Ambience

Ambience is a Python script for Linux desktops that creates a seamless ambient music experience. It plays ambient music when no other media is detected, automatically fading the music when other media starts playing.

Under the hood, it spawns a VLC subprocess and plays music randomly from your selected directory. When any other media is detected to be playing at more than 0% volume, the music automatically fades to a minimum or pauses playing depending on your preference.

Prerequisites

1. Python 3 or above
2. Make sure your system uses PulseAudio server
3. Before using Ambience, ensure you have the following packages installed:

• vlc
• cvlc
• jq
• playerctl
• pacmd
• pactl

You can install these packages using your system's package manager. The last two are installed by default if your system uses PulseAudio server.

Configuration

Ambience allows users to customize the behavior according to their preferences through the config.json file. Here's the default configuration file:

{
    "path": "$HOME/Music/",
    "peak_volume": 0.5,
    "min_volume": 0,
    "formats": ["flac", "mp3", "ogg", "wav", "m4a"],
    "check_interval": 1,
    "fade_duration": 3,
    "fade_steps": 20
}

Usage

1. Clone this repository into a suitable directory:

git clone https://github.com/AdityaAparadh/Ambience

2. Navigate to Ambience directory:

cd Ambience

3. Adjust config.json according to your preferences. Make sure "path" points to the directory where your music is stored.

4. Run the main.py script using one of these commands:

python main.py

python3 main.py