I've had an idea for quite some time now and it seems as if I won't be able to do it myself, too much life and job and stuff

What I have in mind is a soundboard for our roleplaying sessions to create that great atmosphere matching the setting where you're playing. Oh, and this can also be used for writers too, or just when you need that fireplace sound to warm your winter soul

There are many soundboards out there, but frankly they are all pretty much crap

I'm thinking a HTML5-based "app" here on Radio Rivendell where you can trigger all sorts of background sounds and effects. Perhaps this could become a premium service for the forthcoming premium option. I would particularly want perhaps three different fireplace sounds, three different types of wind, perhaps volume and quick panning of where the sounds come from.

I've been looking into the javascript library SoundManager 2 and it looks pretty neat. http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/

Anybody out there to look into this project? You'd need PHP and Javascript knowledge.

I can give you rain.

http://www.mediafire.com/?xoeit3peei4d24h

Everything sounds better with rain. Try it with « E lucevan le stelle » .

I have wanted to create something along these lines for quite a while, but have never looked into what can be done in html5 and javascript. One thing I would be worried about, if you really wanted to go wild with dynamic atmosphere and effects is how well you would be able to mix sounds together and of course performance due to single-threaded javascript. Then again, if you keep things simple and don't have strict requirements I'm sure someone could create something that is worthy of rivendell Another possibility is to present the UI (with all the knobs and settings) but actually generate and stream the result to users. That might allow some additional options and flexibility that wouldn't be available via javascript, etc. Of course, this could be very taxing on resources and would need to be limited. A more limited option: perhaps a few dynamically generated streams could be defined and selected as desired for different scenes/scenarios by users. Not as customizable, but perhaps there would be a way for feedback via voting or something where people could essentially ask for "more cowbell" and the stream could be tweaked. For anyone interested in a local solution, there is an app called Atmosphere Deluxe that does a good job of creating background sounds and mixing them together. I tried it out and purchased it a few years ago and have used it regularly since then, often playing it together with radio rivendell! I typically dial up a few different rain samples, thunder, crackling fire, wind, etc. while I work or relax.

SoundManager 2 copes very well with multiple sounds, looped and single shot without troubles. So it should be sufficient I think it switches nice and easy between HTML5 and Flash if necessary. I'll post this on our other feeds as well to see if we can raise some interest

Ah yes, I didn't realize that it took advantage of Flash also, that would definitely add some capabilities to the mix. I may play around with it for my own amusement if I can find the time, but like Elrond, I can't currently commit to delivering on a project.

Excellent! Try it out, we can perhaps come up with something together all of us

I think I could do it easily in flash.

I'd love to get on using HTML5 and it then would be possible to use on an iPad och iPhone too. Even Adobe has ditched Flash now for mobile devices. Any ideas?

Posted by ElrondI'd love to get on using HTML5 and it then would be possible to use on an iPad och iPhone too. Even Adobe has ditched Flash now for mobile devices. Any ideas?

What do You mean? I see a lot of iPhone games on flash development blogs. I'm not really into mobile industry though. And as someone said, the JS framework uses flash, so it probably has exactly same compatibility issues.

As for HTML5 I know even less, but I wouldn't expect that all browsers, especially mobile versions support it fully. It's not even released yet (it's a beta), right?

Updated 18 July 2012 (12:43)

iOS and Android both support the audio and video tags. I think most libs tries to see if there is support for these new tags and falls back to Flash if it doesn't.

Posted by ElrondiOS and Android both support the audio and video tags. I think most libs tries to see if there is support for these new tags and falls back to Flash if it doesn't.

I don't know html5, but in old html when you were using audio/video tag you had no controll over it. You could autostart it, but you couldn't even stop it from Javascript as far as I remember. In flash there's more control, you can change volume for example, or read the stream. I'm not really into sound and video in flash yet, though

You can do all kinds of things to the audio and video tags now in HTML5. I haven't looked into it really, but you get all the things you need

I've started fiddling again with a soundboard for Rivendell, to be used when gaming, reading or writing etc. Does any of you use any good program for putting together sounds in your gaming sessions already? What are they, what makes them good and bad? What would you like to see in our own soundboard? This will be a premium service when it's finished, but it's way ahead in the future I have nothing to try out at the moment, but it should be able to view a crappy demo after the next update at least. Any thoughts and ideas?

Please keep it simple!!! Something like buttons for different sounds with the option of volume and loop. I don't thing it has to be complicated but I do believe there have to be a lot of sounds. If there were a lot of sounds I would go premium...

Yeah, I love simplicity too. I think maybe three different volume levels of each sound, and all environment sounds are always looped. And you just click to start and stop. How does that sound?

Perfect

Great! I'll start with that and we'll see how it plays out. I think this might be a fun service for the future premium account I'm planning. It would be great to be able to live on Rivendell