So yeah my first campaign involves my party getting shanghaied into an arena where they fight to the death. Tried as I might I was unable to find a cheering crowd sound effect or arena or jeering or anything that would have worked. Might use it for later stuff but for know I'm going to have to look elsewhere. ^_^ thanks.

An app that has potential, but turns out to be a D&D themed app rather than a good D&D music app.

First and foremost, I'd much rather have a better improved music app than have the dice rolling this app offers. Sure the dice rolling is nice if I didn't have dice, but you can't really call yourself a DM if you don't have some dice. Furthermore, you might as well us Game Master 5 or Fight Club 5 if you really needed an app to play the game.

Now what makes this a relatively bad app is mainly the mixer... it doesn't really do much. All of the ambient sounds are played on the music channel meaning you can't increase or decrease the volume of the ambient sounds and the music separately. To make it much worse, all of the ambient sounds are MUCH too loud. They also have a number of sound effects which basically play just a single sound once and this is what the "sound effects" portions of the mixer controls... so yeah that makes the ambient sounds basically useless if you want to actually hear the music.

Another thing that makes this app sub-par is that everything is in menus. You don't have a sound board or anything that you can edit to make finding the right ambient sounds or right music easier aside from a "favorites," but that's pretty terrible for a sound app, especially for one in a game as active as D&D. Every time you want to switch the environment, you have to do so manually by swiping through multiple menus, for music and ambience separately, weather too if you want to use that. As for sound effects? You better not want to use those on a whim because you'll have to swipe through those manually as well.

If you really want a good customizable music app, use Audio Board, an app specially made to allow you to make a custom sound board. The only downside to it is that you can't play from multiple boards at once, but it's still much better than this app.

Fixing the previous version bug and 64 bit isn't much of an update. Haven't had any new content in over 2 years.

I love this app! Not only can I add atmosphere to perfectly match any situation, but I can also add in FX for the battles! The only thing I really wish this was able to do would be to have the app continue playing in the background so if I had a note saved, I could close the app while it continued playing music, pull up the relevant notes and then right back to add the sound effects...

While it took a while to learn DM DJ to use it to its best ability; ive enjoyed it immensely. Following the directions to add playlists of my soundtracks made this the perfect app for me. A few other DMs I know went heavy into the other music RP program and after a couple campaigns dropped using it. The time it took to organize and the monetary drain became annoying.

The simplicity of this one keeps it useful: select your environment, music, day/night, and weather and youre good to go! Go learn to create your own playlists!

Its a 4 out of 5 because it needs more modern and scifi environments--its mainly fantasy with a limited selection of other environments. If it opened up users to create their own environments/sound effects it would be a solid 5.

I'll start by saying I haven't had a chance to test at a session yet, but I'm relatively certain DMDJ will perform well. I'm more worried about my rustiness as a DM.

That being said, there's just one thing I can think of at that moment which would improve the app a lot. In the mixer, it would be awesome to have a slider for the environment sounds, in addition to the sliders for FX, weather, and music. Just ooooone more slider.

I understand not being able to pause the environment sounds, but if we could just mix it out without having to switch to a less busy environment, you know, when we want minimal sound or just the music... well, that would be fantastic.

I'll update my review after a play session. But so far, it's just an awesome app, which I am certain will be an indispensable part of my DMing.

I originally bought this app to use while running D&D type games for my middle school students in China. Now I use it in my escape room business. Best of its kind.

Love this idea, and it's very well executed. However, I use my device to run stats for my game and when you exit the app, the audio stops abruptly. Would like the ability to run audio in the background, please!

Love it, has everything I wanted for adding just that little bit extra to my 5th ed campaign.

This is a really great app to add that extra bit of ambience to your adventures. Unfortunately, one flaw (mentioned by other reviewers) puts it just short of a perfect rating. Background audio support would make this the perfect D&D music app.

I love to use this app while DMing. My players are never expecting it the first time and they always get so excited and immersed. Great app all in all. My only issue is that some of the ambiences are just a different pitch of wind blowing quietly, which is kinda lame. But it's not very common, so the app is still one of my favorite D&D assets to use. Definitely would recommend.

So this is a great app. Good interface easy to use. I think it would be nice to have a pause button on the different effect and sounds, not just the music. It crosses the boarder from background noise to foreground noise. Even on its lowest setting there are a lot of sounds going on at once. Otherwise the labeling is great, music and sound effects are very well crafted.

