Use Case - Player Piano & iTunes Deprecation

[Boldly_Goes]

Hi folks, I have a rather unique use case that I could use some suggestions on how I could better leverage my unraid server.  

 

I have a baby grand piano with a PianoDisc player system installed; it's connected to a fanless celeron PC with Windows10 and runs iTunes that is mounted under the piano and running all the time (only uses 8-10 watts).  Connected to my LAN via wifi.  All of the player system music is encoded from CDs and were copied to that PC's SSD and played on an exclusive iTunes library on that PC using the "Remote" app from my iPhone. 

 

Keep in mind these are proprietary songs that while encoded in iTunes, they only work when played through the player system (they sound like a dial up modem if played through conventional speakers).  These songs need to always be kept separate from the rest of my media library.

 

Currently my Unraid server just acts as a backup fileserver for this PC (windows backup).  

 

The remote app functions from Apple and this iTunes library work exceptionally well.  Unraid is doing a great job keeping all of that media backed up (among other things).  It's about 6GB of music (~500 songs or so).

 

With Apple announcing that iTunes is getting deprecated, I need to find a new solution.  Here are the requirements:  Remotely (from my phone) be able to play from curated playlists to a device connected via the 3.5mm jack in the player piano.

 

The music files can be hosted anywhere I suppose but I prefer having a direct connection not susceptible to interference as the piano is a diva.  So I'd prefer the music be primary sourced on that fanless PC itself, but I'm willing to experiment with sourcing from the unraid server itself.  The issue is that I want playlists, I want to be able to play the lists or any select song on-the-fly, control from my phone, and the only input the piano has is a 3.5mm stereo jack.  

 

Are there any other media server dockers, for example, that could accomplish this and I send the sound out to that PC connected to the piano? 

 

Or, for example, instead of the fanless PC running can unraid wirelessly transmit songs to some sort of device like an Alexa that would play it?  I just wouldn't want that Alexa or Google device to be visible with my other speaker zones. 

 

Thanks for your advice.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by Boldly_Goes
clarification

[Squid]

53 minutes ago, Boldly_Goes said:

can unraid wirelessly transmit songs to some sort of device like an Alexa that would play it

MyMediaForAlexa app

[itimpi]

I would wait until we know more about what is happening to iTunes (which will probably be announced at Apple’s WWDC convention next week).   Apple are going to have to provide an alternative way of handling iTunes hosted media.