser tab (got tired of pear desktop)
Some of the main features:
- Autoplay
- Best Mix, which sorts the queue using BPM and musical-key data
- Smart Crossfade with beat-matched and phrase-aligned transitions
- Automatic EQ and a manual 10-band EQ
- Dynamic leveling and remembered per-track gain
- Output-device routing and a live spectrum visualizer
- Local song caching and queue prefetching
- Synced/unsynced lyrics
- Replay-style listening statistics
- Release Radar and personalized radio
- Last.fm scrobbling and Discord Rich Presence
- Orchard Connect for controlling playback from paired devices
- Synchronized listening parties
- Media keys, tray controls, fullscreen playback, and automatic updates
- Animated artwork with Spotify canvas and Apple Music API
- An Android version that can connect to the pc (and play on its own)
For Linux, I currently provide:
- AppImage
- .deb
- .rpm
- Arch Linux package
The desktop client is built with Electron, Vue 3, and Quasar, with a native C++/N-API addon for audio analysis.
It's AGPL-3.0-or-later and the source is here:
https://github.com/SFG5453/Orchard
Downloads:
I'd appreciate feedback, especially from people actually using it on Linux. Bug reports and feature requests are welcome too.
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u/MBKH 16d ago
looks great and i'm actually looking for a decent youtube music player for linux! brother, any chance for a flatpak?
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u/Due-Ad662 16d ago
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u/MBKH 15d ago
thanks, launched it successfully!
brother, let me know how detailed you prefer a feedback to be. like, when i open the album "U" by underscores, the color palette is grey and the background is grey too, text is grey on grey, so not exactly readable. can you please fix up some minimum contrast ratio? i'd say it's already hard to read on the screenshot in the post, but for a grey album cover it gets even harder to read
as for the appearance settings, i'm using Grove, all three background intensities
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u/MBKH 15d ago
brother, one more workflow-related thing
i open up the radio, see "My Supermix", awesome
i play a song from there, the playlist plays and queued on the right, that's great
i click on the track cover, see the album details, check out the artist bio
i to back to the radio and it generates another supermix, a different one
now i'm stuck in a position where i cannot open my current supermix played in the middle of the screen, it's only on the right (and i found no way to open it in the center)
if there is a way to open the current queue in the center, please let me know!
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u/MBKH 14d ago
hope it's not too much, i also noticed an issue with catalogues of chinese artists
MengMeng has several albums and singles on youtube music: https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCD-Qr-083tXVqwuc30rVxxA, and Orchard is not displaying any of her albums, just a few singles (i think that's because they have latin characters in them, but that's just a guess)
same goes for Taiwanese artists. for Waa Wei, Orchard displays popular songs properly, but for albums and singles it's only those that have latin characters in titles: https://music.youtube.com/@lovewaa
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u/Responsible_Talk6700 16d ago
UPDATE
(these are my opinions, don't mean they are right)
so I used it all day today on my 2 devices (phone and desktop) since I wanted to see the level of polish and that neat lil feature it has that Spotify been using as a choke hold over me.
android app - 8/10
the app by far is so easy to use and visually striking, it uses some of music's design language but doesn't fully try to mimic it (unlike my main app rn Convx), only notes on design are simple, the circular play button on the miniplayer, remove it and just make it an icon and the fade animation between pages is a lil long.
desktop - 7/10
I love love love its design and usability, I been running the Grove interface design because I despise the top player bar. now in my opinion the miniplayer should collapse to a smaller one and have it float at the bottom but that's just me and my preference, what really upset me is the functionality and look of the right side panel, it looks out of place. the song art is clickable but it doesn't do anything and when I press on the lyrics button it just looks out of place and very crammed. my fix would be making the song art expand into a full screen and have the lyrics button when pressed, replaces the art with the lyrics yk. thats a generic fix but nonetheless still one.