I love this app, it's got some great music and it goes amazingly with my campaigns, only one improvement to be made, make a place with favourites, not only for the FX sounds, make a favourite tab for everything, so I don't have to go searching for that one I know I want. Other than that I think the app is great.

After searching many options to use during our tapletop RPG sessions, this is by far the best value, and actually most customizable. I found everything I wanted in this app. I wanted to be able to use my own music and sounds from within the app, yup. It's a one time fee, not a subscription based service, yup. It has a lot of preloaded songs and effects from all genres, yup. It has the ability to preset music and effects in a custom way so that I with one button I can have all of my custom ambience playing, yup. Also some of the reviews, although positive stated they wanted to be able to turn up or down aspects of the volume, but couldn't. Maybe there has been an update, but I easily found the mixer and was able to do all of that very easily.

Very happy. I hope they are able to add even more sounds and songs, I would gladly pay a dollar or two for an expansion, but it is pretty loaded and like I said you can import your own playlists right out of iTunes.

Great!

The one thing I would really love to see is the ability to pause the environmental music. Sometimes I just want to use the sound effects and its hard to even hear them properly over the environmental.

So far I'm loving the quality of this app, but I feel there are three things that are holding it back from being a solid 5-star:

1. Background capability: I use my iPad for referencing campaign notes, which creates odd moments of silence when I switch apps. As such, I run DMDJ from my iPhone, but this kills the battery since I can't turn the screen off.

2. Landscape on iPads: I feel like this is pretty self explanatory. Your website recommends using an iPad for a better overall experience. Most iPad cases orient the iPad in landscape.

3. A nice to have: iCloud backup the snapshots for easy transitioning between devices.

I love everything about this app. Well worth the money. Gives my campaigns that extra flavor. Please add background capability. I use multiple apps to organize my campaigns and I am forced to choose between music and tracking my encounters in another app. Other than that everything works fantastic.

This is the top cheese of any D&D software, and for free? Unbeatable. Thank you.

Good selection of sounds, high sound quality, etc.

I'd like to have the option to play the audio in the background so I can consult rules and save battery power.

More sci-fi sounds like lasers, blasters, a few button sounds would be nice too.

The list of sound effects, is very large ( you have over a dozen effects for foot steps, alone) and it is very easy to add favorites and a custom 'soundboard', and my only complaint is that it only works in portrait mode even when my iPad Pro is in landscape.

Other than that, this app is great!

I took a chance on this app hoping that it would provide me with situational music for our DnD campaign, turns out the music doesn't change when you change environments. It's one generic tune the whole time.

The sounds are top quality.

Needs a way to pause the ambient sounds and play only sound effects.

I wish we could hotkey some of the sound clips or it would not go all the way back to the main menu after using.

Right now it takes longer to find the FX than they last.

Needs to be able to play while minimized.

Sounds are great quality. Environments are rich and full. The one glaring flaw is that you can't turn off the environment sounds. Gets frustrating after a while

The audio abruptly cuts out as soon as you try to use your device for anything else. I need to be able to reference the notes and rules on my iPad when I run my games, so this is kind of a deal breaker.

Otherwise, the app is brilliant at what it does. Please add background audio so that I can use this app while running my games!

It’s a neat app, but you can’t do anything while using it. Your phone has to be on and running the app the whole time. If you put it to sleep, or switch apps (like to a character sheet app..) the music stops. Also, the mixer doesn’t work and you can’t mute the music without muting the entire app, so you can’t do sound effects without music.

Could be great app if it had a stop button. No clue why this was released without such a basic feature. Even closing the app and reopening does not reset the sound.

Not being able to stop the environmental sounds makes this app a hassle. I don't want to have to close it just to stop the sounds. YMMV but I wish I'd spent my money elsewhere.

I got this for two reasons. The snap shot capturing music sounds etc for a quick chain effect. Also being able to add my own music was appealing. Sadly the snap shot effect doesn't work well. I made about 11 all together so could quickly select items. I was only able to do about 2 snap shots till it got stuck in a loop. Little disappointed.

As above so below

I love using this app while reading my Legend of Drizzt books!

This app is pretty fantastic. The content is great and the price is perfect. Other similar apps have subscription fees which I am not a fan of. My only criticism is the app interface. It is much improved but still feels a bit confusing and very dated. I have to dig down into two layers of menus to find sound effects that I want. Again, this app is amazing, but I think the next update should focus on a complete revamp of the interface, throw it out and start from scratch. A tight modern ui would make turn this app into something every DM owns.

