tableopaudio.com - Free background music/ambiance for your gaming

[Trenloe]

I've just been voting on the Ennie awards and I come across this website (it's nominated for Best Website): https://tabletopaudio.com

There are currently 47 x 10 minute ambiance/background music made for RPGs. I'll definitely be using some of these in my FG games...

[darrenan]

How do you pipe an extra sound channel into mumble and/or TS?

[jshauber]

Currently for TS you have to have a second computer that plays the music, at least that is what I have been told a multitude of times.

I am looking into a different VOIP that says you can run multiple channels from one computer but had a busy weekend so didn't get a chance to try it out. If/When I get it to work I will post full details for all.

[Trenloe]

There are a number of options. TeamSpeak3 has some music plugins that allow music to be played through a TeamSpeak3 client (the same one the GM is using). This will work fine, but will require the GM to fine tune the volume of the music so everyone can hear the speakers over the music.

I usually run a TeamSpeak3 client on an additional PC (an old laptop). This creates an additional "person" in the TeamSpeak3 channel and so individual users can adjust the volume of the music to their satisfaction. I find this the most flexible, but it of course requires an additional PC or running a VM on the GM PC.

Another option is for the GM to run their voice TS on a tablet/smartphone (connected to local WiFi if available) and use that for voice. Then they could run a TS client on their PC for the music/sound effects.

Yet another options is you can run 2 TS clients on your PC. You need to add a command line option to the shortcut used to launch the TS client: -nosingleinstance to allow you to run more than one TS client on the same PC. You will need to setup an additional identity (Settings -> Identities) otherwise you will get a "Maximum number of connections with the same identity exceeded" error when connecting. You will also need to add a new Profile for capture and playback under Settings -> Options -> Playback/Capture. Then when you connect to the TS server on the "Connect" window click the "More" button and select your identity, Capture Profile and Playback Profile. You'll have to do some fine tuning with the capture and playback settings and usually mute the playback settings for the Music/SFX channel.

UPDATE: It appears that the TeamSpeak client will now support multiple profiles via tabs of the same TS client.

[darrenan]

Thanks for the info. I'll see if I can get something up and running for our Tuesday session.

[bdf1992]

Thought this site and music was pretty cool and under a Creative Commons 4.0 License so I went ahead and downloaded them so I could stream them to players without having to use the website.

Since I can share them however I want ahead and packaged them up for everyone.

https://www.mediafire.com/download/kqd5o8cwhf5qvfx/Music.zip

For playing to other people you can either play over your voip, or if you would rather you can stream it.

I use Open Broadcaster Software ( https://obsproject.com/ ) in conjunction with something like Twitch ( https://www.twitch.tv/ ), however there are tons of alternate streaming methods.

[Bidmaron]

This needs to be moved to the Foundry threads so others can find it (or stickied or something), along with the syrinscape information (I subscribed to that great product).

[Trenloe]

This needs to be moved to the Foundry threads so others can find it (or stickied or something), along with the syrinscape information (I subscribed to that great product).
The Foundry is for "Discussion about the Open Foundation Ruleset project", so that is the wrong thread.

This is currently in the commons which is for "Non-Fantasy Grounds related discussion about gaming." It is vaguely related to Fantasy Grounds as it is a web page of use to gaming with Fantasy Grounds, but the commons is probably the most appropriate thread as all of the other threads are specific to Fantasy Grounds.

I don't think an individual thread like this should be stickied as it would be too easy to end up with many stick threads and then stickies lose their value. If someone puts together a single thread that refers to audio apps/sources that could be of use in FG gaming and other related threads then that should be stickied.

[Bidmaron]

I meant the Armory, sorry. Why not add at the top a 'Misc playing aids' and put these in there? Good source material like this fades away on this forum all the time. At least in the Armory it would take a lot longer to trickle away.

[Trenloe]

I meant the Armory, sorry. Why not add at the top a 'Misc playing aids' and put these in there? Good source material like this fades away on this forum all the time. At least in the Armory it would take a lot longer to trickle away.
The armory is "A board for campaigns, modules, rulesets, maps, tokens and other community creations." - specifically community creations for use in Fantasy Grounds. Adding tabletopaudio.com, Syrinscape, "Misc playing aids", etc. to the armory is not the right place as these are not Fantasy Grounds community creations.

If someone puts together a single thread that refers to audio apps/sources and other related threads that could be of use in general gaming as well as FG gaming then I can sticky that thread in The Commons forum (where it should be).

[darrenan]

I usually run a TeamSpeak3 client on an additional PC (an old laptop). This creates an additional "person" in the TeamSpeak3 channel and so individual users can adjust the volume of the music to their satisfaction. I find this the most flexible, but it of course requires an additional PC or running a VM on the GM PC.

