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New SoundPad: DM Tools
🕑 Added 2021-01-27 16:41:48 +0000 UTCEdit: I've replaced the attached backgrounds.zip file with an .ogg version as it supports looping better than .mp3. See the 1/28 post for more info. - Tim
Greetings Patrons,
The first SoundPad of 2021 is in the books.
I had this idea floating around for the better part of a year. I wanted to create a set of grab-and-go sounds for time crunched story tellers. To do this, I needed to create an extremely slimmed-down set of sounds that represented a decent cross section of the types of D&D stories we tell around the table.
DM Tools is divided into 3 sections:
Backgrounds:
I chose 8 iconic fantasy locations that would hopefully get the most use. Tavern, Village, City, Dungeon, Castle, Forest, Desert and Jungle.
Each of these sounds was created from sounds from their respective SoundPads, so that's where to go if you want to go deeper. These backgrounds are pre-baked loops that are designed for speed and easy access. They are the only sounds in DM Tools that loop.
Events:
The Events section are designed to be audio punctuation for your story. These can mimic real-world actions (dice rolls) or in-game actions like skill checks. They can also be used as audio clues for your players. Use Point of Interest a few times while announcing what it is, and after that, your players will know what that sound means. Ditto Secret Nearby.
Event sounds are all one-shots. None of them are looped or are frequency controllable as that wouldn't make sense anyway.
Moods:
Moods are musical tracks. They are short, one-shots in the style of film/tv cues. They are designed to be played as exposition for a scene. They are not musical beds, they are simply meant to establish the mood. Hence the name!
Unlike the other music tracks on SoundPads, every one of these tracks can actually be played on top of each other (but don't do that!). The reason is, that you can manually fade from one to another if you needed to. Each of these tracks is written in the same musical key, so you could, for instance, play the Mystery track and then punctuate it with Surprised. You might need to manually stop the first track, but none of them are too long. You should get the hang of it.
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I've attached higher quality versions of all 40 tracks below for patrons. (the 3 and 4 part sounds have been trimmed to just one single sound for convenience).
Thank you all, as always, for your continuing support.
Best,
Tim
Comments
Bart Heird
You are a hero, sir.
Tabletop Audio
Thanks Johnnie - I've done a few - you can search "SoundPad" from my patreon page which will limit the posts to just those. It's not perfect but Patreon hasn't come up with a digital locker or any such thing. I know I did ones for Vampire and Weirder Things off the top of my head. - Tim
Thanks so much for offering these sounds/music for offline use. I noticed some of the other Soundpads, you also offered downloadable files for the music. Such as Wuxia soundpad. Are all the other Soundpad musics downloadable somewhere on your site? And if so, is there an easy/organized way to get links for them?
Damien Holder
Love it!
Tabletop Audio
Such a thorough list, I feel badly by just answering yes. Although I'll add that using virtual audio cables like Voicemeeter Banana to combine voice and sfx have been used by a lot of people (not me) to good effect. The broadcast is essentially a clever workaround where we use a system designed for text communication and use the text as codes to trigger sounds on the other end. The issue lately has been that all these texting server companies are shutting down or going enterprise only. The latest version of broadcast is running on a small private server so hopefully protected for now.
Franck Florentin
I love it!
Pensive Primate
Just checking my perception of the state-of-play for remote DMs: There appear to be two intended use-modes: (1) Main TTA music - send link to players via chat. Players see link, and open TTA in a browser window, play the track (or tracks). Pro: the Main TTA music pieces are stupendously brilliant and are quite long, so they can be left looping for indeterminate periods of time. WIDE selection of moods and settings. Con: Players are very much in control and must change the music when new links are sent in chat. Players decide if music loops or not. (2) TTA Soundpad music - use the Broadcast feature. Players see link in chat, and open TTA in a browser window, playing the music. Pro: once started, the DM controls the music and can surprise the players, for a better player experience. Allows use for incidental music as well as background music. Con: Some setup required, and the saving mechanism sometimes gets erased by browsers. With the greater control, there is more cognitive drain on the busy DM. Also, the Main TTA music pieces are not available here. The newest Soundpad "DM Tools" appears to compromise between these by offering a solid selection of general purpose background loops and sounds, all ready to go. The loops are short but well designed -- although obviously looping, the loop is very smooth. Both modes have the tremendous advantage of NOT transporting the music over your main comms app (Discord or Zoom or whatever). From a bandwidth standpoint, this is way better than making the music part of the DMs audio channel, constantly transmitting. Also, players can control this volume independantly (using browser plugins). I'm assuming the reason Main TTA tracks are not available in Soundpads is their size! Holding gigantic sound samples is not the way Soundpad works. Do I have all that right?
urpwnd
Umm... this is an awesome idea! Can't wait to try this out in the next session!
Myron Dietz
Well done! I like the short moods. They work well especially when doing games online where you don't want to clog the audio channel.
Austin Ballard
What a great idea! This will really make it easier when the setting isn't set in stone. I love all the little fanfares and music cues. My only wishes are that instead of Jungle there was a Water one for being near a river, a seashore, or even possibly sailing, and that there was a miscellaneous looping Battle Music track. If you added those things, I think this would be perfect.