Lots of good, evolving sounds at your disposal with this app. Paired with character soundboards for players and enemies, I'll have the ultimate ambience.

This app is absolutely fantastic! It's the ONLY app of it's kind. I purchased 3 years ago, and the guys at Blueface games are STILL adding sounds and updates. If you run a tabletop game, you can add dimensions of immersion that would just be impossible otherwise.

After searching youtube for playlists for nearly an hour, I decided to go to the app store and try my luck. This is by far even better than I expected! Great library of loops, easy interface, and a good mix of fantasy and modern.

Highly recommended for fellow gamers and dm's!!

It is an excellent solution to enhance any table top RPG experience. Continuously develops app and listens to user feedback.

I really like this app! It helped me create the realistic atmosphere I was looking for as a dungeon Master. It is even better now that they have released the update patch. I really love all the new sound effects and background environment sounds.

Ok I like what they tried to do here. However, this App is not at all easy to learn. The users guide is 28 pages long not counting about 28 images. Warning be ready to invest a lot of time learning and that is learning a system I think should be done much easier. I have gone through the YouTube tutorial and the written users guide 2 times and still have not found a way to "zero" out the environment sound, it's frustrating because I want to to silence the annoying environment and weather and just play sound effects. If this app gets the ability to silence the environment sound and still have the FX sounds going on. I would rate it much higher.

I'd really love to be able to stop the background noise/environment sounds, or at least mute them. I enjoy the app more for the sound effects.

I really love the new favorites list, however!

Update: 5.22.15 new build froze on main screen. Deleting app and re-downloading app fixed problem. Great new improvements and added content. No other atmosphere sound app like it for tabletop RPGs.

Original review.This apps has some nice functions, the background sounds and music are nice. There are some major problems with the user interface though. You can turn off the music but not the background sounds? Needs a big sound off button. The app looks nice visually but the interface is really confusing. Great functionality but user interface needs to be totally rethought.

The audio mixer doesn't work. At all. The three presets work. But the actual sliders don't do anything no matter what setting they're on. Will update once I test every aspect.

So I didn't even look into this app. Bought it off a recommendation only to find out it has to be connected to an external audio output. It's great unless I want to, you know, go anywhere with it besides my home audio setup, or pack an audio setup around with me, in which case I would just use a more powerful program on my laptop that I don't need to sync playlists across devices for. Great soundboard...just thought I'd be able to be mobile with it...since...you know, it's a mobile app. Let me play it through my wimpy iPad speakers if I want!

Look at Tubajoe's comments, they are exactly how I (and many of my dm friends) feel. Having these features would complete the app as perfect.

After setting up my stereo system (7.1 Dolby THX) around the gaming room table, added ambient lighting and strobe effects for lightning with a 15" remote subwoofer, the stage was set. My players were very impressed and commented this app helped make for an unforgettable game session. The app provides the base, you must build the environment to make it come ALIVE!

This is a really nice app. It would be beyond nice if I could use the rest of my iPad at the same time. But I can't, because this doesn't run in the background.

This app is absolutely amazing. However, I request one simple (but vital) feature. If you could add the ability to keep the sound fx and music playing out of the application itself, It would help me immensely. This is absolutely paramount, as I need this particular feature before I start DMing my next campaign. Much appreciated.

ALLOW MUSIC AND SOUNDS TO CONTINUE IN BACKGROUND!

It doesn't matter how terrific your production values...DMDJ is made IMPOTENT if I can't run it in the background while I access other gaming aids.

Update: also the keyboard is broken on iPhone 5, iOS 8 when adding snapshots.

Love the sounds and selection. Makes games so much better. I, like others am disappointed that it doesn't play in the background. It's also extremely hard on battery life. Far too much for a sound looper. Also it's a little sad that the app hasn't been updated for current screen ratios. Nor has it been updated in almost a year. It's almost abandonware. Dunno if the dev cares anymore. Regardless, it's good for what it is. Just wish the devs would show it some love.

This app needs to be able to run in the background or when I have my phone locked.