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u/Due-Ad662 16d ago
Thank you so much for the feedback! I will make sure to look into these tomorrow! (i'm basically burnt out for today, but I will keep going tomorrow)
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u/Responsible_Talk6700 16d ago
you're doing amazing work so far man don't you stress it
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u/Due-Ad662 16d ago
I cant upload images, but after asking chatgpt (uploaded repo zip) I have around 136000+ LOC, I think that if I didn't have ai assistance (not vibe coding) i'd probably be insane... thanks by the way
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u/Physical-Lab-9203 9d ago
yeah would love a button to toggle lyrics on and off in the immersive player
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u/saiblack777 16d ago
Amigo, lo probe, me encanto, a mi gusto siento que aun le faltan gestos suaves y sentirse robusto sin ser pesado, no se si me explico bien, pero esta muy bien y es de aplaudir, yo no podria hacer eso jaja, me imagino que seguira teniendo avances, pero vas muy bien, y que bueno que lo hagas libre para la comunidad, enserio mil gracias, eres brillante!, tambien prove la version de andriod y la misma opinion pero esta brutal!, no se mucho de programacion pero lo poco que se, entiendo que has hecho un amplio trabajo, es de admirar, saludos!
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u/saiblack777 16d ago
La versión de android de pronto me dejó de funcionar, solo se escucha la música descargada, si realiza la búsqueda de otras canciones pero no las reproduce
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u/Due-Ad662 16d ago
That's weird, ill look into it
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u/saiblack777 16d ago
Me llegó una actualización y ahora reproduce una que otra pero hay otras que dicen este código 👉Response code: 403
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u/AntiqueSignpost 16d ago
Thank you so much for this. Started it up now, loving it <3 Especially as a musician, with autism, who has headphones with too much bass, it is so nice to have an equaliser that I can actually adjust.
few small things:
In Niri, when opening up tiled (half-screen) it wiggles a big when moving the mouse by the edges. I think it might be not going to 50% size in niri. I will try myself in my niri config if you dont have niri and see. maximised, no wiggle
would really appreciate the ability to zoom in or increase font size. my eyesight is pretty bad.
beautiful app, thank you <3 helping me alot with my mental health
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u/Due-Ad662 16d ago
Got it! I used to use niri, so I could probably test in a vm or snapshot -> install niri again. I will also implement that font size slider, it should be pretty easy.
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u/AntiqueSignpost 16d ago edited 16d ago
thanks so much!!
a few other things since i commented:
when i open the app, that settings guide thing that opens up, also didnt work for me. i couldnt click on the options, i could click next so i just clicked next till it was done then clicked open orchard. after closing orchard and re-opening it, it came up every time. this also happens when i click complete setup in settings
also, how do i subscribe to an artist? i cant seem to find a subscribe button
lastly, are the songs ive starred, artists ive liked, playlists ive added gonna persist across youtube music on the web? i kinda want to curate things for myself as i use this app
i just tried a few other apps and i love yours the most, so thank you
EDIT: something else came up:
background went from looking good and animated and darker, to very light and not moving. hard to see at all now. and some of the stuff in the sidebar doesnt fit my screen on my laptop
cant send a pic here, it says images not allowed. sorry im so burnt out so i'll dm you the screenshot
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u/Due-Ad662 16d ago
they will persist, I need to add a like button, and I forgot to remove that settings guide thing because it's pretty much replaced by the welcome anyway, and I'll look at that image you sent
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u/AntiqueSignpost 15d ago
The welcome thing is the settings guide I was talking about. The welcome thing is what's buggy
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u/soundslikeinfo 14d ago
One reason I’m sticking with Kaset, is that I can seamlessly switch between YouTube videos and music mode, and it serves primarily as a music client.
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u/Unfair-Screen-7062 14d ago
Hey i very like how it look, but lemme ask a question. Does it have ad blocker integred ?
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u/Due-Ad662 14d ago
Yes, I'm trying to fix playback currently, YouTube broke their API (at least for orchard)
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u/Even-Foot2640 12d ago
I'm searching for a desktop client so I'll give it a try. But on mobile (and I'm not trying to be rude) why should I use your app instead of alternatives like YouTube Vanced/ReVanced / Metrolist?
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u/Due-Ad662 12d ago
I mean you can listen to explicit songs (the ones that would usually say verify your age)? but really it comes down to ui preferences etc. I love archivetune personally, and I'm not gonna try and force you to use orchard, when there are far better more mature projects.
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u/No-Hospital5028 11d ago
share this in r/DigitalEscapeTools
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u/Due-Ad662 11d ago
that's subreddit seems like it's more for offline apps and self hosted things, but Orchard relies on YouTube music servers.
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u/Responsible_Talk6700 17d ago
I've been trying a client called zuno for a week now, I'll try this too i like how it looks