Soundboard for Discord

Can You Use a Custom Soundboard in Discord on Mac?

Discord's built-in soundboard is designed for quick meme clips shared within a server. LitPads is a professional custom soundboard built for musicians, streamers, DJs, and gamers who want full control over their audio. The setup requires a one-time five-minute installation of BlackHole, and after that everything works automatically.

What Do You Need to Get Started?

• LitPads free from the Mac App Store, Pro unlocks EQ, MIDI, and hotkeys for $14.99
• BlackHole 2ch free virtual audio driver, install via Homebrew or download from GitHub
• macOS 12 Monterey or later required for Audio MIDI Setup multi-output device support
• Discord desktop app the browser version does not support custom audio input devices

BlackHole is a free, open-source virtual audio driver maintained by Existential Audio. It creates a virtual audio cable between applications on your Mac. LitPads sends audio into BlackHole, and Discord reads from BlackHole as if it were a microphone. Your real microphone audio and soundboard audio both reach Discord through this setup.

How Do You Install BlackHole on Mac?

• Open Terminal Applications > Utilities > Terminal, or search Spotlight for "Terminal"
• Run the install command brew install blackhole-2ch and wait for it to complete
• Verify installation open Audio MIDI Setup and confirm "BlackHole 2ch" appears in the device list

If you do not have Homebrew installed, download the BlackHole 2ch installer directly from the BlackHole GitHub page. Run the .pkg installer and follow the prompts. The installer requires administrator access. A restart is not required, but you should close and reopen Audio MIDI Setup after installation to see the new device.

The complete BlackHole setup guide covers additional details including choosing between BlackHole 2ch and 16ch, troubleshooting installation issues, and verifying the driver is loaded correctly.

How Do You Create a Multi-Output Device?

• Open Audio MIDI Setup Applications > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup, or search Spotlight
• Click the + button bottom left corner of the Audio Devices window
• Select "Create Multi-Output Device" a new device appears in the left sidebar
• Check Built-in Output your speakers or headphones, this is what you hear through
• Check BlackHole 2ch this is the virtual cable that Discord reads from
• Enable Drift Correction on BlackHole check the "Drift Correction" box next to BlackHole 2ch to prevent audio sync issues

After creating the multi-output device, go to System Settings > Sound > Output and select your new multi-output device as the system output. All audio from your Mac now plays through both your headphones (so you can hear it) and BlackHole (so Discord can pick it up). This includes LitPads audio, system sounds, and any other app audio.

The multi-output device guide explains this process in more detail, including how to create separate devices for different use cases and how to switch between them quickly.

How Do You Configure Discord Voice Settings?

Open Discord, click the gear icon next to your username, and navigate to Voice & Video. Under Input Device, select "BlackHole 2ch" from the dropdown. This tells Discord to listen to the virtual audio cable instead of your physical microphone.

Disable "Automatically Determine Input Sensitivity" and drag the sensitivity slider to the left. Discord's auto sensitivity is calibrated for human voice, which means it may cut off quieter sound effects or the tail end of longer sounds. A low manual threshold ensures everything gets through.

Echo cancellation can also interfere with soundboard audio, especially loops and ambient sounds. Set it to off when using a soundboard. If you hear your own voice echoing back, check that your output device is set to your headphones (not the multi-output device) in Discord's output settings.

How Do You Set Up LitPads for Discord?

Start by organizing your sounds into boards. A typical Discord setup includes a reactions board (air horns, rimshots, laugh tracks), an alerts board (notification sounds, intros, outros), and a music board (short stings, ambient loops). Each board holds up to 16 pads in the free version and unlimited pads with Pro.

• Create a board tap the + button and name it (e.g., "Discord Reactions")
• Import sounds drag audio files onto pads from Finder, or tap import to browse Files/iCloud
• Set play modes One Shot for quick effects, Toggle for ambient loops, Hold for sounds that play only while pressed
• Assign global hotkeys Pro feature: open pad settings, tap Hotkey, press your desired key combo (e.g., F1)
• Adjust volume per pad balance loud and quiet sounds so nothing clips in Discord

LitPads supports MP3, WAV, AIFF, M4A, FLAC, AAC, and CAF files. For Discord, MP3 and WAV files work best. Keep files under 10 MB each for fast loading. The custom soundboard setup guide covers the full import and configuration workflow in detail.

How Do You Optimize Sounds for Discord Voice Chat?

