Syrinscape Nova EARLY ACCESS is live

Nova
#1

Introducing Syrinscape Nova: a completely reimagined way to bring sound to your game! Effortlessly mix location ambiences, music playlists sorted by mood and function, and layer in environmental effects and creature sounds—all with just a few quick clicks.

Information about What the heck Syrinscape Nova is here:
https://syrinscape.com/nova/

Actually try Syrinscape Nova for reals here:
https://nova.syrinscape.com/

There’s quite a few things not quite working right yet, but dive in and have a play, then jump in here, share some feedback, report some bugs and help make future of Syrinscape Nova shine!

2 Likes
#2
#3

Hi Benjamin,
This is exciting! I love it and think the new update has great potential for the future.
Here are a few first impressions and suggestions after diving in:

  1. Dedicated Mute Buttons: It would be extremely helpful to have a separate mute button for every section (creatures, music, etc.). Since effects can be overlayed, the current need to switch tabs just to manage a soundset change can disrupt the experience.
  2. Music Playlists: For the Music section, I would love the ability to see the specific songs included and, ideally, create my own custom playlists. I’m very particular about my music, so this would be a fantastic feature.
  3. Effects Variety: I guess that the Effects library is certainly growing, but I’d appreciate seeing more different types of ambiance, specifically more variations of rain, rivers, and similar environmental effects.

Thank you again for all the hard work! I think this is really great and full of potential.
Thanks,
Eduardo

3 Likes
#4

I’m looking forward to tinkering with this. I don’t want to mess w/ my upcoming session that I’ve already devoted so many hours of sound development to, but it’ll be a fun new toy to move forward with!

3 Likes
#5

:slight_smile: :pizza: :beers: Thank you for your kind words!

  1. Dedicated Mute Buttons: Yes. So a STOP button ON the big section buttons…? that turns into a PAUSE button so you can restart what WAS playing before? Sounds like a good idea. It’s annoying having to dig down into a section to find the thing to stop it.

  2. Music Playlist: Yes. We should be able to reasonably easily give access to all the individual tracks in these long playlists so you can trigger them individually. We’ll have a think about how we can let people assemble their OWN Playlists… that DOES sound like a useful thing.

  3. Effects Variety: There are actually more than a dozen rains… but the buttons are broken and not showing all the options that SHOULD be available. So atm the button just plays the default rain. We should be able to fix this SOON. :slight_smile:

THANK YOU for your feedback. Please keep giving more! AND as we add in more features keep testing as well!

And most importantly, GAME ON! Maybe trying this out at the table?

2 Likes
#6

Really love how this is evolving! I recorded a video with my feedback while I played with it which you can see here:

http://u.pc.cd/1RkctalK

4 Likes
#7

These videos are REALLY good, man! It’s great to be able to watch someone rather than just read sentences. You definitely seemed to be flailing around WAY LESS with this current version which was nice to see! :slight_smile:

Here’s a kinda summary of what you said… PLEASE correct me (and I will edit) if I got the wrong end of the stick with any of these points.

Feedback from Gwydion:

  • “I really like all the images. Really easy to look at and understand what you are going to get.”
  • I’d LOVE the ability to create my own Soundboards. This is essential [Note from Ben: This is HIGH on the list of currently missing features which we are adding back in SOON :-D]
  • Since I own 1000s of audio tracks myself, I’d love the ability to upload my own. [Note from Ben: Yes, being able to see ALL the kinds of content you can currently see in the Web Player is in the plan, a bit further off, but definitely in the plan to work out how best to do this]
  • It’d be nice if it was clear it is playing = maybe some small animation [Note from Ben: I suggest not an actual visualisation, maybe a throb?]. Showing the picture and name does show that, but something more would be good.
  • It’d be cool to be able to upload my images for stuff I upload.
  • Memory usage of 1.7GB = it’d be good to look at reducing that?
  • Showing the name on the main TAB is glitchy atm (sometimes only showing once you click away) [Note from Ben: this looks like a straightforward bug].
  • The audio transitions (fading) is NICE.
  • Should the selection of chevron(ed) options disappear when I select a new location? As is I have now clicked a new location, but all the options I folded out for the old one are still showing.
  • It’s nice to be able to control the volume.
  • Mute on the BIG buttons would be useful. [Note from Ben: We agree]
  • I like this a LOT.
  • I love the images
  • I would like OneShots in here. A section somehow. [Note from Ben: Tai had an idea to only show the main tab options if you are selecting something for one of them, and show OneShots below at all other times.
  • [Note from Ben: Gwydion then clearly described Scenes, which is another important feature that we KNOW is missing, but coming soon. :-D]
  • “LOVE IT” “Love the visuals” “Love what you guys are doing here!”
1 Like
#8

More feedback from another user:

  • “Really, really like it!”
  • “This is something I would use!”
  • Really like the look of the art and colour blocks etc.
  • Ordering of cards seems a bit arbitrary atm.
  • Music still seems overall too loud
  • It’s cool to be able to have more than one state of a Creature running at the same time, i.e. “In the distance” and ALSO “In combat”, but is that weird. Should Creatures be exclusive within their own subgroup?
  • It’s always nice to have some On hover reaction or function for everything so it looks alive and responsive.
  • Default effects should be medium-ish [Note from Ben: we have already done this]
  • I missed the Soundboards on first start up. It might pay to highlight them somehow on launch.
  • Maybe to Edit Soundboards there is a small (EDIT) button at the top, which puts the Soundboard into an Apple iOS style edit mode where you can drag things around. And also click a + which is now showing to add a new card from a put up dialog.
  • Maybe something similar for Soundboards?
#9

I apologize if I missed the explanation elsewhere, but I don’t see a glaringly obvious tutorial for connecting remote listeners? I see where you are working on remote volume control, but what is the current way to implement NOVA to my players?

