Features

Sound Alerts

Build a grid-based soundboard with per-sound settings, tag grouping, shuffle-bag randomization, and an OBS-ready overlay widget.

Overview

Sound Alerts let you play audio clips in response to stream events or on-demand from a visual soundboard. Located in the Rules tab under the Sound Alerts section, this feature gives you a grid-based interface to manage, organize, and trigger sounds during your stream.

Each sound can have its own image, cooldown, volume, and tag assignments. Sounds can be triggered manually from the grid, automatically via rules, or randomly using shuffle-bag logic to keep things fresh.

Soundboard Grid

The soundboard displays your sounds as a grid of clickable tiles. Each tile shows the sound name, an optional image, and a play button. Clicking a tile plays the sound immediately through the Sound Alert overlay.

  • Grid layout — Sounds are displayed in a responsive grid that adapts to the panel width. You can drag tiles to reorder them.
  • Quick play — Click any tile to play the sound instantly, even while another sound is playing.
  • Visual feedback — Active sounds show a progress indicator on their tile. Sounds on cooldown display a countdown timer.
  • Search bar — Filter the grid by sound name or tag to quickly find what you need.

Adding Sounds

To add a new sound to the soundboard:

  1. Open Sound Alerts

    Navigate to Rules > Sound Alerts in the sidebar.

  2. Click Add Sound

    Click the + Add Sound button to open the sound editor.

  3. Select an Audio File

    Browse for an audio file on your computer. Supported formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, and WEBM.

  4. Configure Settings

    Set the sound name, optional image, volume, cooldown, and tags.

  5. Save

    Click Save to add the sound to the grid.

Per-Sound Settings

Each sound in the grid has its own configurable properties:

Setting Description Default
Name Display name shown on the tile and used for search/selection in rules. File name
Image Optional image displayed on the tile and in the overlay widget when the sound plays. None
Volume Individual volume level for this sound (0–100%). Stacks with global volume. 100%
Cooldown Minimum time (in seconds) before this sound can be triggered again. 0s
Tags One or more tags for grouping and filtering (e.g., "funny", "alerts", "memes"). None
Subscriber Only When enabled, only subscribers can trigger this sound via chat commands or rules. Off

Tag-Based Grouping

Tags let you organize sounds into logical groups. Assign one or more tags to each sound, then filter the grid by tag to show only relevant sounds.

  • Tag filter bar — A row of tag buttons above the grid. Click a tag to show only sounds with that tag.
  • Multi-tag filtering — Select multiple tags to narrow the view further.
  • Tag colors — Each tag can have an assigned color for quick visual identification.
  • Rule targeting — In rules, you can target a tag instead of a specific sound, which plays a random sound from that tag group.

Shuffle-Bag Randomization

When a rule targets a tag group or a set of sounds, VMSC uses shuffle-bag randomization instead of pure random selection. This ensures every sound in the group plays before any sound repeats.

How it works:

  1. All sounds in the group are placed into an imaginary bag.
  2. Each trigger pulls one sound from the bag at random and plays it.
  3. Once the bag is empty (every sound has played once), it refills and shuffles again.

This prevents the frustrating experience of the same sound playing three times in a row while others never play. It guarantees variety while still feeling random to viewers.

Bag Reset

The shuffle bag resets when you add or remove sounds from the group, or when VMSC restarts. You can also manually reset it from the Sound Alerts settings.

Folder Mode

Folder Mode lets you point VMSC at a directory on your computer. All audio files found in that directory are automatically loaded into the soundboard. When you add or remove files from the folder, the soundboard updates on its next scan.

  • Supported formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, WEBM.
  • Files are named based on their filename (minus the extension).
  • Subfolders are treated as tag groups — sounds in a subfolder named "memes" are automatically tagged "memes".

Sound Alert Overlay Widget

The Sound Alert overlay is a browser source you can add to OBS (or any streaming software that supports browser sources). It handles audio playback and displays optional visuals when a sound plays.

  1. Get the Overlay URL

    In Sound Alerts settings, copy the Overlay URL from the overlay section.

  2. Add a Browser Source in OBS

    Create a new Browser Source in OBS and paste the overlay URL. Set the width and height to match your canvas (e.g., 1920x1080).

  3. Configure Visuals

    The overlay shows the sound's image (if set) with an optional animation when a sound plays. Configure animation style, position, and duration in the overlay settings.

Audio Routing

Make sure the Browser Source in OBS has "Control audio via OBS" enabled if you want to route sound alert audio through OBS's audio mixer. Otherwise, audio will play through your system default output.

Sound Alerts in Rules

Sound Alerts are available as an action target in the Rules system. When adding an action, select Sound Alert and choose:

  • Specific sound — Play a named sound from the soundboard.
  • Random from tag — Play a random sound from a tag group (uses shuffle-bag).
  • Random from all — Play a random sound from the entire soundboard.

Combine sound alerts with other actions in the same rule to create multi-layered responses. For example, a gift event could trigger a sound alert, a TTS message, and a VTuber expression change all at once.