Short for SYNthetic THEater Audio, Synthea is a customizable soundboard program designed for dynamic playback of dialogue, sound effects, and music in unscripted environments. It was written for use in improvised theater, but is suitable in any live performance where pre-programmed cues are not sufficient.
Synthea displays a tabbed software soundboard for realtime playback of dialogue, sound effects, and music. Playback options include simultaneous, sequential, and crossfade; cues can be looped or randomized; hotkeys can be bound, and much more. Key features include:
- Distinct Playback Behaviors for dialogue, sound effects, and music
- Individual Playback Controls for each cue being played
- Effects Queue to queue multiple files and playback on-demand
- Tab-Based, Multi-Column Interface for rapid access to hundreds of cues
- Multiple Variations of a Cue randomly played from a single cue button
- Programmable Hot-Keys for instant access to frequently-used cuess
- Segmentable Intro, Outro, and Loop options for gapless looping
Synthea was originally written in Python with wxPython, PyGame, and VLC. It is now being actively rebuilt (here in this repo!) from the ground up to be an AngularJS web application wrapped by Electron, with Howler powering the audio.
In unscripted theater, a sound board operator needs access to effects and music in ways that scripted theater software cannot accomodate.
As a tech improviser, I once needed the ability to provide realtime, unscripted conversation between performers onstage and an artificial intelligence controlled in the booth, and so Synthea was created as means to seamlessly queue up a wide selection of pre-recorded sentence fragments and play them back sequentially on demand.
Synthea has since expanded to provide customized music and sound effects boards for numerous other unscripted plays and improv performances, and continues to be developed for better and broader functionality. It is still in its infancy, but for those willing and able to learn it, I hope it proves a useful tool.
To run Synthea, all you need to do is download and install it (see "Installation" below). To develop and build Synthea from the source code, you will need NPM and git. The application is built on the following platforms and frameworks:
All of these requirements can be found in package.json and are automatically installed
with Synthea (see below).
End-User Installation
Installers for the most recent Synthea release can be found on the Synthea homepage for Mac OS and Windows users.
Developer Installation
Synthea can be built into a native application for Mac OS, Windows, and Linux, or can be run directly from the source code using Electron.
The following commands will download Synthea and its dependencies:
$ git clone https://github.com/avanwinkle/synthea.git
$ cd synthea
$ npm install
Then, from the same folder, Synthea can be run from the source code:
$ npm start
It is slightly faster to boot up Synthea via the Electron binary (rather than going through npm), so if you're developing seriously it is recommended to install Electron globally.
$ npm install -g electron
And then, open Synthea via Electron directly (from the Synthea repository folder). The optional
--debug argument enables the developer tools at load.
$ electron . [ --debug ]
Build Instructions
Builds will be created in the dist/ folder of the repo. Currently the default build configuration is for Mac OSX, which can be run using the following command (inside the synthea repo directory):
$ npm run build
Windows builds can be run explicitly:
$ npm run pack:win
For instructions to build for other systems, see the help output by running:
$ electron-packager --help
For getting to know Synthea, there are a variety of sample projects available to stream. These projects can be accessed in the menu at Projects > Browse Cloud Projects....
Please note that when streaming projects from the cloud, loops may not be gapless.
Synthea includes a project creator/editor, which stores board layouts and media files in the projects folder. You can access this folder by the menu Projects > Go to Projects Folder (by default, %APPLICATION DATA%/Synthea/Projects). The projects folder can be changed via the menu Projects > Change Projects Folder....
A project is defined by a JSON-formatted layout.json file, an optional banner image file, and an /audio subfolder containing the media files (accepting OGG, MP3, WAV, and other major formats). When a media file
is added to a project Synthea creates a copy of the file in the project /audio subfolder.
TODO: Use asar to package each project folder into a single archive file with a unique extension, e.g. myProject.synpkg
myProject
| - layout.json
| - my_project_banner.jpg
| - audio /
| - soundfile.wav
| - musicfile.mp3
{
"bannerImage": "banner.jpg", // Optional image in the project subfolder
"config": {
"boardType": "music", // Optional, default subgroup for cues
"fadeInDuration": 1000, // Default fade-in for cues (ms)
"fadeOutDuration": 2000 // Default fade-out for cues (ms)
},
"cues": [
{
"section_ids": [ 1, 4 ], // A cue can appear in multiple sections, even pages
"sources": ["soundf.wav"], // A cue can have multiple source files
"id": 1000,
"isLoop": true, // Looping can be toggled in-app, but cues can be preset
"name": "Basic Effect"
},
{
"section_ids": [ 1 ],
"sources": ["music.mp3"],
"subgroup": "music", // The subgroup name for this cue
"id": 1001,
"isFadeIn": false, // Override the project's fade settings
"isLoop": false,
"name": "Music Song"
}
],
"hotKeys": {
"KeyA": { // The key event codename
"action": "PLAY", // A soundboard action
"target": 1001 // Id of the cue to target
},
"Ctrl.Shift.KeyB": { // Modifier keys are supported
"action": "PLAY",
"target": 1000
}
},
"key": "sampleproject",
"name": "My Synthea Project",
"pages": [
{
"display_order": 0, // The order of pages/sections/cues is user-configurable
"id": 1, // All pages, sections, and cues should have unique ids
"name": "First Tab"
}
],
"sections": [
{
"cue_ids": [ 1000, 1001 ], // The array of cue ids in this section
"display_order": 0,
"id": 100,
"name": "First Column",
"page_id": 1 // A column exists only on a given page, tracked by id
}
],
"subgroups": { // Specific options for any subgroup
"rain": { // Subgroups here are optional
"isFadeIn": true // Subgroup fades override project fades
}
}
}Synthea (Current)
© 2016 Anthony van Winkle
Original Synthea
© 2011-2015 Anthony van Winkle
with contributions by Dan Posluns and Tim Harahan