I am trying doing this, using Stereo Mix on the second PC (in this case, my Surface Pro 3) to play through TS. The problem is that now I have two PCs playing the same mix through their speakers, slightly out of sync. Turning the volume down on the second PC also controls the mix that goes to TS. I wasn't able to figure out any way to be playing sounds on the second PC and have those go through Stereo Mix/TS, but also not actually be playing through the speakers on the second PC.

To solve this, I just muted the background sounds client in TS on my primary PC. This still gives the other players ultimate control over the background sounds mix, and I'm ok with that setup, even though it doesn't allow me to hear exactly what they are hearing, as I'm hearing the background sounds being played by the secondary PC.

[Morgentaler]

Hey Darrenan if you want help setting it up. Also you don't need to run a VM..you can run an additional teamspeak client and use a virtual audio cable.

[Trenloe]

Virtual Audio Cable is a good solution, I use it, but it costs $25.

@ darrrenan: If you're prepared to have a little bit of audio coming from Surface Pro, you can probably get it working OK with Stereo Mix with some additional settings:

Right-click on Stereo Mix and select Properties. Go to the "Levels" tab and set the level to 100.
In Teamspeak, go to Settings -> Options -> Capture, select "Continuous Transmission" and click "Begin Test". Adjust the volume coming from the PC (via the app or via Windows Volume Mixer) until the level looks OK.
Connect to TeamSpeak with both of your TS instances and see if the primary instance (the one not playing the music/SFX) hears the music OK. Adjust the playback volume on the music/SFX PC as desired.

As mentioned above, this will still result in some music/SFX coming from the Surface Pro, but hopefully you can get it at a level that is OK for you locally. If not, then VAC is probably a good solution for you.

[darrenan]

I was able to strike a decent balance I think. I'll try it out tonight with other people in the channel and see how it works.

[Morgentaler]

@Trenloe there are free VACS out there that work just fine. Took a bit of fiddling and creative thinking to get everything to work. But it does. Now if i could get tabletopaudio to run localy that would be great :P

[Trenloe]

@Trenloe there are free VACS out there that work just fine.
Could you link some please so that other people can try them? Thanks.

[Morgentaler]

Making a video tutorial as this is a hot topic aparently

[Andraax]

I wasn't able to figure out any way to be playing sounds on the second PC and have those go through Stereo Mix/TS, but also not actually be playing through the speakers on the second PC.

Remove the playback device from the TS configuration on the second PC. No playback device, no sounds. I have my TS setup with an identity for "SoundBot", and I have book marks setup for that identity with the "playback profile" set to "none" so when I connect with that book mark, it turns off the speakers for any sounds coming from that instance. I run two instances on one computer, rather than using two computers...

[Trenloe]

Remove the playback device from the TS configuration on the second PC. No playback device, no sounds.
That blocks the playback sound from the second TS instance. The problem darrenan is having is that to play music/sound through the Windows Stereo Mix the sound card on the PC has to be playing something - so you have to be actually hearing something play from the computer to be able to have the "Stereo Mix" pick it up.

[Andraax]

I'm using VoiceMeeter Banana to have multiple output / input devices. You can setup device to use as your playback that does not include actual speakers, and then use this device as the input to TS.

[LordEntrails]

Making a video tutorial as this is a hot topic aparently

By chance is this ready yet? Been wanting to add audio for awhile, but haven't jumped in yet.

Also, LMoP Echo Cave has a specific sound background in the description. Has anyone found a wave sound and a wave to setup so it goes off every 2 minutes? Would LOVE to do this when my party gets to the cave in a week or two!

[Andraax]

There are several listed here (https://www.ambient-mixer.com/s/wave+echo+cave).

[Morgentaler]

Here's the video hope it helps!

https://youtu.be/NZ3XhyZ1f5U

[Craw]

Morgentaler, doesn't this method send ALL of your machine's audio to Teamspeak? Is there a way to send just the browser's audio to the VAC? Tabletop Audio's ambiance files can be played through win amp or Scene Sound or similar apps and sent to the VAC (and on to TS), but the Soundpad (which is truly epic) is resident only on the web.

[Craw]

Could you link some please so that other people can try them? Thanks.

https://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Cable/index.htm

This links to the free virtual audio cable by the guys who make Voice Meeter Banana.

[Morgentaler]

Morgentaler, doesn't this method send ALL of your machine's audio to Teamspeak? Is there a way to send just the browser's audio to the VAC? Tabletop Audio's ambiance files can be played through win amp or Scene Sound or similar apps and sent to the VAC (and on to TS), but the Soundpad (which is truly epic) is resident only on the web.

Sadly no I haven't figured out how to single out only the browser. But if you were to set up your own soundboard the method would work.

[Honken]

Sorry I am late to this discussion. I myself prefer to choose my own music, and therefore use Ambient-mixer.com/ (https://www.ambient-mixer.com/) for ambience.

