Help

Scenes

The first scene starts by itself when you begin. Press a scene to make it the music. Only one scene plays at a time, and switching crossfades. Returning to a scene picks up where it left off.

To pause, press the playing scene again or turn its dial all the way down. Press it again, or turn the dial back up, and it resumes where it stopped.

The dial sets intensity. Four bands, each with its own playlist of about two hours; crossing a band blends into that band's playlist over a few seconds. In a mystery or horror scene a higher band is more suspenseful, not louder or faster; in Combat and Chase it is more action. Each playlist carries on from where you left it, so a long session doesn't hear the same piece twice. The dial also nudges volume, from 20% quieter at the bottom to 20% louder at the top. You can set a dial before you switch to that scene. On a phone, swipe sideways across a dial to turn it; swiping up or down scrolls the page.

Skip (the ⏭ beside a scene's track, or N) moves that band on to its next track. Tap the track's name to see the band's whole playlist and play any track in it. A Track picker scene (choose it in Prep) shows its playlist right on the tile, for the pieces you want on cue.

Keys

  • 1–5 switch scene · the playing one pauses
  • ↑ ↓ turn the live scene's dial · N skip its track
  • T hold to transmit
  • QWER ASD fire the stingers, in board order
  • Space the sound action, on themes that have one
  • Esc fade out · X cut · F full screen
  • V next theme · Shift+V the one before

Everything else

Environment loops sit under the music and stack with each other. Stingers fire once over everything. They are real recordings wherever one exists, several takes each so a tile never sounds canned. Some have choices in Prep: Gunfire lets you pick the gun, how many shots and how far away; each Heartbeat has its own rate, or follows the scene's dial. Shellshock muffles the music and rings for a few seconds, for blasts and flashbangs. Drag up or down on any stinger or environment tile to set its volume, from a quarter to twice its usual level (the green fill shows it); the arrow keys do the same on a selected tile, and Prep has a slider for phones.

Transmit asks for your microphone the first time, then plays your voice through a walkie-talkie filter while you hold it, with the music ducked. In a room, the speakers can feed your voice back into the mic: keep them apart, turn the console down, or wear headphones. Over Discord this device goes quiet, so it can't happen. Radio click keys the handset once. Radio music is a switch: while it's lit, the music plays as if from a small radio, with a little hiss under it.

Discord plays the whole console into a voice channel on your server, so remote players hear it while you run it here. Press Discord, then Add to Discord to invite the bot to your server (once). Join a voice channel yourself, type /connect in any text channel and paste the code the panel shows. While it's live this device goes quiet unless you tick Also play on this device, so Transmit can't feed back. YouTube tracks reach Discord only when you share this tab's audio (Chrome or Edge on a computer); the panel offers it.

Prep (in the header, or before you authenticate) changes the board. Swap any scene, stinger or environment tile for another, from ghosts and creatures to gunfire and weather, and edit the playlist behind every intensity: paste YouTube, YouTube Music or Spotify links, or links to audio files, and drag tracks into order. It all saves in this browser. The presets give you a starting board, including two for Music from a Darkened Room, with free prep notes for running it.

Theme changes how the whole console looks: one of the Delta Green, Mothership, Call of Cthulhu or fantasy themes. Each theme plays its own board of sounds until you pick another for it in Prep, so switching themes can change the music that's playing. Your edits to every board are kept.

Settings holds the rest. Copyright-free music only is for streams and recorded videos: the film and game scores (they play from YouTube) are skipped and only our Creative Commons tracks play. Offline downloads every track on your board that can be stored so a session survives bad Wi-Fi (do it at home; the size shows on the button). YouTube tracks, and audio linked from other sites like the Darkened Room radio, always need the internet. Install appears in Chrome and Edge and puts the console in its own window.

Credits

Music: film, TV and game scores, played from YouTube in an embedded player and belonging to their composers and studios, and Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and other artists who share their work under Creative Commons licenses. Every piece, its composer or artist, and its source or license is in the full track list; turn on copyright-free music in Settings to hear only the Creative Commons tracks, for streams and recordings. The sound effects and ambience are real recordings by field recordists and foley artists who share them on Freesound and Wikimedia Commons; every recording, its author and license is in the full sound list. The Mothership boards' recordings are listed in their own credits, the Mythic Bastionland boards' in theirs, and the Call of Cthulhu and fantasy boards' in theirs. The film-style effects in Scares (Shock, Braam, Dread rise, Shellshock) and the "Older versions" tiles are synthesized live in your browser. The Darkened Room radio is Gregor Quendel's Moonlight Sonata (CC BY-NC 4.0), edited by u/PipBoy3000 and played from their site.

Discord relay

Plays this console into a Discord voice channel: music, ambience, stingers and Transmit. You keep running it from here. The film and game scores play from YouTube and need one more step, on a computer in Chrome or Edge: share this tab's audio once you're connected. From a phone they don't reach Discord.

  1. Add the bot to your server

    Once per server. You need the Manage Server permission there.

    Add to Discord

  2. Join a voice channel, then type /connect

    Type it in any text channel on that server, and paste this code into the command.

    ··· ···

Prep

Set the board up before the session: what each tile is, and the playlists behind its scenes. It all saves in this browser, and the console follows along.

Start from

Your board

Click a tile to change it. Drag a tile onto another of the same kind to swap them. Changes save as you make them.

Choose a tile

Themes

How the whole console looks. Each theme brings its own board of sounds and its own music, so switching can change what's playing. Every board keeps your edits. V steps through them.

Settings

Music

Board

Board size

Simple shows 5 sounds and 3 loops, Standard 10 and 6, Full all of them. Only boards ranked for it change; Prep always shows every tile.

Hold T (or the Transmit button) and speak: your voice goes out through this.

This device

Tracks