How to Make a Free Soundboard for Your PC

For other players to hear your soundboard in Discord or in-game voice chat, it has to play through your mic. That usually means installing a separate soundboard app and a virtual audio cable.

Wave Link 3.5, our free audio app for Windows and Mac, has a soundboard built in and works with any microphone. Your sounds play into their own channel, which you add to the mix you use as your mic in Discord or your game. Other players then hear your voice and your sounds together.

• A Windows PC or Mac
• Wave Link 3.5 or later, free to download
• A microphone

1. Open Wave Link and select Soundboard in the sidebar.

2. The first time you open it, choose the channel your sounds play into. Soundboard is selected by default, so you can leave it as is. Click Add to mixes.

3. Click Add sound. You can also drag audio files or folders straight onto the Soundboard page.

4. In the Import sound window, drag in audio files or a whole folder, or click Browse to pick them.

5. Set up the sound before you import it. Drag the handles under Trim to cut it to the part you want, then give it a Name, choose a Category and pick an Image. To bring in more files at the same time, click Add more.

6. Click Import.

You can import MP3, WAV, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC and WMA files up to 50 MB each.

On any MyInstants sound page, click Add to Wave Link under the sound button, and the sound goes straight into your Soundboard without downloading the file first.

Click a sound to play it. Its settings open in the panel on the right:

• Name: Change how the sound is labeled on the Soundboard.
• Category: Move the sound to another category.
• Trim: Drag the handles on the waveform to set where the sound starts and ends, then use the play button to preview it. Fade in and Fade out ease the sound in and out.
• Volume: Set this sound’s level on its own, which helps when one clip is much louder or quieter than the rest.
• Image: Pick an image from the list or click Upload image to use your own. It shows on the sound’s tile.
• Delete sound: Remove the sound from your Soundboard.

The slider at the bottom of the Soundboard page sets the volume for all your sounds at once.

Under Playback, pick what happens when you play a sound that’s already playing:

• Play/Stop: Playing it again stops it.
• Restart: Playing it again starts it over from the beginning.
• Overlap: Each play adds a new copy on top of the one already playing.
• Loop: The sound repeats until you play it again.

To play different sounds at the same time, turn on Play multiple sounds at once in the Soundboard Settings panel, which shows on the right when no sound is selected. With it off, starting a sound stops the one that’s playing.

Categories keep your sounds grouped by game, show, or mood.

1. Click New category.

2. Give the category a name.

3. Drag sounds into it, or choose Add sound from the category’s … menu to import new sounds straight into it.

Sounds that aren’t in a category stay under Uncategorised.

The … menu also lets you rename a category, move it up or down, or delete it.

Each category also has a shuffle button that plays a random sound from that category. Shuffle plays every sound in the category once before any repeats, so you won’t hear the same sound twice in a row.

Clicking Add to mixes during setup puts the Soundboard channel in all your mixes. To send your sounds to a different channel later, choose one under Output channel in the Soundboard Settings panel.

1. Select Mixer in the sidebar.

2. Set the Soundboard channel’s volume in each mix. Turn it down or off in any mix you don’t want your sounds in, for example your stream mix if they’re only for voice chat.

3. In Discord, go to Settings > Voice & Video and set Input Device to Chat Mix (Elgato Virtual Audio).

In games with built-in voice chat, select the same mix as the voice chat input in the game’s audio settings.

For your stream, add your stream mix to OBS Studio as an audio source. Our Wave Link streaming guide walks through that setup.

1. Click the sound you want a shortcut for.

2. Under Shortcut, click Set shortcut.

3. Press the key combination you want to use.

The shortcut shows under the sound’s name on the Soundboard.

If you have Stream Deck, drag a sound from the Soundboard onto a key in the Stream Deck app. The key shows the sound’s image, and tapping it plays the sound with the trim, volume, and playback mode you set in Wave Link.

The soundboard action comes with the latest Wave Link plugin, so update the plugin in the Stream Deck app before you start.

Your next Discord call or stream is a few sounds away. Wave Link 3.5 is free on Windows and Mac. Once it’s installed, open Soundboard and add your favorites from your computer or MyInstants.

Download Wave Link