#10

Hiya basecaleb. :slight_smile: Good question! I would LOVE you to try a session using Nova for remote play. I’d love the feedback of using in actual REAL play.

Sooo… to make that work do this:

  1. go to syrinscape.com and make sure you are signed in as you
  2. go the Web Player UI at app.syrinscape.com
  3. copy the normal SHARE AUDIO link like you normally do under the hamburger menu
  4. give that to your players
  5. close the Web Player (so you don’t get double sound)
  6. go to nova.syrinscape.com and use it
  7. essentially Nova is just a new way of controlling your session in the same way the Web Player does (with a whole lot of new content, AND independent music+locations+creatures+effects

And yes, the group volumes are broken so keep those all at 100% for you so you are hearing what your players are hearing = the main result of this is that your session will be largely dominated by MUSIC.

Please, ask questions if this isn’t a clear enough explanation… and if there’s extra info i can put here. :slight_smile:

I’ll dupe this into a separate thread so others can find it more easily.

1 Like
#11

Yes! thanks for summarizing. I agree you summarized my video comments correctly. Thanks!

1 Like
#12

Yes, definitely easy to use, with enough variability that you can customize and get a soundset on the fly. This helps the improv GM (translate, “improv” to mean the “harried, underprepared”)…

The different soundboards are a big help.

Thanks, keep the good stuff coming.

4 Likes
#13

If a dedicated mute button is created, a high quality crossfade would be great, per @benjamin 's usual high quality attention to detail.

Question: are these musical tracks new or existing content. To me, it IS a big help to be able to “shop” by genre and mood for a fitting musical accompaniment. (To a certain degree this improves the current “hunt and peck” method of finding a suitable music track in the full player–[Music Track Title] from [Soundset] may or may not turn out to be what I’m guessing. (So thank you!)

2 Likes
#14

The majority of these tracks are existing track, which were spread ALL OVER THE PLACE in lots of different SoundSets. We undertook a veeeery long process of sorting through ALL the music everywhere and grouping it together into these themes = glad you like that! :slight_smile:

THEN we ended up with a number of themes that came up short (i.e. only had 15 minutes of music). So the various different composers took on different themes and wrote additional music to fill out the offerings.

Cool, huh! :pizza: :beers:

1 Like
#15

= actual definition of Game Master! :smiley:

2 Likes
#16

Awesome. Or, as they say in British-English influence locales, brilliant!

For this, let me say I…

…you!

2 Likes
#17

Haha, brilliant! Thank you @HectorTrelane and this is just the beginning, we will be adding more music and sounds as we go along

1 Like
#18

It’s looking good!

One of my main issues with the old interface is the huge duplication of tracks in lots and lots of different SoundSets. This re-organisation is much more like what I ended up with in play for my own purposes. I ended up making music, location, and creatures sample lists inside Fantasy Grounds and triggered them from there. The Nova organisation maps much better on what I need when playing (as opposed to prepping).

A few thoughts:

  1. EDIT: I see it can do that, sorry. Creatures will need to accommodate multiple tracks playing together. Spiders AND skeletons is a pretty common use case for me.

  2. Music is way too loud by default for my tastes (see more below).

  3. I’d LOVE if effects could include overall filters added to the mix like space simulations and reverb so the sound changes if you go from a “vanilla” environment into an echo-ey crypt or cave.

  4. Another facility I’d dearly like is a way to limit the dynamic range. Essentially all the existing “fight” Syrinscape moods in the current player come in with music at deafening volume (or at least highly distracting for me and my players’ aging ears). I’d really like to be able to restrict it so quiet stuff is boosted and louder stuff is capped in volume. When everyone is trying to hear the other players through slightly iffy Discord the Syrinscape sounds need to stay at a suitably-subdued-but-not-inaudible volume, regardless of whether we’re creeping in near-silence or have a bombastic battle track playing. This is a big time-waster in my current prep trying to dial everything in to keep it in sensible dynamic range.

I don’t know if it should be global, or per-element or maybe both. A “limit dynamic range” button on each of the four big buttons plus a global one maybe?

Look forward to seeing Nova develop!

Cheers, Hywel Phillips

5 Likes
#19

Plus… I miss the waveform on the web panel. It’s a useful indicator that something ought to be playing, and helps with debugging setups if you can see the waveform but not hear the sounds.

Also, a per-channel stop all-in-this-channel playing (so you can stop all creatures without affecting everything else).

Maybe a “anti-voice-compete” filter too - so it dips the sounds in the frequencies where speech is mostly concentrated? That would help clarity for online games with iffy audio a lot.

3 Likes
#20

Any plans for 5.1? This is what keeps me with the locally installed Fantasy Player for in-person games (despite it’s slow performance on a high-end PC).

What about Foundry integration? I’ve been using Syrinscape for 5+ years, but I’ve been considering abandoning it as the current Foundry integration leaves a lot to be desired (I really liked chat triggers in Fantasy Grounds via extension).