A soundboard for PC that you play from the keyboard
A soundboard on a PC is only useful if you can reach it mid-game, mid-meeting or mid-stream without alt-tabbing to a window full of buttons. Keyboard Soundboard listens for hotkeys system-wide, so a clip plays the instant you press its key, whatever program has focus.
The window is laid out like a hardware sampler: 16 pads per bank and four banks, A to D, for 64 sounds in total. Each pad shows its name, its key and a light that flashes while it plays. Clicking a pad auditions it, so you can check a clip before you ever bind it.
Assigned keys are not swallowed. The app only listens, which means a key keeps doing its normal job in your game or editor as well as triggering the sound, so pick keys and combinations you do not otherwise use.
How to make a soundboard with your own sounds
Setting up a pad takes three steps:
- Drag an MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, WMA or FLAC file onto an empty pad, or load one from the file dialog. The file name becomes the pad name, with dashes and underscores turned into spaces, and you can rename it in the Pad name box.
- Click the key label under the pad, then press the key that should fire it. Plain keys and combinations with Ctrl, Alt, Shift or Win all work, and matching is exact, so 1, Ctrl+1 and Alt+1 can trigger three different clips.
- Choose what happens under When pressed, and set the pad's level with its own slider.
Layer, Cut or Toggle: hotkey soundboard playback modes
Every pad has one of three behaviors. Layer plays over anything already sounding, for quick stingers and reactions. Cut silences every other sound first, which suits a dramatic entrance or a hard scene change. Toggle starts the clip on the first press and stops it on the second, the right choice for background music or a long ambience loop.
Holding a key down plays its clip once rather than retriggering on key repeat. The Stop all sounds key, Pause by default and changeable in Settings, kills every pad at once from any app. The master level at the bottom of the window scales the whole board.
A catch-all pad for every unassigned key
Tick Any key on a pad and it plays for every key that has no pad of its own. Turn the keyboard into a sound-effect machine for a party game, or bind one soft click so each keystroke you make outside your hotkeys gives audible feedback. Keys that do have their own pad still play only their own sound, and the stop key never triggers anything.
Running in the background from the notification area
Closing the window leaves the board armed in the notification area, ready for the next press. Turn on Start with Windows and it launches straight there at sign-in; Start in the notification area does the same when you open it yourself. The Keys play sounds switch hands every key back to normal when you need to type in peace, while the pads stay clickable.
If you want visual confirmation, Flash when a key plays a pad blinks a small magenta square in the bottom-right corner of the screen your pointer is on, without taking focus from the app you are in.
