Soundboard is a Discord feature that you can use in voice channels with friends to react to conversations and video streams with brief audio clips.
Learn more about how you can use soundboard, add sounds to your soundboard, and how to manage soundboard usage in Discord servers.
This experimental feature is only available to a limited number of communities!
What this article covers:
- What is Soundboard?
- How do I use Soundboard?
- Recently Heard and Frequently Used Sounds
- As a Server Admin, how can I manage Soundboard?
- Soundboard Entrance Sounds
- Frequently Asked Questions
What is Soundboard?
What’s that sound? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s your friend smashing the button with the airhorn sound in the server’s Soundboard! Soundboard is your way to react in a Discord voice channel with brief audio clips. Soundboard is a voice channel feature that allows you to play a short audio clip that can be heard by all participants in the same voice channel. Much like Reactions and Super Reactions, Soundboard is a way for you to express yourself and react to the voice channel’s conversation or Go Live stream.
Server Boost Soundboard
Servers have 8 preloaded sound slots for server members to start using Soundboard. Additional slots can be unlocked based on the server’s tier level with Server Boosting.
Tier 1: 24 slots
Tier 2: 35 slots
Tier 3: 48 slots
How do I use Soundboard?
Desktop
1. Navigate to a server and join your intended voice channel.
2. While in the voice channel, fully pull up the channel so that you can see everyone’s Avatars. If Soundboard is enabled, you should see a music icon on the bottom left. Press on the icon to open up Soundboard. If a user is deafened in the channel, they will not hear the sound play.
3. Another way to access Soundboard when in a voice channel is by pressing the Soundboard icon on the bottom left while connected.
4. With Soundboard open, you can hover over any current available sound and then press Play to play that sound. Pressing Play will play the sound for everyone in the voice channel to hear.
5. If there’s a sound you really like, you can also press on the Star icon to favorite a sound or to preview a sound and only play it for yourself.
Mobile
1. Navigate to a server and join your intended voice channel.
2. While in the voice channel, tap on the screen to reveal a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. From there, drag the toolbar upwards and tap the Soundboard option at the top of the menu.
3. After tapping the Soundboard option, you will see a list of available servers and sounds that you can use. Tap on any sound that you’d like to play.
How can I upload new sounds to the server’s Soundboard?
To upload new sounds press on the Add Sound button with the Soundboard panel open.
Please keep in mind that it’s your responsibility to ensure that any sounds you upload respect our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines, including ensuring that any sounds you upload respect the intellectual property rights of others.
Recently Heard and Frequently Used Sounds
This is currently an experiment and only available to a limited number of users.
Frequently used sounds are synced between devices, but recently heard are device-specific.
What is Recently Heard?
A Recently Heard sound is a sound that has been recently been played by someone else through the Soundboard.
You can access this list by tapping on the Soundboard icon while in a voice channel or call and then tapping on the clock icon.
What is Frequently Used Sounds?
Frequently Used is any sound in the Soundboard that you have frequently played while in a voice channel or call. The list will get updated as you continue to play more sounds.
You can access this list by tapping on the Soundboard icon while in a voice channel or call and then tapping on the up arrow icon.
If a sound in the Soundboard is faded out, that means you do not have access to that sound. In order to use sounds cross-server, you will need Nitro.
As a Server Admin, how can I manage Soundboard?
How to Give or Remove Soundboard permissions
To manage who can use Soundboard in your server, you can enable or disable the Use Soundboard permission for specific roles or server members.
You can manage this on a server-wide level by going to Server Settings, going to the Roles tab, selecting the desired role you want to customize, and toggle the Use Soundboard permission.
You can also manage this for individual voice channels by selecting Edit Channel for your intended voice channel, going to the Permissions tab, selecting the desired role or server member whose permissions you want to customize, and toggle the Use Soundboard permission.
How to manage sounds for Soundboard in a server
To manage the current Soundboard on your server head to Server Settings > Soundboard and you can edit or remove any current sounds listed.
To remove any of the current uploaded sounds you can do so by pressing the “x” button next to a sound.
Users will only be able to edit or remove custom sounds from a server if they have Manage Expressions permission enabled for their role. To give a role this permission, head to Server Settings > Roles and then Enable or Disable it per role under Permissions.
Please note: We are currently experimenting with permissions, so the changes to the permissions here are not yet live yet to everyone.
For users to be able to add custom sounds to a server, they will need to have Create Expressions permission enabled for their role. To give a role this permission, head to Server Settings > Roles and then Enable or Disable it per role under Permissions.
Soundboard Entrance Sounds
This experimental feature is only available to a limited number of users.
Are you finding yourself using a specific sound in Soundboard anytime you join a specific voice channel? Well now you can set your own sound to automatically play from the Soundboard if you have Nitro.
1. To set it up, tap on User Settings then head to Voice & Video.
2. Under Sound Effects you can tap on the pencil icon to set a sound for all servers or customize your sounds per server.
3. To set a sound per server, tap on the drop down menu and select the server. With the server selected tap on the pencil icon and select the soundboard sound you’d like to use it.
4. Once your chosen sound is selected, tap on the X in the upper right corner to close and it’ll automatically save.
Now when you join a server voice channel, that sound will automatically play!
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How can I change the volume or opt out for Soundboard?
A. To change the volume of hearing Soundboard Sounds, please head to User Settings > Voice & Video > Soundboard > Soundboard Volume to adjust the slider to their preferred volume. This setting will sync across all devices. If set to 0%, you will not hear any sounds.
Q. Is there a keybind for Soundboard for the game overlay on Windows?
A. For Windows only, CTRL + ` is the Soundboard keybind to easily use Soundboard from within the game overlay.
Q. Can any server’s Soundboard sounds be used in other servers?
A. In order to use Soundboard sounds across servers, you do need to have an active Nitro subscription. You do not need Nitro in order to use the Soundboard within the server itself.