Playing Sounds

Farrago's main window provides access to all sounds currently available within the program. The left side of the window allows you to switch between sets, while the center displays all sounds contained within the selected set. Each set in Farrago can contain up to 80 sounds, one per tile on the screen, and you can have as many sets as you need.

Audio playback of your sounds can be triggered in three different ways. You can press a tile's keyboard shortcut on your keyboard. You can also highlighting a tile and press the return key. If you wish to use the mouse, you can instead click a tile.

Farrago's Now Playing LCD

The Now Playing LCD area, at the top of Farrago's main window, provides useful controls and information.


Farrago's Now Playing area

Master Volume Control

The left-hand side of the LCD contains Farrago's Master Volume control. This slider controls the level at which audio from Farrago plays. To make it easy to duck audio down, Farrago offers two master volume levels, Master Volume A and Master Volume B. These can be set to distinct volumes, after which you can fade between them by clicking the A/B control. If you wish to mute all playback entirely, click the speaker to the left of the slider.

Now Playing Bubbles

In the center of the LCD, Farrago shows bubbles for each tile that's currently active. When a tile is playing audio, its bubble will appear in color in the LCD, with playback progress indicated visually. Paused tiles are also shown here, in a dimmed state.

Master Playback Controls

Finally, the right-most section of the LCD shows the standard playback controls. The Pause All button will pause or unpause any currently active tiles. The Stop All button will immediately end playback of all active tiles.The Fade All button will fade out playback of all active tiles over 2 seconds.

Triggering Sounds via Keyboard

Farrago provides fast and powerful keyboard-based playback. When Farrago is in the foreground, you can press 40 different keys (1 -> 0, Q -> P, A -> ;, and Z -> /) to trigger a unique sound. Another 40 sounds can be accessed by adding the option key (Option+1 -> Option+0, Option+Q -> Option+P, Option+A -> Option+;, and Option+Z -> Option+/).

With Farrago, your keyboard itself becomes a sound effects machine. Simply press a key once to trigger the sound. Press it again while playback is occurring to stop or pause it (depending on the tile's Allow Pausing setting, adjustable in the Inspector). A third press will cause the sound to play once again.

Example


A simple 2x2 sound set in Farrago

This screenshot shows a simple set of 4 sounds, arranged in a convenient 2x2 grid. The “Q” on the keyboard has triggered playback of the “Fog Horn” sound. Pressing “W” would trigger the “Slow Jam Loop” sound, pressing “A” would trigger “Rain”, and so on. Easy!

Useful Playback Shortcuts

Farrago includes keyboard shortcuts for many common actions. The following are some of the most useful shortcuts related specifically to playback.

Return: The return key triggers Play Selection, causing any selected sounds to be played. Select multiple tiles (using the Command and Shift keys), then use this shortcut to fire them simultaneously.

When using a set in List mode, with the Playback Mode set to Queued, the return key triggers Play Queued Tile.

Spacebar: The spacebar triggers Pause All, immediately pausing all audio playback. Note that the Pause All command applies to all audio playing in Farrago, even if the tile is normally not set to pause its playback. If any tiles are paused and no playback is occurring, this switches to an Unpause All command.

Escape: The escape key triggers Stop All, immediately stopping all audio. Use this to instantly stop audio playback.

- (Dash): The “-” key triggers Fade Out All immediately fading out all audio playback from Farrago over a fixed 2 seconds. Use this to stop audio playback more gradually.

Global Keyboard Shortcuts

With up to 80 different keyboard shortcuts available to play audio, it's not viable to make all of Farrago's sounds globally accessible. Instead, we provide an option to set a global keyboard shortcut which pulls Farrago's main window forward, after which you can use the in-app shortcuts.

For instance, you might hit “Option-Shift-F” to pull Farrago forward, then “A” to play a sound. This two-step process is tremendously quick, and allows for easy playback of dozens of different sounds.

To configure this global hotkey, see Farrago's Preferences window.

Triggering Sounds via the Mouse

Farrago is geared toward keyboard usage, but it's also possible to trigger sounds using the mouse. This works similarly to keyboard-based playback. Double-clicking on a tile will cause the sound to play, and double-clicking again will stop or pause it (depending on the tile's Allow Pausing setting, adjustable in the Inspector). Double-clicking the tile a third time will again initiate playback, or unpause the tile.

Additional Notes

To prevent inadvertent audio, mouse playback requires a double-click on the tile by default. Users wishing to operate Farrago via the mouse may wish to set tiles to play with just a single click. This can be done by adjusting the Single click to trigger sounds checkbox, in Farrago's Preferences.

All playback options mentioned above in the “Useful Playback Shortcuts” section are also available via the mouse. Access these options from the Control menu.