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Free · Windows · Local · v1.2.14
🎙️

Clownboard

A soundboard that plays your sound clips into a virtual microphone alongside your real voice — so your voice and streaming apps hear you and your sounds together, mixed into one mic.

Version
⬇
With dependencies Recommended
Installs Clownboard + VB-Audio Virtual Cable · skipped if already present
📦
Installer only
Clownboard installer · VB-Cable not included
⚡
Standalone .exe
Single file · no installer · no VB-Cable
⚠️ VB-Audio Virtual Cable required. This option doesn't include VB-Audio Virtual Cable — you'll need to install it separately before Clownboard will work. Use the with dependencies installer above to skip this step.
Setup in 4 steps
  1. Install VB-Audio Virtual Cable ( vb-audio.com/Cable ) and reboot.
  2. Run Clownboard and open ⚙ Settings / Setup — pick your mic, set Output to CABLE Input, and your headphones as the Monitor.
  3. In your voice or streaming app's audio settings, set Input Device to CABLE Output and turn off Automatic Gain Control.
  4. Add your sounds, then talk & press a key — the call hears you and the sound together.

Windows 10/11 · no admin required · unsigned — SmartScreen may warn on first run (More info → Run anyway)

What it does

Mic + sounds, one cable. Your voice and clips are mixed and sent to your voice or streaming app as a single microphone.
Low-latency passthrough. WASAPI duplex audio — no noticeable delay on your voice.
Global hotkeys. Trigger sounds with F-keys while a game or Discord is focused.
Per-sound volume + auto-leveler. Keeps your voice loud and consistent; ducks clips under your voice.
In-app device picker. Choose your mic, the cable, and your monitor right in the window.
Local & private. Runs entirely on your PC. No account, no server, no telemetry.

Setup in 4 steps

  1. Install VB-Audio Virtual Cable (vb-audio.com/Cable) and reboot.
  2. Run Clownboard and open ⚙ Settings / Setup — pick your mic, set Output to CABLE Input, and your headphones as the Monitor.
  3. In your voice or streaming app's audio settings, set Input Device to CABLE Output and turn off Automatic Gain Control.
  4. Add your sounds, then talk & press a key — the call hears you and the sound together.

