I work on a lot of community theatre productions, so I know that the soundboard operator seldom gets any glory. If he’s lucky, the cast knows him as “the sound guy”; if not, it’s “who’s that?” But a little application called Soundboard is out to change all that. Soundboard makes it easy to create and play back complex sound cues for theatre and dance performances.

Free Virtual Audio Board For Studio Sound Machines
Free Virtual Audio Board For Studio Sound Machine

Free Virtual Audio Board For Studio Sound Machines

Soundboard lets you build the elements of playing a sound cue (playing a sound, fading a level, pausing a track, stopping a track) into sequences that you can activate at the push of a button. Since you can develop the logic and timing of the cues in advance, you can create cue sequences that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to play back manually.

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Developer Tony Tambasco says Soundboard has a long way to go before it can match the features of commercial alternatives QLab on the Mac and Show Control on Windows, but unlike those programs it’s cross-platform, so you can develop your sound cues in one environment, then export them to whatever environment a venue has handy for playback with little more than copy and paste.

It’s also free, both as in freedom and beer. Budgets tend to be tight in the theatre world, and many theatres have substandard playback equipment. “Using Soundboard means you don’t have to compromise the integrity of your designs because the only thing you have available for playback is a home stereo someone donated 10 years ago,” Tambasco says.

Building a show with Soundboard is simple, and playing it back is even simpler. Tambasco says you can teach people the mechanics of playing back a design in 10 minutes, and in an hour you can teach them everything they need to know to build their own designs. This means that the kind of theatres I work in, which rely on volunteers, don’t need to find an expert sound tech to play elegant designs.

The Weathervane Playhouse in Newark, Ohio, is using Soundboard right now for its production of Alice in Wonderland. “That show has more sound cues than any other they’re doing this summer,” Tambasco says, “because they are using digitally orchestrated music. QLab wasn’t an option because the sound designer doesn’t have a Mac, there wasn’t any budget for Show Control, and he wanted to design something more complex than he would be able to play back without something designed for theatrical cueing. Working with Weathervane actually been very good for both of us, because the designer uncovered a lot of bugs that needed fixing right away, and had some great ideas for new features. Those are all available in the latest version, which we released last week; Weathervane’s beta test has moved the project ahead by leaps and bounds.

“Actually, Weathervane’s circumstances this year were the same as those that inspired me to get the project together last year: the board op for a show I was designing was running Linux, and there was no software (free or otherwise) that would do the trick.

Free Virtual Audio Board For Studio Sound Machine

“I joined the project a couple years ago because I thought it was a good idea. The original author had little interest in bringing it to fruition, so I asked him to give it to me and he did. I’ve been working on it for the past year or so. Having SourceForge’s Subversion repository is wonderful, and being able to manage all of my data relevant to the project in one place makes it so much easier to keep track of the bug reports and feature requests I get via e-mail.”

Because he wanted Soundboard to be cross-platform, Tambasco coded it in Java. “NetBeans seemed like the best fit for a development environment; that’s been my primary development tool. I’ve used a lot of Free Software libraries to help me along. I made the project open source because I wanted to give something back to the community, and because I’m a far cry from the best programmer on the planet. It just makes sense to me to share my code with the world in the hopes that someone better will spot any mistakes and help me correct them.”

Tambasco says future releases will include support for more audio formats, stereo pan control, and improved functionality for working with cues in rehearsals, as well as bug fixes. “I’ve got a nasty main thread locking issue I’m having a hard time troubleshooting at the moment, and Soundboard could really benefit from someone more experiences than I with Java Threads taking a look. Also, anyone with experience developing GUIs or sound in Java would be a big help. The best way for anyone interested in helping is to shoot me an e-mail.”

Recording Studio is a multitouch sequencer for Windows devices. Designed for quick and simple operation, Recording Studio makes recording, editing and mixing a breeze. Recording Studio is the perfect way to create great sounding music productions. With this free version you can record up to 4 tracks (32 tracks with the Pro version) by choosing between audio recordings or by using the instruments Grand Piano, Drums, Classical Guitar. The virtual instrument tracks can be recorded using the multitouch keyboards optimized for high performance and responsive touch or using the computer keyboard and mouse. The audio tracks can be recorded using the built-in microphone, by connecting an external microphone or using a USB audio interface. After recording your tracks, you may want to edit them in the integrated sample editor (copy/paste, split, loop, fader, reverb). Now you can import mp3,wma and wav audio files from your hard drive. Recording studio is constantly being updated and continually improved with new features. Video Tutorials https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxTyr7hsgCLsSG1HD5jgUZQ