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

[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:

1. ...
2. 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+: "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:

1. follow Morgentaler's virtual audio cable install and Teamspeak configuration instructions in his video here:
2. follow Benjamin Loomes'
   instructions on combined with post #12 by on this thread
3. then set your audio device back to your original speakers
4. then (optionally) use SoundPad's new (beta) broadcast feature here

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:

1. PRO: This allows both Syrinscape and Tabletop Audio Soundpad to be used simultaneously;
2. 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;
3. CON: You wrestle with the above-mentioned Tabletop Audio Soundpad timeout issue (at least until the beta is improved);
4. 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.

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:

1. follow Morgentaler's virtual audio cable install and Teamspeak configuration instructions in his video here:
2. follow Benjamin Loomes'
   instructions on combined with post #12 by on this thread
3. 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.