Do you want to learn how to play music in Discord? A Discord music bot provides a way for multiple members of a server to listen to the same music at the same time. Discord music bots can find songs on Spotify, YouTube, or other platforms and play them in a voice channel. If you join the voice channel, you can listen along to the song on Discord. This provides a great way to share new music with friends, host listening parties, or provide background music.
However, with so many different music bots on Discord available, it can be difficult to know which music bot to add to your server. This is especially true in 2022, when YouTube has forced two popular Discord music bots, Groovy and Rhythm, to close down. If you need help picking a new music bot, then this article is for you. Read on to compare the best Discord music bots: Hydra, Chip, and MEE6. This list includes Spotify Discord bots and free music bots. You will also learn how to play music in Discord and how to add music bots on Discord.
Best Discord Music Bots
The new Hydra Discord bot comes with a large selection of platforms to stream from. Hydra uses Spotify, Soundcloud, Deezer, and Bandcamp to stream music to your server. Hydra was one of the first Discord Spotify bots available and remains one of the best. You can also upload audio files to play or stream online radio. Note that as of September 2021, Hydra no longer supports music from YouTube.
Hydra bot lets you create both queues and playlists and skip, voteskip, loop, move a song within a queue or to the top of the queue, shuffle, or replay songs. You can also look up lyrics or song information. Finally, the Hydra bot includes admin-only commands that let you announce what song is playing, change the set language, ban specific users from using the bot, limit how many times a song can be played, restrict Hydra to specific voice channels, and set who “DJs” the bot and controls the queue.
Hydra bot premium adds volume control, audio effects, 24/7 playback, and unlimited saved playlists. You can purchase Hydra premium for an individual user or for a server. User premium lets you use Hydra bot premium features in any server you’re a member of for $1.99/month. Hydra server premium includes the same features as user premium along with the ability to unlock all premium music bot features for a server of your choice. It costs $3.99/month.
Chip is the best free music bot on Discord. It includes the same normal commands as other music bots, letting users play songs from Vimeo, SoundCloud, Mixer, Twitch, and Bandcamp and create queues. You can skip, loop, shuffle, move, and replay songs in the queue. You can also fast forward to a specific part of a track. Chip can display lyrics for songs and can even create a .txt file listing all tracks on a queue.
Best of all, Chip includes audio control features for free! With Chip’s music bot, you can use bass boost, an equalizer, treble boost, vocal boost, and change the volume of a track. Finally, you can use Chip to listen to radio; the bot includes a list of 180 stations from around the world that you can select.
Chip does include premium features as well, though unlike other bots, all core features can be accessed for free. Chip premium costs $5/month and lets you use 24/7 mode, bypass vote locks (so you can change audio effects without the rest of the channel voting on it), and ignore command cooldowns (so you can use the same command over and over again).
3. Groovy (discontinued as of August 2021)
Update: Unfortunately, Groovy has been shut down by YouTube for violating its Terms of Service, as of August 30, 2021. Though the bot has not been deleted, Groovy will remain offline in all servers and unusable. We will be keeping the below information on Groovy in the article in case the bot ever comes back online. As for now, you cannot add Groovy to Discord or use the bot in your server.
Pre-Update:
Groovy is one of the most popular Discord music bots. There are a variety of Groovy bot commands that you can use. With the Groovy music bot, you can play songs through website links or file uploads or search for specific songs. You can also create a song queue. Within this queue, you can skip songs, go back to previous played songs, jump to a specific song, clear the queue, shuffle, or loop the queue or a specific track. Finally, you can look up the lyrics to a song with Groovy on Discord.
You can also pay for Discord Groovy bot premium to access more features such as volume control, audio effects, saved queues, and 24/7 playing. The premium Discord Groovy bot costs $3.99/month for one server.
4. Octave (currently offline)
Is Octave Bot Down?
Update: While Google has not forced Octave to shut down, the bot’s makers have kept the bot offline since October 2021. It is unclear if Octave will ever go back online.
Pre-Update:
Octave is another popular Discord music bot with both free and premium features. The Octave bot can play songs from YouTube and Soundcloud, form queues, and even create playlists that you can listen to again later. Within queues and playlists, you can skip songs, vote as a server to skip a song or not, jump to a song, and shuffle. There are also commands specific to playlists that let you create, delete, or edit them, list your playlists, or upload a playlist from another site. You can also look up the lyrics for your song.
Octave bot premium unlocks volume, filters, bass boost, unlimited custom playlists, and longer track lengths and queue sizes. For $5/month, you can get the above on one server along with 6 hour track lengths and 500 queue size. For $10/month, you can get Octave bot premium on two servers with 12 hour track lengths and an unlimited queue size.
MEE6 is a top Discord moderation bot, but did you know it can play music on Discord too? MEE6’s music bot is unique in that you can use a visual player on your dashboard to control your music. Instead of inputting MEE6 music commands in your server, simply hop onto your online dashboard to view your queue, manage playlists, and search for, play, and replay songs.
MEE6 music commands can also control volume, record voice channels, and play music 24/7. MEE6 supports music from SoundCloud and Twitch. The bot also includes a fun music quiz that lets you challenge your friends to see who can guess the song and artist from a clip the fastest.
MEE6’s free music bot allows for 50 music tracks in your queue and 3 music quizzes per day. The premium MEE6 bot expands this to 1,000 music tracks in your queue and an unlimited number of quizzes. You can purchase a lifetime plan for one server for a flat fee of $89.90. Or instead, you can buy a monthly plan for $11.95/month. You can also save money per month by purchasing a $49.99/year annual plan.
Which Discord Music Bot Should I Add to My Server?
The answer to this question will depend on what you need, as each Discord music bot includes unique features. Ultimately, you should choose a music bot that doesn’t integrate with YouTube as Google is threatening all Discord music bots that play YouTube songs and playlists.
MEE6 is the easiest music bot to use with its music dashboard, though you will need to pay to access it. Chip is the best free Discord music bot as it is the only one to provide audio effects for free. Hydra and Chip provide the widest selection of music platforms to stream from as well as radio. Specifically, Hydra’s Discord bot is the best Spotify Discord bot. Hydra also includes the best admin controls that let you decide who can use the bot and which channels it can access.
Will Other Discord Music Bots Be Shut Down?
Since Groovy was shut down by YouTube, many Discord users have been looking for an alternative music bot on Discord. Any of the above Discord music bots are a worthy alternative to Groovy. However, there are growing concerns that YouTube might force other music bots to go offline.
As of September 2021, popular music bot Rythm has also gone offline. Other Discord music bots that play music from YouTube on Discord may be considered in violation of YouTube’s Terms of Service and thus may also be shut down. We will keep this article up-to-date on any future news concerning the shut down of Discord music bots. In the meantime, the best way to avoid any issues with Google is to pick a Discord music bot that uses music from Spotify or another platform instead of YouTube.
How to Add a Music Bot to Discord
You can add a music bot to Discord the same way you would add any Discord bot. Simply find the bot on its website or a bot list like top.gg, invite it to your server, and authorize its commands. For more detailed instructions on how to add a music bot to Discord, watch the above video or check out our article How to Add Discord Bots.
Discover More Top Discord Bots
Do you want to learn about more of the best bots? Check out our bot lists for the best bots for businesses, best moderation bots, and the 10 best Discord bots for any server.