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.