Changelog

▶ Version 1 36 releases · v1.0.0–v1.2.14
▶ Version 1.2 15 releases · v1.2.0–v1.2.14
▶ v1.2.14 New Features
  • Per-app capture — App Audio now captures a single app you pick (Spotify, Apple Music, a browser…) instead of all desktop sound, so Discord and other apps are no longer routed into the call
  • The app picker lists every open app on your desktop, whether or not it's currently making sound
  • New Auto-level toggle (on by default) normalizes captured audio to a consistent, audible loudness — fixes the "too quiet" problem; volume slider now goes up to 1000%
  • Per-app capture pulls audio at full scale (before your headphone volume), so it's much louder than the old whole-desktop capture
▶ v1.2.13 Improvements
  • Desktop Audio now has a live level meter — the capture routes to the call (not back to your own ears, which already hear the music), so the bar is how you confirm it's flowing to others. If it moves when music plays, participants hear it
  • Cut desktop-audio latency from ~2 seconds to ~120 ms so music stays in sync with the call
▶ v1.2.12 Bug Fixes
  • Desktop Audio capture now actually works — earlier versions called a sounddevice loopback option that doesn't exist in the installed library and failed silently every time. Rebuilt on native WASAPI render-endpoint loopback (verified capturing real audio). Simplified to a single "Capture desktop audio" toggle that routes everything playing (Spotify, Apple Music, browser, games) through VB-Cable
  • Window icon no longer shows the default Tk feather — the .ico is now bundled into the build and applied to the correct top-level window handle for the title bar and taskbar
▶ v1.2.11 Bug Fixes
  • App Audio loopback stream now opens correctly — was failing silently on devices running at 44.1 kHz because the stream was forced to 48 kHz; now uses the device's native rate with resampling
  • Capture errors are now shown in the app label instead of failing silently
▶ v1.2.10 Bug Fixes
  • App Audio now works for Spotify, Apple Music, browsers, and any other app — switched to system-wide WASAPI loopback on the default output device; per-process loopback failed silently for sandboxed and Electron-based apps
▶ v1.2.9 Bug Fixes
  • App audio mute keybind button no longer shows garbled text during key capture — the countdown no longer fights with the UI refresh ticker
  • App audio capture now works for Spotify, Apple Music, and other apps — a missing WASAPI flag caused all process-loopback streams to fail silently
▶ v1.2.8 Bug Fixes + New Features
  • Numpad keys (Np0–Np9) now register with the correct label and fire reliably as sound hotkeys
  • Sound hotkeys fire even when other non-modifier keys (e.g. W for walking) are held simultaneously; combo bindings still take priority
  • Local monitor ("Hear clips here") no longer replays from a stale position when re-enabled — resumes at the current playback point
  • App Audio: capture audio from a running app (Spotify, browser, game…) and route it through VB-Cable — select with "Pick App", control volume, mute, and optionally bind a mute key
▶ v1.2.7 Changed
  • Focus guard removed — replaced with a one-time warning when binding a letter, digit, or mouse button ("this key may trigger unintentionally while typing — bind anyway?")
▶ v1.2.6 Bug Fixes
  • Focus guard now detects text fields reliably in Chrome, Discord, and other Electron apps — UIAutomation now runs on a dedicated background thread instead of the keyboard hook thread, which was using the wrong COM apartment
  • Combo capture no longer requires perfectly simultaneous key presses — pressing x then alt (with a gap) now correctly builds "alt+x"; a 120 ms grace period allows additional keys to extend the combo before it fires
▶ v1.2.5 Bug Fixes
  • Focus guard no longer fires backwards — Chrome/Electron text fields (Discord, browsers) now correctly detected via UIAutomation; the previous caret check caused false positives in non-text apps while missing browser text fields entirely
▶ v1.2.4 Bug Fixes
  • Focus guard no longer fires backwards — hotkeys always fire when Clownboard is in the foreground; browser/Electron text fields (Discord, Claude Code, etc.) are now correctly detected via the renderer thread's caret
  • Window icon reliably shows the clownboard logo in the title bar and taskbar (switched to Win32 WM_SETICON)
  • Key capture fires only when all keys are released — releasing F1 while Ctrl is still held extends the combo instead of firing early
  • Pressing Ctrl, Shift, or Alt alone and releasing it now correctly sets the binding to that modifier
▶ v1.2.3 Bug Fixes
  • Focus guard now detects text fields in browsers and Electron apps (Discord, Claude Code, etc.) — no longer fires sounds while you type in a chat
  • Live chip preview during capture shows the full accumulated combo, not just currently-held keys
  • Combo fires when you release the last non-modifier key — Ctrl/Shift/Alt can stay held
  • Pressing a modifier alone and releasing it no longer blocks the next capture
  • Tutorial Next → and ← Back buttons are now in the correct order
  • Tutorial now walks through Settings — highlights Audio Devices and Hotkeys sections; Next auto-closes Settings
▶ v1.2.2 New Features
  • Keybind combinations — hold any mix of Ctrl, Shift, Alt + other keys and the hotkey fires when you release everything (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F4, Ctrl+Shift+1); the chip shows the combo live as you hold keys
