How to build a D&D soundboard
Which sounds belong on a button and which belong in the environment, how takes and the Level slider work, and why a board is built before the session.
Open the Boards screen, press + New board, and add sounds from the library on the right. Name each button for the moment rather than the recording — swing and a miss, not whoosh-3 — untick the takes you do not want, and set each button’s Level so none of them jumps out. Build it before the session, not during it.
Work out what belongs on a button
There is one test, and it decides most of this: can you say when it happens? A door opens because somebody opened it, so it is a button. Wind does not happen at a moment — it is just going on — so it belongs in the environment. Anything you would otherwise have to interrupt yourself to start is what a board is for.
Make the board and listen before you add
On the Boards screen press + New board and name it for the situation rather than the contents: Goblin Fight, The Manor, Chase. The library is on the right — filter it by family or type what you are after, and every sound has a ▶ so you hear it before you commit. The library holds the one-shot sounds and every random sound the environments use, so thunder, a wolf or a bell can be a button too.
Name the buttons for the moment, not the recording
The name on the button is yours and the sound underneath does not care. Mid-fight you want to read swing and a miss, not a filename, so write what the button is for. Each one also takes a note shown underneath — the place to put the thing you would otherwise forget: the warrens wake up, only once.
Tick loop for anything that should keep going
A board button plays once by default. Tick loop and it runs until you tap it again — which is what you want for a crowd, a fire or an alarm that has to keep sounding while people argue about it. Everything else is better left as a single hit; a loop you forget about is the usual reason a table asks you to turn the sound off.
Drop the takes you do not want
Plenty of sounds carry more than one recording. A button shows 3/3 takes; open it, listen to each one and untick the ones that are wrong for you. That button then only ever picks from the takes you kept, and it is per button — the same sound can use all of them on one board and only your favorite on another. It is the quickest way to make a built-in board sound like yours.
Level it before you need it
Under each button is a Level slider: 100% is the recording at its own loudness, below that the button sits back, above it the button pushes forward. Use it the moment one sound is plainly louder than its neighbors, and use the ▶ beside the row to hear the level you have set. Fixing this at the table means fixing it in front of everybody.
Load it in Play and leave it there
Load in Play jumps to the Play screen with the board in place. Load as many boards as the night needs — each panel has ▲▼ to reorder, ▾ to collapse it out of the way and ✕ to unload it. Then press + New scene, and the board comes back next week with the environment it belongs to.
What goes on a board and what goes in the environment?
The same recording can do either job. What decides it is whether you want to choose the moment.
| The sound | Where it goes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cave wind, rain, a tavern crowd | Environment, as a loop | It is going on the whole time. Nobody starts it. |
| Drips, distant thunder, a creak | Environment, as a random layer | It happens now and then, and it is better when you are not the one deciding. |
| A door, a sword, a scream, a spell | Board | It happens because somebody did it, on the beat you say. |
| An alarm bell, a chant, a mob | Board, with loop ticked | It starts at a moment and then keeps going until it stops mattering. |
How many buttons is too many?
Fewer than you will want to add. A board you have to read is a board you will not use — under pressure you can find a button you remember the position of, and you cannot find one of thirty. The built-in boards carry between four and seventeen buttons each, and the bigger ones are reference collections rather than things to run a fight from. Six to ten, named for moments you are fairly sure will happen, beats a complete catalog of a monster’s abilities.
If a board is getting long, that is usually two boards. Boards sit two across on a laptop and load independently, so splitting Goblin Fight into Goblins and Traps costs nothing and halves what you are scanning.
Can I edit the built-in boards?
Yes, directly — and it is the fastest way to get a board you like. 67 ship built in: six general ones (Alarms & Signals, Combat, Doors & Traps, Kitchen & Camp Cooking, Magic, Town & Village), one per class, and 48 for creatures. Change one and your version is saved to you under the same name with a Reset to original button beside it, so nothing is lost; Duplicate makes a separate copy instead when you want to keep the original as it ships. Pulling three buttons out of a built-in board is almost always quicker than building the same board from nothing.
Why does the same button sound different each time?
Because it is a different recording. A button with several takes picks one each time you press it, at a slightly different pitch, so ten hits in a fight do not sound like somebody playing a keyboard. Pressing it again before the last one has finished layers them, which is what you want for a flurry and not what you want for a door.
How do the three volumes fit together?
They multiply, and each one belongs to a different thing:
| Control | Where | What it belongs to |
|---|---|---|
| Level | Under each button | That one button, on that one board |
| Volume | Under the board’s title on the Play screen | The board, everywhere you load it |
| Master | The top bar | Everything, the environment included |
Which means a whole board can sit under a scene rather than on top of it: drop its Volume and every button on it comes down together, without touching the levels you set between them.
Do my players hear the levels I set?
Yes. If you are broadcasting, everyone listening hears the mix as you have it — the button’s Level, the board’s Volume and Master — including somebody who joins after a loop is already running. There is nothing to balance twice.
Next
Ready? Open Thaumaturgy — it is free, and there is nothing to install.
Updated 1 November 2026