/H

[Trenloe]

Is there a way to send just the browser's audio to the VAC?
If you're using Windows, before you start your browser set the default audio to the VAC input. Start the browser and play some music/SFX. Then, keeping the browser open, change the Windows default audio device back to what you want for usual audio. It's a bit of a pain that you have go through this each time, keeping the browser open will help.

[Craw]

Good to know. I poked around a little (for four hours -- time is distorted when you go down the rabbit hole of tech discussions on the internet) and found CheVolume. It can send Google Chrome's output to any audio device. Firefox and IE are not currently supported, though the website claims they are working on it. I downloaded the free trial and played with it a bit and got it to work. It's a little clunky and the full license is $20. I think I'll stick with Trenloe's suggestion as long as I have just the one web source I want to send to TS.

[Hector Trelane]

Sadly no I haven't figured out how to single out only the browser. But if you were to set up your own soundboard the method would work.


If you're using Windows, before you start your browser set the default audio to the VAC input. Start the browser and play some music/SFX. Then, keeping the browser open, change the Windows default audio device back to what you want for usual audio. It's a bit of a pain that you have go through this each time, keeping the browser open will help.

A problem I encounter with this set up is reduced audio quality of the sound being piped through the Virtual Audio Cable to Teamspeak to the speakers heard by both the GM and players. I'm not sure why, and I haven't had a tone of time to experiment with Teamspeak configuration settings to see if it can be solved there. (Any advice from others? Experience on this front would be most helpful.)

In the meantime, I think I've figured out a partial improvement by taking a hybrid of all the advice on this thread, combined with post #12 by Benjamin Loomes on this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21290-Background-music-sound-effects-app-now-has-Paizo-Rise-of-the-Runelords-support/page2&highlight=audio):

follow Morgentaler's virtual audio cable install and Teamspeak configuration instructions in his video here (https://youtu.be/NZ3XhyZ1f5U):
follow Benjamin Loomes'
instructions on combined with post #12 by on this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21290-Background-music-sound-effects-app-now-has-Paizo-Rise-of-the-Runelords-support/page2&highlight=audio)
then set your audio device back to your original speakers
then (optionally) use SoundPad's new (beta) broadcast feature here (https://tabletopaudio.com/soundpad.html)


This allows the GM to broadcast voice plus Syrinscape sounds via the Teamspeak/Virtual Audiocable set up AND to broadcast Tabletop Audio Soundpad directly via its new Broadcast feature (which is great but sometimes buggy in that the connection between the GM broadcast and the Player receiving it seems to drop or time out fairly quickly, requiring the GM to generate a new broadcast link, share it, and have the players refresh). The pro's and con's of this set up:

PRO: This allows both Syrinscape and Tabletop Audio Soundpad to be used simultaneously;
PRO: It allows the Tabletop Audio Soundpad to be heard in higher quality by both the GM (since the audio device was switched back to default local speakers) and players (since their sound is not going through the Virtual Audio Cable and Teamspeak), but pulled directly from Tabletop Audio's server via their own browser;
CON: You wrestle with the above-mentioned Tabletop Audio Soundpad timeout issue (at least until the beta is improved);
CON: You cannot use this configuration to broadcast either Tabletop Audio Ambiences looping 10 minute sound files or the Ambient Mixer sounds on this site (https://www.ambient-mixer.com/).


NOTE: If you want to do #4 above, you have to change your default sound device back to the Virtual Audio Cable Input, which then results in a audio quality loss for both players and the GM.


All in all, there's far more positive than negative here. But I'm a stickler for sound quality, so I'm hoping address that audio quality loss issue. If I can work that out, I'll edit this post.

EDIT: See updated instructions in post #32 here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21678-tableopaudio-com-Free-background-music-ambiance-for-your-gaming&p=319569&viewfull=1#post319569).

[Hector Trelane]

This allows the GM to ... broadcast Tabletop Audio Soundpad directly via its new Broadcast feature (which is great but sometimes buggy in that the connection between the GM broadcast and the Player receiving it seems to drop or time out fairly quickly, requiring the GM to generate a new broadcast link, share it, and have the players refresh). The pro's and con's of this set up:


... CON: You wrestle with the above-mentioned Tabletop Audio Soundpad timeout issue (at least until the beta is improved);
...



I just received a tip to address this issue from Tabletop Audio via Google+ (https://plus.google.com/+Tabletopaudio/posts/byXjvEke6rr): "You can keep the connection alive by moving a volume slider on the broadcasting SoundPad. This should reset the counter."

So the implication is that it's merely a timeout issue, and the GM can address this with periodic activity on the page with the broadcasting instance of SoundPad.

