Feature Guide
The Two-Deck System
Fantasy Fader uses two decks — Deck A and Deck B — so you always have a track ready to go before you need it. Think of it like a radio DJ's setup: one track is playing while you quietly line up the next one. To load a track, paste a YouTube or Spotify URL into the input at the top of either deck and press Load. Once a track is cued, hit Play to start it.
The most powerful use of the dual-deck system is the contrast between ambiance and action. Load a slow, atmospheric piece — a tavern soundscape, a forest ambiance, an eerie dungeon drone — into one deck, and a combat or tension track into the other. When initiative is rolled or a threat suddenly appears, you're one button press away from a completely different emotional atmosphere.
Crossfading: The FADE Button
The FADE button in the center panel smoothly transitions audio from whichever deck is currently playing to the other. Rather than an abrupt cut that breaks the spell, a crossfade lets one piece of music naturally dissolve into the next. Use the Fade Duration setting to control how long the transition takes — shorter fades (2–4 seconds) work well for urgent combat escalations, while longer fades (8–15 seconds) suit peaceful scene transitions like moving from a tense city street into a quiet library.
A good rule of thumb: match your fade duration to the emotional distance between the two tracks. The further apart the moods, the slower the fade.
Fade to Silence
Sometimes you don't want to cross into another track — you want the music to simply stop. The Fade to Silence button (center panel, below the FADE button) gradually fades the currently-playing deck down to silence over the Fade Duration you've set, then pauses it. The button text changes to Fade from Silence, so when you're ready for the music to return — after a dramatic pause, a big reveal, or a quiet NPC moment — press it again and the same track fades back in at its original volume.
Good uses: silencing background music for a pivotal monologue, dropping the sound completely before a jump scare, or giving players a moment of genuine quiet after a hard-fought victory.
Mute & Loop
Each deck has two utility buttons next to Play/Pause:
- Mute: Instantly silences the deck without stopping playback. The pre-mute volume is saved and restored when you unmute. Useful for cutting audio briefly during rules disputes or crosstalk without losing your place in the track.
- Loop: Keeps the current track repeating seamlessly. The button highlights in purple when active. Loop is ideal for ambient soundscapes — a forest, a tavern, a dungeon — where you want continuous atmosphere without babysitting the deck.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Fantasy Fader is designed to be fully controllable by keyboard so your hands stay off the mouse during a session. All shortcuts can be remapped in the Hotkey Settings menu (gear icon, top right).
Selecting tracks — Press 1–9 to highlight that playlist slot. Press ← Left or → Right to highlight the track currently loaded in Deck A or Deck B. The selected track is outlined in amber. Press Esc to clear the selection.
Loading tracks — With a playlist item highlighted, press Shift + ← to load it into Deck A, or Shift + → for Deck B. The track is removed from the playlist, and any track already in that deck is sent back to the playlist in its place.
Moving deck tracks — With a deck track highlighted, press Shift + ← or Shift + → to send it to the opposite deck (the decks swap if both are loaded). Pressing Shift in the same direction as the selected deck — e.g. Shift + ← when Deck A is highlighted — ejects the track to the bottom of the playlist.
Quick-load next track — Press Space to instantly load the top playlist track into whichever deck is idle. If neither deck has a track it loads into Deck A; if only one deck is occupied it fills the empty one; if both are loaded it targets the deck that is not currently playing.
Volume — With any track highlighted (deck or playlist), press ] to raise its volume by 5% and [ to lower it by 5%.
Reordering the playlist — With a playlist item highlighted, press Shift + ↑ or Shift + ↓ to move it up or down in the queue. Combine with Space to arrange your next few tracks and load them without touching the mouse.
Local Library
The Local Library lets you use audio files stored on your computer — MP3s, WAV files, FLACs, and other common formats — as tracks on your decks, in your playlist, and in the soundboard. It works alongside YouTube and Spotify without replacing them.
Connecting a folder: Click the folder icon in the top-right toolbar to open the Local Library panel. Click Pick Folder and select the directory that contains your audio files. Your browser will ask for permission to read it — click Allow. Fantasy Fader remembers the connection across page reloads without you needing to re-pick the folder.
