Update March 2023: Discord has recently cracked down on music bots like Hydra. As a result, Hydra has removed all music functionality.

Are your Discord voice chat channels a little too quiet? Feel like something’s missing at your virtual get-together? Maybe you just need to put on some music. In this article, we’ll look at the Hydra Discord music bot and how creators can use it to enliven chat rooms and boost community engagement.

What is Hydra?

Hydra is a Discord bot. There are many different bots available that add different functionality to your Discord server. Some bots give admins new moderation abilities, while others add mini-games that community members can play together. Hydra is a music bot. It’s one of a few different Discord bots that focus on bringing music to your Discord voice chat channels.

With Hydra, community members can queue up songs in a collaborative playlist. Hydra joins the chat and plays the playlist so that everyone in that channel can listen in together. Basically, Hydra is your server’s own private DJ, taking requests from the audience and keeping the vibe right.

Why use a music bot?

Adding a music bot like Hydra to your Discord server is a great way to keep people coming back to your community. A successful Discord server is one where people feel comfortable spending an entire evening hanging out and gaming or just chatting with friends. Music not only helps fill in any lulls in conversation, but it also keeps chatters connected. Everyone in the chat is listening to the same background music, and this enhances the sense that we are occupying the same space.

On top of that, music bots like Hydra help build friendships between community members as they trade favorite tracks. People love listening to music and sharing new finds with friends. These kinds of peer-to-peer relationships are what elevate your server from a fan forum to a true community.

Hydra also makes it possible to host scheduled listening parties for your community. This is especially well-suited to music-focused creators, but it can be a great way to build community regardless of the type of content you make.

Why use the Hydra bot?

While Hydra isn’t the only music bot out there, it does offer a few key features that make it stand out.

  • Web dashboard: Other bots often rely on cryptic text commands, but Hydra allows admins to change settings and permissions in an intuitive web dashboard. This makes it much easier to customize the bot to the needs of your community.
  • Dedicated song request channel: Like the web dashboard, Hydra’s dedicated song request channel puts the focus on usability. Hydra keeps this special channel clean and tidy, showing only a custom player module and the songs currently in queue. The player even has buttons for play/pause, skip, shuffle and more, so no one has to memorize the proper commands to use the bot.
  • More commands: For those who want lots of control over what gets played and who can queue songs, Hydra offers an extensive command list. With Hydra, you can configure everything from voice channel white lists to individual queuing permissions.
  • Extensive platform and language support: Hydra is multilingual, with support for more than 20 languages, making it a good choice for servers with an international community. Along with that, Hydra allows users to queue music from nearly every major music platform. That gives your community more flexibility when queuing both today’s hits and their favorite obscure remixes.
  • Reaction Roles: Hydra has existed as a music bot for a while now, but now the Hydra team has added a Reaction Roles feature that makes the bot even more functional. This option lets community members self-assign relevant roles, saving mods and admin a lot of time managing role requests. This feature isn’t unique to Hydra, but it’s a nice addition to an already-powerful music bot.

How to add the Hydra bot to your Discord server

Adding a bot to your Discord server is simple. First, you’ll need to find the invite link for the bot you want to use, either on a bot database like Top.gg or on the bot’s website. In this case, you’ll want to head to hydra.bot and use the invite button at the top of the page.

Clicking the invite link will open a new window where you’ll choose the appropriate server and grant the bot necessary permissions. Remember, this will only work if you have the Manage Server permission for the selected server.

After that, Hydra will join your Discord server, and you can start using the bot. Start by using the .setup command to set up the song request channel. Then, log in at hydra.bot to get access to the web dashboard.

Final thoughts

Hydra is a powerful bot that continues to expand its feature set. While it’s certainly not the only bot available, it’s an excellent, user-friendly choice for creators who want to share a more fun and inviting space with their community.