Version Reviewed: Beta V0.2 Release 52
Website: http://softrope.net/
Price: Free

Softrope is yet another sound effects program geared towards use in tabletop roleplaying games. It was first released over seven months ago, but somehow I had not run across it until very recently. When I went to the website, I was impressed by the clean, simple of the look of the interface. A truly versatile program lies behind the unassuming exterior.

Pros

- Clean, button-centric interface
- Usage is very intuitive
- Decent level of programability

Cons

- No volume controls on main screen
- Bugs
- Lack of keyboard triggering

Once configured, Softrope’s layout is fairly intuitive.  The main interface is laid out like a soundboard. Each button is called a scene. A scene is a group of sounds you want to play together. The buttons are large enough to click while you are running a game. One click triggers the scene and a second click disables it. A highlight appears around active scenes so you know which ones are playing at a glance. You can even put a picture on the button. There are a couple knobs in the upper right hand corner that seem to control echo and some other value between 0 and 3000.

Nothing in life is free. While Softrope is freely downloadable, you will end up spending some time tinkering around with the program to figure out how it works. There is no documentation and the mouse over pop ups aren’t always helpful. For example, mousing over the unlabeled echo knob only shows the value.

The Scene Editor is easy to use. Each blue bar is a set of sounds you would like to play. Softrope calls them sound effects. Think of it as a layer. You can add multiple sound effects in a single scene and apply different settings to each one. You can loop and sequentially play sound files. The volume levels can be manipulated on each sound and sound effect so you can really make sure your levels sound okay.

However, not everything is rainbows and leprechauns in the land of Softrope.  There are a few missing features and significant bugs with the beta build I reviewed. The author of the program seems to be very active and communicative with users so I expect these issues will be resolved soon.

The biggest feature missing is a main volume control. When I run a game, I control my music playlists with Windows Media Player and run my sound effects program next to it. Depending on the action in the game, I raise and lower the volume of the music or sound effects. Since there is no master volume slider in Softrope, I have to go into each scene with the Scene Editor to change the scene master slider. This really limits the usefulness of the program.

There seem to be significant bugs in the build I used. If you loop a sound effect and change the random loop time sliders, the scenes work fine. If you save your scene, exit the program and try to load it again, all your loop timers go away. For some reason, my pictures were not loading either. But they did load for a module I created with an earlier version of the software. I’m sure the author will fix these issues, but this defect is bad enough to make the program unusable for all but the simplest purposes.

One nice to have feature would be a way to trigger sounds with the keyboard. Even though the buttons are easy to click and see, the flow of the program requires you to stop and start different scenes if you are trying to play a sequence of scenes that are tied to your narrative. It would be much easier to tap a key on my keyboard. My final issue is with the lack of documentation. The program is mostly straightforward, but there are a few things, like the mysterious knob on the main screen, that have no mouse over hints.

Softrope
OS Support
Supports 32 and 64bit Windows Operating Systems only.
Programability
Softrope has just enough fiddly knobs to allow the creation of complex sounding audio.
Usability
Softrope's great execution is marred by the lack of a master volume control and major bugs.
Overall
I am very excited about this sound mixer and look forward to reviewing future releases. Softrope's look and functionality are wonderful. Unfortunately, the execution is marred by the lack of master volume control and show-stopping bugs.

Version Reviewed: 1.5 build 1020 32bit
Website: http://scenesound.cyclobster.com/
Price: Free

I recently became aware of SceneSound when it was a featured on EN World. SceneSound is a new sound effects application specifically built for use in tabletop gaming. I’m always looking for new tools to complement my multimedia-heavy gamemastering style. The website was spartan, but I was intrigued enough by the screenshots to register an account and take this little sound program for a spin.

Pros

- Simple interface
- Scripting interface is easy to understand
- 32bit and 64bit Windows support

Cons

- Short on features
- Inconsistent interface
- No instructions at all

Upon launching SceneSound, I was immediately impressed by the simple interface. There’s no digging through layers of menus and dialogue boxes here. What you see is what you get when you launch the application.

The window is divided into five sections; Library, Environmental FX, Random FX, Sound FX and Scene Scripts. The Library pane allows you to load sound files on your computer. If you are like me, you have probably built up an extensive library of sound effects. The Library section will automatically import all the subdirectories of  any directory you add here. Once added, you can drag and drop sound files onto other panes to quickly load them.

The Environmental FX pane is where you put your background sounds. Click the circular loop button and your sound will loop endlessly. The Random FX pane will play a single sound at a random interval of all the sounds in the pane. Drag the sounds you want to trigger manually to the Sound FX pane.

If you right-click any sound, you can set a trigger key to make the sound play. It’s useful during the game to be able to just tap a key to play a sound rather than have to make sure you click in the right place. When I run combats, I often have a few sounds mapped to the keyboard, such as the sound of a person screaming or a dragon breathing fire. A well-timed sound effect can add humor or tension to your encounters.

The Scene Script pane is dead simple. For many people,  this is probably a plus. For me, its a bit thin. I like to program my sounds the night before the game and I make heavy use of RPG SoundMixer’s scripting and section features. The scripting interface in SceneSound doesn’t even support all the features in SceneSound, such as enabling and disabling the playing of random sounds. However, if you are building a single scene and have no programming experience, you may be happy with the scripting interface.

For me, the program is too simple. I’m not trying in any way to discourage the author. It’s a great start and a nice price (free), but I want more features and more configurability. One thing I would like to see is a simple way to load and trigger multiple scenes. If you want to create scenes for different encounters, you have to save each scene to a different file and manually load each one when your scene changes. For the harried DM trying to set a mood, this is a bit cumbersome. I’d really like to see a Scenes pane that lets you switch scenes with a click or key.

There are also a few inconsistencies in the interface. In most of the windows, you click the drop-down arrow in each pane to access a menu. The Scene Script pane has an arrow, but it doesn’t appear to do anything. I finally right-clicked the pane and discovered a menu where I could add a new script.

My last gripe is with the lack of documentation. The application is so simple that its use is mostly obvious, but there are a few mysterious buttons.  There is a small icon on each sound that looks a bit like a cell phone. I have to idea what it does. No instructions are included on the site. There’s not even a pop-up when you hover over the “cell phone” to give you an idea of its purpose. It seems like it wouldn’t take long to create decent documentation since the feature set is so small.

SceneSound
OS Support
Supports 32 and 64bit Windows Operating Systems only.
Programability
Scene Script has a very simplistic scripting interface. I prefer something with more meat but at least it has a scripting interface.
Usability
SceneSound is easy to learn, but at the cost of features.
Overall
If you want simple soundscapes and don't mind having to manually open and close your scenes, you will love this program.