Find the best of Fart in Myinstants! Myinstants is where you discover and create instant sound buttons. Farrago Soundboard. Both offer multiple tiled windows to fill with sound clips. Soundboard does it with an old school tabbed interface across the top with a limitation of six tabs (more can be accessed, but you don’t see them on screen). Farrago’s is in a sidebar (which can be hidden if you prefer) with nearly as many sets as you want.
Adding music or sound effects into your podcast on-the-fly is a great way to enhance the production of your show, but you’ll need a digital soundboard to pull off the magic!
Luckily, one of my favorite Mac app companies, Rogue Amoeba, just launched a new soundboard app called Farrago (… That’s a dumb name).
The new app replaces Rogue Amoeba’s previous soundboard app, Soundboard (this name makes sense). I’d actually been using Soundboard for a few years but it had recently stopped receiving updates, so I’m thrilled that they decided to create an all-new app.
Farrago lets you create a digital soundboard and play music or effects to any output you’d like. It gives you great control of each effect thanks to trimming, volume-setting, color-coding, and other organizational features.
I did not hesitate to buy this app because it’s a modern replacement to the aforementioned Soundboard. I pump music and sound effects into my podcasts on-the-fly by using Rogue Amoeba’s other excellent Mac apps Loopback and Audio Hijack.
Between the powers of Farrago, Loopback, and Audio Hijack, Rogue Amoeba is the best company out there for podcasters who want to create a digital studio. Thanks to them, you don’t need multiple computers, a mixer, or any other traditional radio production products (besides a microphone, of course!).
If you need help setting up these apps to set up the digital podcasting studio of your dreams, I’m your guy! I consult on these apps and use them in practice every week.
Farrago is a must-buy if you’re looking for a soundboard app, but I do have one complaint. As of this writing Farrago does not have a “ducking” feature. A ducking button, commonly used in radio, lets you easily drop the volume of the audio file you’re playing so you can talk over it without being drown out by the music. This seems like a gaping hole in the feature line up, and I’ve already contacting Rogue Amoeba about this problem. Hopefully they’ll add it in a future update, especially because it was previously available in Soundboard.
Currently, the only solution for ducking in Farrago is setting “Volume B” on your file to around 30% and then —
while the file is currently set on “Volume A” — clicking “Volume B” when you want to duck your audio. It seems that the second volume level on each file is the new way to duck, but why not continue calling it ducking? This is a clunkier way of presenting the feature and I think it’s ducking dumb!
Farrago is $49, though right now there’s an introductory price of $39.
Let me say it right off the bat: not every podcast needs a soundboard. But – every soundboard needs to find it’s podcast.
Take a deep breath and soak that one in for a moment
Ready?
Ok. Here’s how I insert random sounds into podcasts I’m recording.
Farrago
Website: RogueAmoeba.com/Farrago
Pricing: Free trial / $49USD
Farrago from Rogue Amoeba makes it dead simple to play back sound effects, music intros or outros, sponsor background music, listener feedback, sad trombone noises – basically anything a podcaster could want to play to include in their podcast.
Here’s what I like about Rogue Amoeba’s Farrago for macOS.
Easy Clip Collection and Organization
I can take a folder full of audio I’ve collected for a podcast, a whole bunch of U2 quotes from interviews and videos over the years for example, and just drag and drop it on Farrago. Farrago will automatically distribute the audio clips across the app and assign a keyboard shortcut key for each clip for quick access.
Hit the “S” key and you’ll instantly hear Bono proclaim “A man should not look like his hair has been ironed.” Perfect.
You can have multiple sets of audio files as well. This makes it easy to have one set for your U2 fan podcast, and another set for your podcast about podcasting. Just for an example.
You can rename the files once they’ve been imported, adjust the volume (2 options for volume levels), fade in / out duration, color of the clip, whether you want it to loop, solo (don’t play anything else while this clip is playing), allow it to be paused and resume, or only play once if pressed – so you don’t get Bono talking over himself, naturally. You can also keep notes on audio clips – i.e. “Don’t play this if your guest has had his hair recently ironed.”
Light and Dark Mode
Farrago Soundboard Windows
Farrago has a great light (seen above) and dark mode option (seen below).
MIDI Support
You can also use a MIDI device like a USB musical keyboard to trigger sounds with Farrago. I don’t happen to have one handy but something like this 32 key keyboard from M Audio would work just fine.
Audio Playback Choices
An important thing that Farrago supports is the ability to choose where audio playback is going to happen on your Mac. This becomes an issue when you want to use something like Ecamm Live to record and/or live stream a recording of your podcast to your millions (or 10) of fans around the world. So rather than only you hearing it in your headphones, you can send it to a Skype call and your live stream on Facebook, Twitch, or Mixer.
Note: If you’ve got more complex audio workflow needs, then picking up Rogue Amoeba’s Podcast Bundle is a great way to go: Audio Hijack, Loopback, and Fission are bundled with Farrago for $175USD in a package that includes pretty much everything you’d need to podcast on a Mac. Pair it all with Garageband that’s already on your Mac, Audacity (free, open source option), Logic Pro X (my personal choice), Adobe Audition, Hindenburg, or many other multi-track audio editors out there, and you’re a podcasting pro.
Visual Cues
Farrago is a sound app, obviously, but it’s nice that Rogue Amoeba put in little touches like audio wav forms for each clip, as well as a playback indicator to show how long a clip has until it’s finished – as well as the time remaining. Love it.
Bottom Line
Rogue Amoeba makes some might fine audio apps for macOS users. I can’t imagine where we’d be if that little amoeba hadn’t gone rogue all those years ago.
Videos
Farrago Soundboard
I’ve published a few Farrago related videos on my YouTube channel. These might help you decide if Farrago is right for you: