Music Discord Bot

[khanhquocng2801]

Section 5 Programming Language: JavaScript Development Platform: Discord Type of Application: Real-time music streaming, collaborative playback management, interactive bot

Project Abstract

• The Music Discord Bot is designed to enhance users' experience within a Discord server by enabling real-time music playback, seamless control over song selection, and collaborative queue management. Users can request songs, skip, pause, or resume playback, all through simple chat commands. This bot aggregates requests into a queue and streams high-quality audio from YouTube in real time, allowing all users to enjoy synchronized music playback. Ideal for gaming sessions, study groups, and community servers, this bot brings a shared, interactive listening experience directly to any Discord server.

High Level Requirement

1. Join and Leave Commands: The bot can join a voice channel when summoned by a user and leave when requested. Play Music Requests: Users can request songs by providing a URL or search term, which the bot retrieves and streams into the voice channel.
2. Queue Management: The bot manages song requests in a queue, allowing users to add songs, view the current queue, and skip tracks.
3. Real-Time Playback Control: Commands such as pause, resume, and skip are available, and playback updates occur in real time for all listeners in the voice channel.

Conceptual Design

Hardware Requirements

• Internet-enabled devices (computers, smartphones) capable of connecting to Discord and a voice channel.

  Software Architecture

  Frontend:

• Bot Interface: Discord's chat interface for interacting with the bot using text commands.

Backend:

• Framework: Node.js with discord.js for managing user commands and FFmpeg for audio processing.
• Libraries: youtube-dl or yt-dlp for downloading and streaming music from YouTube, FFmpeg for encoding and processing audio streams.
• Database: A lightweight database (like Firebase or SQLite) for managing song history and persistent user settings. Real-Time Communication: WebSocket-based connections using Discord's API for instant responses to user commands.

System Flow:

• Initialize Bot: Upon launch, the bot connects to the server and awaits commands.
• Join Voice Channel: Users issue a !join command to bring the bot into a voice channel.
• Song Requests: The bot receives song requests via !play [song], retrieves the audio, and streams it to the channel.
• Playback and Queue Management: Users can pause, resume, or skip songs, and the bot maintains a real-time queue.
• Exit Voice Channel: When the !leave command is given, the bot exits the channel and clears any active queue.

Proof of Concept (https://github.com/topics/music-bot)

• https://github.com/jagrosh/MusicBot
• https://github.com/SudhanPlayz/Discord-MusicBot
• ...

  Background

  Detailed Product Description

• The Music Discord Bot offers a shared listening experience within Discord servers. Users can manage playback with simple commands, view the current queue, and control the volume, all while enjoying high-quality audio streaming. The bot dynamically queues song requests, plays them in sequence, and handles real-time commands, providing an engaging and interactive experience.

Comparison to Similar Products

• While other music bots exist for Discord, many require premium subscriptions for high-quality streaming or queue management. This bot focuses on providing seamless playback and free, open-source accessibility to basic and advanced playback features alike.

Difference:

• Unlike many standard bots, this bot is designed to be fully open-source, supports song requests by search term or URL, and allows for real-time queue updates without additional premium requirements.

Required Resources

Knowledge Resources

• Familiarity with Node.js, discord.js for bot development, and basic asynchronous programming for handling real-time commands.
• Basic knowledge of youtube-dl or yt-dlp and FFmpeg for audio processing.

  Software Resources

• Discord.js: For interacting with Discord’s API.
• FFmpeg: For processing and streaming audio.
• youtube-dl/yt-dlp: For retrieving audio streams from YouTube.
• Node.js & Express: To build the bot’s backend command handling.
• Database Workbench Tool:
  • DBeaver or SQLite Browser if using a lightweight database for persistence.

    Deployment Resources

• Hosting Solutions: Heroku, Railway, or DigitalOcean for 24/7 hosting and availability.
• Version Control: GitHub for code collaboration and version management.

[tus40499]

Hey Khan, I like this project idea. In terms of usefulness to me personally, I think this would probably be at the top! It's difficult to find a discord bot that can play audio these days, and I think trying to develop one would be an interesting challenge. I used the old rhythm bot back in the day when I could play YouTube videos, so going through the process of how something like that is developed sounds intriguing.

I have a custom discord bot that I use with my friends discord server that does various random tasks, giving emoji use stats for example, so I'm familiar with the discord api and using discordpy. Ive also messed around with some web scraping and using APIs, like discord but also Twitter, so I feel like I could work on this already having an understanding of where to start. In addition, I've also used sqllite to keep some basic databases on my discord server. The challenging part I feel would be integrating YouTube-dl into it, as I've never done something with audio and streaming. Overall this sounds like it would a fun project to work on!