[Hector Trelane]

Responding to my own post with updates:


A problem I encounter with this set up is reduced audio quality of the sound being piped through the Virtual Audio Cable to Teamspeak to the speakers heard by both the GM and players. I'm not sure why, and I haven't had a tone of time to experiment with Teamspeak configuration settings to see if it can be solved there. (Any advice from others? Experience on this front would be most helpful.)

The fix to the Teamspeak reduced audio quality issue is to set the Codec for the Teamspeak channel you're using to "Opus Music" [on the FG server Quality = 10 (estimated bitrate: 11.87 KiB/s); on a private server 8.35 KiB/s seems sufficient] rather than "Opus Voice" [Quality = 6 (estimated bitrate: 5.71 KiB/s)]. You have to have Administrator rights to make this change (right click on the Teamspeak channel > Edit Channel > Audio tab > Presets menu (left side) > select Music). As of Teamspeak version 3.1.0.1, a music note icon appears next to the name of those Teamspeak channels that have their Quality set to Music.


In the meantime, I think I've figured out a partial improvement by taking a hybrid of all the advice on this thread, combined with post #12 by Benjamin Loomes on this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21290-Background-music-sound-effects-app-now-has-Paizo-Rise-of-the-Runelords-support/page2&highlight=audio):

follow Morgentaler's virtual audio cable install and Teamspeak configuration instructions in his video here (https://youtu.be/NZ3XhyZ1f5U):
follow Benjamin Loomes'
instructions on combined with post #12 by on this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21290-Background-music-sound-effects-app-now-has-Paizo-Rise-of-the-Runelords-support/page2&highlight=audio)
then set your audio device back to your original speakers
then (optionally) use SoundPad's new (beta) broadcast feature here (https://tabletopaudio.com/soundpad.html)


This allows the GM to broadcast voice plus Syrinscape sounds via the Teamspeak/Virtual Audiocable set up AND to broadcast Tabletop Audio Soundpad directly via its new Broadcast feature (which is great but sometimes buggy in that the connection between the GM broadcast and the Player receiving it seems to drop or time out fairly quickly, requiring the GM to generate a new broadcast link, share it, and have the players refresh). The pro's and con's of this set up:

PRO: This allows both Syrinscape and Tabletop Audio Soundpad to be used simultaneously;
PRO: It allows the Tabletop Audio Soundpad to be heard in higher quality by both the GM (since the audio device was switched back to default local speakers) and players (since their sound is not going through the Virtual Audio Cable and Teamspeak), but pulled directly from Tabletop Audio's server via their own browser;
CON: You wrestle with the above-mentioned Tabletop Audio Soundpad timeout issue (at least until the beta is improved);
CON: You cannot use this configuration to broadcast either Tabletop Audio Ambiences looping 10 minute sound files or the Ambient Mixer sounds on this site (https://www.ambient-mixer.com/).


NOTE: If you want to do #4 above, you have to change your default sound device back to the Virtual Audio Cable Input, which then results in a audio quality loss for both players and the GM.


All in all, there's far more positive than negative here. But I'm a stickler for sound quality, so I'm hoping address that audio quality loss issue. If I can work that out, I'll edit this post.

Assuming you have access to a Music-quality Teamspeak channel, I'd modify the instructions above to the following:

follow Morgentaler's virtual audio cable install and Teamspeak configuration instructions in his video here (https://youtu.be/NZ3XhyZ1f5U):
follow Benjamin Loomes'
instructions on combined with post #12 by on this thread (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21290-Background-music-sound-effects-app-now-has-Paizo-Rise-of-the-Runelords-support/page2&highlight=audio)
join a Teamspeak channel set to Music quality (or Edit the channel to set it to music quality, if you have permissions).


This allows the GM to broadcast and hear high-quality voice, Syrinscape sound, Tabletop Audio sound, YouTube, MP3s, or any other via the Teamspeak/Virtual Audiocable set up. Much better.

[damned]

The ts.fg-con.com server allows you to select Opus Music quality 10 on your own channels.

[Trenloe]

Yep, the person who created the channel becomes channel admin when they are in that channel and can change the codec used.

[Hector Trelane]

The ts.fg-con.com server allows you to select Opus Music quality 10 on your own channels.

That's very generous of The Teamspeak server admin (which I think is you). ;)


Yep, the person who created the channel becomes channel admin when they are in that channel and can change the codec used.

You anticipated my next question. I'll try this out.

[Ken L]

That's very generous of The Teamspeak server admin (which I think is you). ;)

Yea, props to Damned. I went ahead a loaded a mumble-server on my existing webserver so I'd stop leeching bandwidth.
I'd be a bit careful if this catches some traction as it would tax a public server at some point.

[damned]

The server has plenty of bandwidth - even at its highest quality is still pretty lean. Even during FGCon or the recent ALCon the server didnt record any substantial load.