If your WiFi goes out in the middle of a recording, you might find yourself without your trusty sound effects. The downside to purely online soundboards is that they require a stable internet connection. This is useful for producers who bounce around from one computer to another and may not have every track downloaded onto every device. Others use online soundboards where the sound clips are stored in the cloud. To source their audio tracks, they download high-quality sound clips and load them into the software’s virtual sound effects board. There was a time when soundboards were physical devices, but today most producers run podcast soundboard software off of a laptop computer.

It also helps you play back clips from pre-recorded interviews. This comes in handy for shows with theme music or recurring sound effects (like a buzzer sound or a simulated phone ringing sound). These clips include both sound effects and music, and a producer can play them at any time with the press of a button. A podcast soundboard is a library of sound clips that can be triggered at a moment’s notice.

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