The file panel: Once connected, a Local Library section appears below the playlist, listing every recognized audio file in the folder. Click any file to add it to your playlist. Files already loaded on a deck or in the playlist are marked with a checkmark and cannot be added again. Use Add visible to bulk-add all currently shown files at once.
Hiding files: Click the eye icon on any file row to hide that file from the listing — useful for keeping the library tidy during a session without permanently removing the file from your folder. Hidden files appear at reduced opacity. Click Show all in the panel header to make all files visible again.
Managing the connection: The folder icon modal lets you Refresh the file listing if you've added or removed files on disk since connecting, Change Folder to switch to a different directory, or Disconnect to remove the library entirely.
What works with local files: Local tracks load on decks just like YouTube tracks — the deck area shows the track name and a music icon instead of a video. Crossfading, Loop, Mute, volume sliders, and all keyboard shortcuts work normally. Auto-Balance analyzes local files without any tab capture — it reads the file directly, so no browser prompt is needed. Local files are a free feature with no Pro gate.
Browser support: Local Library requires Chrome 86+ or Edge 86+ (File System Access API). Firefox and Safari are not currently supported.
The Playlist: Preparing Your Session in Advance
The Playlist is where session preparation pays dividends at the table. Before your session, sit down and think through every location, encounter, and dramatic beat your players could reasonably reach. Load a track for each one into the playlist. Include:
- Location ambiances — the town square, the dungeon entrance, the throne room, the tavern
- Combat tracks — one or two for standard encounters, something more intense for boss fights
- Emotional beats — a quiet, mournful piece for revelation moments, a triumphant swell for victories
- Wildcard tracks — something mysterious or tense for unexpected player detours
You can reorder tracks in the playlist by dragging and dropping them, and rename any track by clicking the pencil icon — useful when "Epic Battle Theme III" needs to be labeled "Boss Fight" so you can find it instantly mid-session. To load any playlist track onto a deck, simply drag it from the playlist onto Deck A or Deck B.
Saving Sessions: Prepare for Multiple Games at Once
Fantasy Fader's Save / Load feature (top left) lets you store complete session states — both decks and the entire playlist — under a named session. This means you can build a dedicated playlist for each campaign or one-shot you're running, save it, and switch between them instantly.
If you run multiple games — a weekend dungeon crawl and a Tuesday night political intrigue campaign, for example — you can maintain a separate saved session for each one, each with its own curated playlist. Open Save / Load before your session, load the right playlist, and you're ready to go.
Auto-save: Fantasy Fader automatically saves your current state to your browser's local storage as you work. If you accidentally close the tab or your browser crashes, your decks and playlist will be right where you left them when you return. You don't need to do anything to enable this — it happens in the background continuously. Note that auto-save is tied to the browser on the specific device you're using; it will not sync across devices. For cross-device access, use Save / Load with a named session (requires a free account).
Volume Balancing (Pro)
Not all YouTube tracks are recorded at the same loudness level. A track you found for a dungeon crawl might be significantly louder or quieter than your combat music, forcing you to manually adjust volumes mid-session — exactly the kind of friction that breaks immersion. The Balance button analyzes the actual audio loudness of every loaded track and automatically adjusts their volume sliders so they all play at a consistent perceived level.
After balancing, a small amber ▾ marker appears on each volume slider showing the recommended setting. You can still adjust volumes freely — the marker just stays as a reference point so you can return to the balanced level if you stray from it. Run the balancer during your pre-session prep so you're not touching sliders when your players are watching.
Spotify Integration (Pro)
Fantasy Fader Pro supports Spotify playback through the Spotify Web Playback SDK. To use it, connect your Spotify account via the Spotify button in the top-left corner. A few important things to know:
- Spotify Premium is required. The Web Playback SDK is a Premium-only feature enforced by Spotify. Free Spotify accounts cannot be used for in-app playback.
- One active stream at a time. Spotify's platform only allows a single active playback stream per account on third-party apps. This means that if you have two Spotify tracks loaded — one on each deck — Fantasy Fader Pro cannot play them simultaneously. As a result, fading between two Spotify tracks is not currently possible. The app will warn you when both decks have Spotify tracks loaded. The workaround is to pair a Spotify track with a YouTube track on the other deck when you want crossfade capability.