Sounds that work well in Discord: air horns, rimshots, short vocal drops, notification chimes, and music stings under 5 seconds. Sounds that do not translate well: deep bass effects (filtered by the Opus codec), long ambient tracks (compressed and distorted), and sounds with very quiet passages (cut off by input sensitivity).

LitPads Pro includes a 3-band parametric EQ on every pad. For Discord optimization, apply a high-pass filter at 100 Hz to remove bass frequencies that Discord discards anyway. Boost the 2 kHz to 5 kHz range by 2 to 4 dB to add clarity through the voice codec. This is the same frequency range where human speech is most intelligible, so sounds in this range cut through Discord's processing cleanly.

Trim any silence from the start of each file using LitPads waveform editor. A sound that triggers instantly feels responsive. Even 100 milliseconds of silence at the start creates a noticeable delay when you press a hotkey and the sound reaches your Discord call.

The sound effects board guide covers additional audio optimization techniques including per-pad volume normalization and stereo panning for spatial effects.

How Do You Trigger Sounds While Gaming?

Global hotkeys are a Pro feature that requires Input Monitoring permission on macOS. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Input Monitoring and enable LitPads. After granting this permission, any assigned hotkey triggers its pad regardless of which application is in the foreground.

Function keys (F1 through F12) are the safest choice for soundboard hotkeys because few games bind to them by default. Avoid common game bindings like WASD, space, and number keys. If you play a game that uses function keys, switch to Ctrl+number combos instead (Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, etc.). LitPads automatically disables hotkeys when you are typing in a text field, so chat messages do not accidentally trigger sounds.

For hands-free triggering, connect a MIDI foot pedal or controller. A USB foot switch can fire pads while both hands stay on the keyboard and mouse. This is popular with streamers who need to trigger sounds during competitive gameplay without losing any input time.

The hotkeys setup guide covers the full configuration process including Input Monitoring permissions, key assignment, and conflict resolution.

Can You Use LitPads with OBS and Discord at the Same Time?

This is one of the biggest advantages of the BlackHole approach. You do not need separate audio routing for OBS and Discord. The multi-output device sends LitPads audio to BlackHole, and both OBS and Discord read from BlackHole independently.

In OBS, add a new Audio Input Capture source and select "BlackHole 2ch." Adjust the volume in OBS to balance soundboard audio with your microphone and game audio. The OBS soundboard setup guide walks through this in detail, including audio ducking settings so sound effects do not overpower your voice.

Streamers who use this setup hear the sound through their headphones, their Discord call hears it through the voice channel, and their Twitch or YouTube audience hears it through the stream. One trigger, three outputs, zero additional setup.

Can You Use LitPads as a Discord Soundboard on iPhone or iPad?

The Discord bot approach works differently from the BlackHole method. Instead of routing audio through a virtual cable on your device, a bot application runs on a server (your Mac at home, a Raspberry Pi, or a cloud server). The bot connects to your Discord voice channel as a separate participant. When you tap a pad in LitPads on your iPhone or iPad, the app sends a trigger command to the bot over the internet, and the bot plays the corresponding sound file directly into the voice channel.

This approach has several advantages for mobile users. It does not require any audio routing setup on your phone. It works from anywhere with an internet connection. Other users in the voice channel hear the sound at full quality because the bot streams the audio server-side rather than through a compressed voice input. The trade-off is a small amount of latency (typically under 200 milliseconds) between tapping the pad and the sound playing in the channel.

In the meantime, iPhone and iPad users can still use LitPads on iPhone and LitPads on iPad as standalone soundboards for in-person use, live performance, and local audio playback. The full Discord bot integration will extend this to remote voice chat.

Troubleshooting Common Discord Soundboard Issues

If BlackHole does not appear in Discord's input device dropdown, close Discord completely and reopen it. Discord loads its audio device list on launch and does not always detect new devices while running. If BlackHole still does not appear, verify it is installed by checking Audio MIDI Setup.

Sample rate mismatches cause crackling or distorted audio. Open Audio MIDI Setup, click on your multi-output device, and verify that both Built-in Output and BlackHole 2ch are set to 48,000 Hz (48 kHz). Discord uses 48 kHz internally, so matching this sample rate eliminates conversion artifacts.

If your friends hear everything on your Mac (game audio, YouTube, notifications) and not just soundboard sounds, that is expected behavior with a multi-output device. The multi-output device sends all system audio to BlackHole. To isolate only LitPads audio, you would need a more advanced routing setup using dedicated audio routing software. For most Discord users, the simpler multi-output approach works perfectly.