  • Key chip is now wider to display long combo names without truncation
▶ v1.2.1 Improvements
  • Tutorial card and highlight now stay anchored to the Clownboard window and reposition when you move it — no longer globally always-on-top
  • Tutorial highlight border is now yellow for better visibility
  • Tutorial steps that require an action (open Settings, add a sound, assign a hotkey) lock the Next button until you complete them
  • Settings → Sound keybinds: new section lists all sounds with their current hotkey and a Change button to rebind without closing Settings
▶ v1.2.0 New Features
  • First-run tutorial — a floating card walks new users through audio setup, adding sounds, and assigning hotkeys; highlights each UI element in turn; skipped automatically on updates for existing users
▶ Version 1.1 6 releases · v1.1.1–v1.1.6
▶ v1.1.6 Bug Fixes
  • When confirming a key conflict, the displaced sound is removed from the board — it no longer moves to the other key
▶ v1.1.5 Bug Fixes
  • "Key already in use" dialog now matches the style and layout of the control key conflict dialog, with No as the default button
▶ v1.1.4 Bug Fixes
  • Rebinding a key already used by another sound now asks for confirmation before swapping — no more silent swaps
▶ v1.1.3 Improvements
  • Any key can now be bound — Mouse1 (left click) and Escape included
  • ✕ cancel button is now red and appears directly next to the key chip
▶ v1.1.2 New Features
  • Mouse buttons (Mouse2–Mouse5) can now be used as sound hotkeys — click any key chip, then press a mouse button to bind it
  • A ✕ button appears next to the key chip during capture so you can cancel without waiting out the 5-second countdown
▶ v1.1.1 New Features
  • "Download with dependencies" installer — automatically downloads and installs VB-Audio Virtual Cable if not already present; skipped silently if it is
▶ Version 1.0 14 releases · v1.0.0–v1.0.13
▶ v1.0.13 Bug Fixes
  • Auto-update now relaunches the app after installing — installer no longer skips the launch step when run silently
  • Opening a second instance brings the existing window to the front instead of running two copies
▶ v1.0.12 Bug Fixes
  • Setting a control key (Stop/Mute/Pause) to a key that already has a sound no longer removes that sound — it stays in the list and the control key just takes priority while assigned
▶ v1.0.11 New Features
  • Changelog categories — each version now shows a label like "Bug Fixes" or "New Features"
  • Update banner now has an "Update Now" button — downloads and runs the installer in the background, no browser needed
  • Website changelog: versions grouped under a collapsible section, each version linked to its GitHub release
▶ v1.0.10 New Features
  • Key capture times out after 5 seconds — the chip or label counts down and auto-cancels so you're never stuck waiting for input
  • Settings → Hotkeys: "Change" becomes "Cancel" while listening — click it or press Esc to abort without changing the key
▶ v1.0.9 Bug Fixes
  • Settings → Hotkeys: all key labels now update immediately when a conflict is resolved — previously, the displaced action still showed its old key in the panel
▶ v1.0.8 Bug Fixes
  • Installer no longer gets stuck on "Closing applications" when Clownboard is running — process is force-killed before files are copied, bypassing the Windows Restart Manager
▶ v1.0.7 New Features
  • In-app changelog — click "What's New" next to the version number to see the full version history
  • Changelog section added to this page
▶ v1.0.6 Bug Fixes
  • Settings → Hotkeys now shows a confirmation dialog when the chosen key conflicts with a sound or another control action
  • Installer automatically closes any running Clownboard before updating — no Task Manager needed
  • Download filenames now include the version number
▶ v1.0.5 Bug Fixes
  • Stop / Mute / Pause no longer fire accidentally while you're assigning a new hotkey
  • Confirmation dialog before a key is moved away from a control action
  • Unset control key now shows — instead of empty parentheses
▶ v1.0.4 Bug Fixes
  • Fixed: all hotkeys (including F12 / Pause) were silently broken after binding a sound to a control key
  • Fixed: Pause button always showed (F12) regardless of the actual configured key
  • Stop / Mute / Pause button labels now update immediately when control keys are changed
▶ v1.0.3 Bug Fixes
  • Key chip labels now use shorthand — PgUp, PgDn, LShift, LCtrl, Np0–Np9, Bksp, Esc, etc.
  • Binding a sound to a current control key now asks for confirmation first
  • Key chip width increased to fit longer labels
▶ v1.0.2 Bug Fixes
  • Page Up / Page Down and other navigation keys no longer misidentified during key capture
  • Shift, Ctrl, and Alt can now be bound as sound keys
  • Numpad hotkeys no longer ghost-fire when navigation keys with the same scan code are pressed
▶ v1.0.1 New Features
  • Any key can be used as a hotkey, including numpad keys (distinguished from regular number keys)
  • Stop, Mute, and Pause keys are individually configurable in Settings
  • Spam-restart mode: re-pressing a playing key restarts the sound from the beginning (off by default, toggle in Settings)
▶ v1.0.0 Initial Release
  • Mixes your voice and sounds into a single virtual mic via VB-Audio Cable
  • WASAPI low-latency passthrough with automatic mic leveler
  • Automatic update checker — notifies you on launch when a newer version is available