Soundboard (Pro)
The Soundboard lets you map individual keyboard keys to short audio clips — perfect for sound effects like a thunderclap, a door creak, a dragon roar, or a dramatic sting. Clips can come from YouTube or from your connected Local Library. Unlike the decks, which play full tracks, each soundboard key plays a precise clip: YouTube entries use start and end times in seconds so only the 2–3 second effect is triggered; local files play from the beginning. Soundboard audio plays independently on top of whatever is already playing on your decks, so your ambient music never stops.
Opening the soundboard: Click the grid icon in the top-right toolbar, or press S (remappable in Hotkey Settings). The last soundboard you had open will appear immediately. Press Esc to close it.
Creating a soundboard: From the main soundboard list, type a name in the input at the bottom and click Create. You can maintain multiple soundboards — one per campaign, or one for ambiance stings and another for combat effects. Press 1–9 to open a soundboard directly from the list.
Mapping a key: Open a soundboard to see the on-screen keyboard. Keys that already have a sound mapped are highlighted in purple. Click any unhighlighted key — or simply press it on your keyboard — to open the mapping editor. Choose YouTube or Local File as the source. For YouTube, paste a URL or video ID, enter start and end times in seconds (e.g. Start: 7, End: 9 for a two-second clip), and optionally name the clip (auto-fetched from YouTube if left blank). For a local file, select a file from your connected library. Set the volume and click Save.
Playing sounds: With a soundboard open, press any mapped key to trigger that sound instantly. The key lights up green while it plays and stops automatically at the end time you set. Press the same key again to stop it early. You can click mapped keys on the on-screen keyboard as well.
Editing and removing mappings: The panel to the right of the keyboard lists all mapped sounds with their timing and volume. Click Edit on any entry to change it, or click ✕ to remove it. You can also press an already-mapped key while in the keyboard view to re-open the mapping editor for it.
A note on embeddable videos: Not all YouTube videos can be played in embedded players — some creators disable this on their uploads. If a sound fails to play, you'll see an error message explaining this. Try searching for an alternative version of the sound effect on YouTube, or look for royalty-free sound effect libraries which reliably allow embedding.
YouTube Ads
YouTube videos often include ads that play before the video begins. Because the ad must finish (or be skipped) before playback starts, a track sitting on a deck with an uncleared ad is not ready to fade into — the fade would transition into silence or an ad rather than your music. To avoid this disruption mid-session:
- Pre-clear ads during prep. Before your session starts, mute the deck, hit Play, wait for the ad to finish or skip it, then pause and reset the position. The ad won't play again for that video in the same session.
- YouTube Premium eliminates ads entirely and is the cleanest solution if you run audio-heavy sessions regularly.
Practical Pre-Session Workflow
- Open your saved session for tonight's game (or start fresh).
- Add tracks to the playlist for every location and encounter your players might reach.
- Rename tracks so they're instantly recognizable at the table.
- Run the Balance analyzer so all tracks are at consistent loudness.
- Set up your soundboard with any one-shot effects you expect to need — combat stings, ambient bursts, dramatic accents.
- Drag your opening ambiance to Deck A and your first likely combat track to Deck B.
- Save the session so your prep is preserved for next time.
- Enable Loop on ambiance tracks so they play continuously without intervention.
- At the table, keep one deck playing and the next track ready to go. Use FADE when the mood shifts, Fade to Silence for dramatic pauses, and Mute for quick interruptions.
Tips for Seamless Audio at the Table
- Stay a beat ahead. Load the next track onto the empty deck while the current one is playing, not after it ends. You'll never have a moment of silence between scenes.
- Loop ambiance, fade for combat. Long ambient tracks work as set-and-forget atmosphere. Save your energy for timing combat fades, where the moment of the switch matters most.
- Trust the fade. Players will feel the transition even if they can't name it. A well-timed fade into combat music can make initiative feel genuinely alarming.
- Volume is mood. Even without fading, simply reducing the volume of an ambient track during a tense conversation adds subtle pressure. Raise it again when the danger passes.
- Prepare more than you think you need. Players will always go somewhere you didn't expect. Two or three "neutral" tracks — something fitting for wandering, travel, or downtime — give you coverage for improvised scenes without silence.