Bardic Tools Update - February 2025
Hello, hello!
Borja here.
February has (luckily) been a bit more quiet than last month. No big, dramatic announcement removing 1/3 of The Library. Sorry!
But that doesn't mean I've been idle!
In this update:
- ✨ Shiny new tutorial!
- 🎵 RPG Audio Vault is great and you should listen to their music (And you can, in Bardic Tools!)
- ⚒️New Tool Drop: License checking tools for content creators.
- 🐞 Bug Fix of the month: Begone,
"undefined"! - 🥹 Borja gets sentimental again.
Let's go!
✨ Shiny New Tutorial!
Did you know that around 30% of the people who tried Bardic Tools last month unsubscribed within the first two months? Did you know that, when I asked, a lot of those who unsubscribed had empty boards?
Of course, we offer refunds to everybody who unsubscribes–BT may not be for your, and I want you to feel good about what you pay for–but it's kind of a shame that someone would go through all the trouble of setting up a Bardic Tools account and then not even try the awesome sauce.
So, this month I set out to fix that. I created a spiffy new interactive tutorial that takes you from 0 to epic music in less than 5 minutes:
The easiest way to access it is the big button that shows up when there are no scenes in your board (that's when we need it the most!), but fear not! You can also access it from this little link at the bottom of your soundboard:
Try it out, and let me know what you think! Should I do a more advanced version? What features should I showcase, that I'm not?
Anyway, moving on!
🎵 Artist Spotlight: Jet, from RPG Audio Vault
Continuing the trend of collaborating with amazing composers, this month I bring you an archwizard of sound: Jet, from RPG Audio Vault.
Not only does he compose amazing RPG music (we'll get to that later), but he also creates top-notch sound effects and ambience tracks. In his words:
"I take my field recorder on all my trips to capture unique and amazing sounds and ambiences that I can use to bring fantasy worlds to life."
And to life he brings them! Listen to these goblin sounds:
I can't wait to make scenes with these little ones. What's that? They're not on Bardic Tools?
Check again!
Yep! We've been talking, and he's been kind enough to agree to put his starter pack on Bardic Tools! It brings:
- Three new amazing songs (plus 3 others because Jet is so nice)
- A cool "campfire by a river" ambience track
- Even more, even creepier ghost sounds (really, check them out)
- The funniest goblins you've heard
But wait! There's more!
He's just released his new ambience track, "The Meadowlands". It's a calm, soft soundscape for those sessions where you just want to talk and kill wolves. It includes night and day variants, and is available now in his Patreon.
But wait! There's (even) more!
It wouldn't be a collaboration without a custom scene to commemorate it. So "The Meadowlands" is now available in Bardic Tools too! Check out "Quiet Meadows of Arendia" in the scene library, or assemble your own with the individual sounds!
This doesn't even scratch the surface of what Jet's library has to offer. Check out the RPG Audio Vault Patreon if you want to get lost in a treasure trove of sound for your games.
⚒️ New Tool Drop! License Checking For Content Creators
So, as you may have seen from the Discord, the wonderful folks over at It's Your Role used Bardic Tools for one of their one-shots!
It's Your Role is a relatively new live D&D show playing live here in London. We went to one of their shows (because that's what we do when we're not working on Bardic Tools, we consume more D&D), and it was one of the funniest shows I've been to.
After the show, we got talking, and they were interested in trying out Bardic Tools (yay!). Fast-forward to a week ago, and they've actually used Bardic Tools in one of their episodes!
It features music from Alexander Nakarada, and it sounds great:
One of the things we learned with that episode is that licenses are a pain (go figure). The different artists we work with have different attribution and usage terms, and it's really important that we respect that.
So, to help It's Your Role and other content creators make sure they're attributing sounds properly, I've launched the Copyright Checker tool. It's simple:
As this tool is still in development, I'm only enabling it for people who ask for it. So, if you're interested, just reply to this email and let me know!
What else?
🐞 Bug Fix of the Month: Begone, "undefined"!
This one is a short one.
Have you ever been perusing The Library, furiously typing the kind of sound you want, only to have it search "undefined"? I know I have, and it annoyed the living heck out of me.
I finally got a chance to sit down and fix it!
"undefined" shouldn't show up in searches anymore.
What was the problem?
Well. The autocomplete feature for search tried very hard to follow your mouse. If you hover over something, it will helpfully highlight it. So far, so good.
However, you may have noticed that, as you write characters, the list of suggested tags gets shorter.
Well. What happens when you're hovering over an item, and then keep typing?
Maybe the item disappears, because it doesn't match what's searched. Maybe your autocomplete system didn't handle that very well, and maybe it still thinks it's hovering the fourth item, when there is no fourth item. Maybe you press "enter" to search.
The result? "undefined".
Hard to figure out, easy to fix.
Moving on!
Personal News
Over the last couple of months, Bardic Tools has grown a little bit (yay!), which means more people have joined, with different setups than mine--computer with different specifications, different browser versions, different devices.
I want Bardic Tools to behave decently for everyone--that means no crashes, and the webpage should look roughly OK, even if the mobile experience is not the best.
However, as most of you know, it's just me developing, promoting, and supporting Bardic Tools, on my evenings and weekends. I hope that one day BT will grow to a size that allows me to reduce my day job, but we're not there yet.
Put those two things together, it means that I often have to choose between fixing the app for the new setups, and developing new features.
In those cases, I almost always chose to fix things, over introducing new features. If Bardic Tools gets in the way of your game (e.g. because it crashes 5 minutes before it starts), then it's not living up to the promise.
So, I want to thank you. Thanks to the people with issues for their help in fixing them, and the rest of your with your patience for the slow release of new features.
There are only so many browsers and operating systems in the world, and eventually the issues will be solved.
I hope you had a great February, and that you'll have a great March,
Borja
P.S.: Here's a picture of me eating Ramen, from many years ago. I dug it up to put it on the landing page, and I thought you might find it funny:
