Play Music
When playing music, you can manage music player controls at the bottom of Audio Station, and view songs in queue by going to Playing Queue on the left panel.
Music Player
The music player shown at the bottom displays the information of the currently playing song, including its title, album, artist, and duration. You can do the following to control music playback.
- To play songs, click Play/Pause, Next, or Previous.
- To skip to any point in the currently playing song, drag the playhead along the timeline to any point you want.
- To view the currently playing song and the songs in queue, click the Playing Queue icon.
- To see song lyrics, click the Lyrics icon. Click the icon again to switch back to the current playlist.
- To adjust the volume, drag the volume slider.
- To repeat all the songs or the currently playing song in the queue, or to turn off repeat, click the No repeat, repeat all, or repeat one icon.
- To play the songs in the queue in random order, click the Shuffle on/off icon.
- To customize sound frequencies for different music genres, click the EQ button to open the equalizer, tick the checkbox, and choose a preset from the drop-down menu. You can also drag the sliders and save your own User Defined preset.
Note: Equalizer is available for USB speakers only.
- To switch Audio Station's display to the mini player mode, click the Switch to mini player icon at the bottom-right corner of the music player. To switch Audio Station's display back to the full mode, click the Switch to full mode icon at the bottom-right corner of the mini player.
Playing Queue
You can see the now playing song and songs in queue by going to Playing Queue on the left panel of Audio Station.
To manage the playing queue:
- To play a song in the queue, right-click the song and choose Play or go to Action > Play to play it right away.
- To adjust the order of songs in the queue, select and drag the songs up and down in the queue.
- You can also adjust the order of songs in the queue by selecting the songs, right-clicking one of them or go to Action > Up/Down.
- To add all songs in the current queue to a new playlist, right-click any of the songs and choose Save playing queue or go to Action > Save playing queue.
- To see where a song is located, right-click any of the songs and choose Open containing folder or go to Action > Open containing folder.
- To remove a song from the queue, select the song, right-click and choose Remove or go to Action > Remove.
Output Devices
To play music via different devices, you can select your desired output device from the My computer/USB speakers/[Media renderer name] (indicating the device you have been streaming music to) drop-down menu on the control bar, and add songs to individual devices.
The output devices include the following:
- My computer: Stream music to your computer for playback via the speakers of your computer.
- USB speakers: Play music via the USB speakers connected to the USB port of your Synology NAS, or via external speakers or home stereo equipment.
- Media renderer: Play music via a Digital Media Renderer (DMR) or an AirPlay compatible device within your local area network.
Once they are found, their device name will appear in the drop-down menu, like Apple TV, Sonos.
Note:
- Only users with the USB/DLNA Renderer privilege (in Settings > Privileges) can play music through USB devices or DLNA renderers.
- The output modes for USB speakers and Media renderer are available only when corresponding output devices are found by Audio Station.
- When music is output to USB speakers, it only goes to the USB speaker set most recently attached to your Synology NAS.
To switch between output devices:
Choose any of them from the drop-down menu at the top of the music player. You can play music via different devices at the same time.
High Quality Output
You can enjoy better audio quality if your music files and the sound card of the DAC (Digital-to-analog converter) connected to your Synology NAS support 24-bit audio output when USB speakers are plugged in to your NAS server.
To enable high quality output or DSD over PCM output:
- Go to Settings > Advanced.
- Once you have ticked Enable high quality output for USB speakers, you can then tick Enable DSD over PCM (DoP) output for USB speakers.
- Click OK.
Note:
- Only 2-channel DSD64 and DSD128 files are supported if you enable DSD over PCM (DoP) output for USB speakers.
- Once you enable DSD over PCM (DoP) output for USB speakers, both DSD64 and DSD128 files will be played via DoP. For example, a DAC that only supports DSD64 cannot play DSD128 files.
Amazon Alexa Devices
Audio Station allows you to stream music content to an Alexa device using voice commands.
To stream music content to an Alexa device:
- Go to Settings > Advanced.
- Tick Enable Amazon Alexa service checkbox, and then select the Corresponding hostname.
- Click OK to apply settings.
Note:
- For more information on the feature's requirements and limitations, as well as the supported voice commands, please refer to this article.
Music Converters
Music converters allow Audio Station to support more audio formats under streaming. If your web browsers or DLNA devices do not support the audio formats mentioned below, please find the conversion advice. Also, please note audio files converted by Audio Station can only be 16 bit; 24-bit files would be downsampled.
To convert audio formats for web browsers:
Follow the steps below if your web browsers do not support the formats: FLAC, APE, OGG, AIFF, WMA.
- Go to Settings > Options > Converter for Web Browsers.
- Choose any of the following options:
- Convert to WAV format: WAV format is supported on specific browsers only (Firefox 3.6 and above, Safari 5, Opera 10.60, and Chrome 9).
- Convert to MP3 format: By converting to MP3, you can enjoy better browser support. However, this also occupies more system resources. In addition to the formats listed above, WAV format will also be converted to MP3 when this option is selected.
- Click OK.
To convert audio formats for DLNA devices:
Follow the steps below if your DLNA devices do not support the formats: FLAC,APE, ALAC, OGG, AIFF.
- Go to Settings > Advanced.
- Tick Enable audio conversion for DLNA devices to play converted music on your DLNA device.
- Select the formats (FLAC, APE, ALAC, OGG, and AIFF) unsupported by your DLNA device to render them playable.
- For better compatibility between your DLNA device and the selected formats, tick Downsample audio files for better DLNA compatibility.
- Click OK.
Note:
- The settings will be globally applied to all users and DLNA devices.
- Converting into MP3 is not supported on the following models: DS110j, DS210j, DS410j, DS211j, DS411j, and DS212j.