Revision as of 00:25, 22 October 2016

The Jukebox

The Jukebox is the fourth tab of the Sidebar. This feature allows the GM to accesses the sounds and music from Tabletop Audio, Incompetech, BattleBards, and Fanburst.

Finding and Adding Audio Tracks to the Jukebox

The Jukebox Track Selection Window

From the Jukebox, click the +Add button, then select Track from the options to open a popup window with tabs for audio source options. There are tabs for the current four sources of audio we have available through Roll20: Tabletop Audio, BattleBards, Incompetech, Fanburst.

Regardless of what audio tab you're searching under, you can always preview individual tracks by pressing the Play button.

Tabletop Audio

Tabletop Audio is a site created to provide 10-minute-long background audio tracks for RPG gaming sessions. Roll20 has teamed up with Tabletop Audio to incorporate their library of audio and music into the Roll20 Jukebox. You can find out more about them on their site: http://tabletopaudio.com

From the Tabletop Audio tab, use the Search For: drop-down menu to filter the Tabletop Audio tracks available. You can narrow down your search by genre (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Historical, Modern, Nature, Horror, and Music are the currently available genre options).

BattleBards

BattleBards is another site partnered with Roll20 to bring you a portfolio of audio and music tracks integrated inside Roll20's jukebox.

From the BattleBards tab, use the Search For: drop-down menu to filter the BattleBards tracks available. You can narrow down your search by track category (Monsterscapes, Music, NPC Scripts, Racial Languages, Sound Effects, and Soundscapes are the currently available category options).

Incompetech

Incompetech is a site created by Kevin MacLeod's that houses a prolific library of music tracks that he has composed and made available to the public. All of Incompetech tracks are shared under a Creative Commons license: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. The Roll20 jukebox has a collection of over 1,000 different Incompetech music tracks that spans a large variety of genre types.

From the Incompetech tab, use the Search For: to search via keyword. At present, keywords only seek out ones that are in the track title. We recommend going to Incompetech's site directly for more enhanced search options that are categorized by Feel, Tempo, Genre, and Length. Once you find the tracks you want, enter their titles in the keyword search of the Track Selection Window to bring them up.

Note: Most of Incompetech's library has been imported to Roll20's and in most cases, you should be able to find the track you want after searching through Incompetech's website. However, some of MacLeod's works are hosted on other royalty free/creative commons resource sites. Due to exclusivity reasons, these tracks may not be available in Roll20's Jukebox. Also, Incompetech's library is constantly updated with new works as Kevin MacLeod creates them, so a recently made new track may not have been uploaded to Roll20's library yet.

Using Your Own Music/Sounds through Fanburst

Fanburst is a free online service for musicians and creators to upload and share their music: Unlimited uploads for artists, unlimited streaming for fans. Roll20 has integrated Fanburst so that you can stream audio from their extensive library into your own games.

From the Fanburst tab, use the Search For: to search via keyword. At present, keywords only seek out ones that are in the track title.

Note: Fanburst’s TOS prohibits the streaming of copyrighted content. Upload at your own risk.

Transferring SoundCloud Audio to Fanburst

In September of 2016, SoundCloud, the principle music resource utilized by the Roll20 Jukebox since its inception, privatized their API access. This prevented Jukebox playback for any tracks hosted by them in the Roll20 Jukebox. If you had hosted your own audio on SoundCloud for use in Roll20 games, there is a one-click option available to copy your SoundCloud library to Fanburst when you create a Fanburst account.

Presently, if you have any SoundCloud tracks in a campaign, these will remain listed in your Jukebox. You will not be able to play them, but you will retain the ability to obtain the SoundCloud URL of these tracks. Clicking on the Cloud icon that appears when you hover over a track will open up the SoundCloud URL in a new browser tab.

Adding Tracks to Your Game

Add music/sound tracks to your current session's library by clicking the + button from the Jukebox popup next to the track you'd like to include. This add the track at the bottom of your tracklist in the Jukebox.

Organizing Your Jukebox Audio Tracks

Renaming Tracks

Sorting Tracks

Removing Tracks from the Jukebox

Right click the Track title in your Jukebox to reveal a sub-menu. Click the "Delete Item" option to remove the track from your Jukebox.

Playlists

Playlists (Folders) can be used to help organize music and sounds within the Jukebox. Jukebox playlists are similar to Journal Folders in functionality, drag the handles that appear next to the track name to move items in and out of playlists. The Jukebox playlists system is only 1 deep, sub-folders are not available in the Jukebox.

Adding Playlists

Click the +Add button, then click Playlist. Name the folder in the popup and click Ok to add the named folder to your Jukebox.

Playlists Options

Right click a playlist to reveal folder options. You can sort, rename, or delete playlists. Deleting playlists does not remove the contents, all items in deleted folders are be moved to the root playlist.

Renaming/Reordering Tracks

To rename a track, simply click on its title in the Jukebox tab of the Sidebar once it is added it to your game. Type a new name and press Enter to save. Tracks can be reordered in or out of a playlist using the handle icon next to the track name or if the tracks are in a playlist, they can be sorted alphabetically, by right clicking and selecting the option Sort A-Z.

Pop-Out Jukebox

You can now pop-out the Jukebox to a new window. To do this, simply double click on the Jukebox icon at the top of the right of your Virtual Tabletop.

Playing Music/Sounds in Game

Any tracks added to your game can be played by pressing the play button next to the track or playlist in the Jukebox tab of the Sidebar. All players in the session will be able to hear the sounds. You can play more than one file at a time and all individual files can be looped by pressing the loop icon next to the track. Each track has its own volume control which can be used to normalize their volume.

Play from Playlists

Playlists have additional play options. Next to the name of the playlist you'll find a "Play" button as well as a toggle for the "Play Mode" of the playlist.

Back to Back

"Back to Back" indicates that each track will be played individually one after another. When the end of the playlist is reached, it will start again from the beginning. If an individual track is looped within the active playlist, using this option will cause the individual track to keep looping when the playlist gets to that track.

Shuffle

"Shuffle" indicates that the tracks will be played in a random order. Order is synchronized across clients, so that tracks will play in the same order for everyone. The playlist will continue playing shuffled until you pause it manually. You should not use looped tracks with this option or it will just loop the same track over and over.

All at Once

"All At Once" indicates that all tracks in the playlist will start playing once the playlist is began. Note that it is up to each track's individual loop settings to determine if it will loop after it plays once. You can mix and match looped and unlooped tracks with this option.

Now Playing Widget

At the top of the Jukebox is a small "Now Playing" widget. This tool is visible to players in game and will only display tracks that are currently playing. Pressing "Play" will add tracks to the widget and GMs can stop directly from this widget.

Play on Load

There is a new option under the Page Settings dialog box at the bottom which will allow you to choose a Jukebox track or Playlist which will automatically play when you move the players to the page. Note that this only takes effect when a GM moves the Player Ribbon to the page, not for the "split the party" feature (since the Jukebox is global, not player-specific).

Master Volume Control

In addition to the Game Master's control of individual track volume in the Jukebox tab, each person connected to the game can also use the Master Volume Control located under the My Settings tab to control the volume level of all music being played.