I paid four dollars for this app, I obviously didn't spend enough for it. It is easy to use and it does his job well :-)

This is a great app. The combinations of indoor/outdoor, weather, environment, intensity will add an amazingly detailed background to your game. Sounds are always fresh and vibrant. However my biggest complaint is that this app can't run in the background. I can't lock my phone or go and use any other apps, i have to stay right on DMDJ. I find myself turning it down to its lowest brightness, then having to plug it in to keep my phone alive. Also, the sound effects are a bit too hard to navigate. If I'm looking for a death scream because a character suddenly died, i'll have to leave my players hanging in abrupt suspense for 5-10 seconds while I search. A quick access favorites tab would be great. Other than that, great app, definitely recommend it.

So far, I like the app a lot but I would like to see the ability to create templates so you can press a button and voila, you've got yourself a desert battle at night. Also, the ability to background the app goes without saying. Other than that, this app is an excellent way to add some storytelling depth to your sessions. My players loved it.

Why on Earth would you have not included the ability to have this continuing to play in the background!? If I exit this app to view my reference documents and look something up while gaming = this app stops playing.....or if I just turn the screen off = this stops playing. So you really have to just plug your phone in, play this app and set the phone down.....making sure it doesn't turn itself off.

Also: entirely too difficult to create/add your own tracks.

These sounds will make any tabletop session better, as the wealth of flavored sounds spice up the game. Now if there were a run in background option, so you could run other apps at the same time, it would get 5 stars for sure!

I love DMDJ, it lets me add so much depth to my sessions. I ran a game just last night and the players were immediately immersed in the market due to the sound effects and music tracks I was able to combine in the app. There are so many options and environments it's just outstanding and it adds a whole new level of immersion. You can even import your own playlists in a super easy process and have a list of your own situationally appropriate tracks available, complete with the sound effect overlays! My one and only complaint about the app is that is doesn't run in the background. Using my phone a a character sheet and a reference guide means I'm swapping between apps all the time, an without background operation the music cuts out whenever I switch. It goes an picks up right where I left off when I I back, but losing that immersion for a moment is a bummer. Regardless, this is the best RPG music/sound app out there and it's completely worth it. Not to mention the built in dice roller, definitely comes in handy for quickly rolling complex sets of dice or if you forgot yours! Users, pick it up and do your players a favor! Devs, please add a background function!

In truth, this is precisely what many GMs seeking to add clever and unobtrusive audio ambiance to their games could want.

The concept, appearance and current execution is wonderful and would deserve 5 stars were it not for a lack of background run support a this time. Of all the requests, this must be at the top.

All in all, it is worth the money they ask and I would pay a little more for an app that had all of the above, but in this day and age to not have it run in the background out of the box is poor design.

Nonetheless, I paid for it despite reading the other reviews that claimed no background support and look forward to future updates which are infrequent as of this writing, the last being Nov 2012.

This is by far my favorite app, of the many that I have downloaded. I use this app to play various background sounds to add ambience and theme to whatever RPG or boardgame night I'm hosting at the house. I even use and enjoy it as I'm trying to get the creative juices flowing. I look forward to future enhancements and additional sound effects. Keep up the great work!

I love the direction you have taken this app. The snapshots are great, and the ability to import music is useful. The added sound option for dice rolls was creative as well. I like the variations in FX, but there are some that shouldn't be randomized. The human laughs vary too wildly- from a mischievous chuckle to a coarse guffaw. This makes the human FX almost unusable at the table. The ability to favorite certain FX would be useful as well. FX often need to be played quickly to stay immersive, but it can take upwards of 6 clicks to get to the one you need IF you know where it is and by then the moment has passed. The option to import FX would be interesting as well, but I understand the difficulty with this. Something else that is needed is the ability to mute the sound without having to exit the app, mute the device, or enter the settings. Sometimes silence is the best sound for a situation.

I've been using this app for over a year now and I absolutely love it and want it to grow into something even greater. I'm looking forward to the next update.

Would like to be able use tracking within a song and also a quicker way to access fx through snapshots or something similar. Menu simplification for quicker on the fly changes would be fantastic. Don't really need all the dice rollers so they can be scrapped for other requested features. I only list so much because I want it to be the best it can be. Love it and please keep at it!

I love this app, it has a huge amount to offer for the creative GM! However, I have to say it's too difficult to find certain sounds, even when you save "snapshots." Rather, I think there should just be 'playlists' in which you could save any environment, music, or sound fx piece, so you can have quick access for the type of adventure you're playing at the moment.

Also, I think there needs to be a 'sound board' on the main screen that lets you more accurately control the volume of the three sound channels (environment, music, sound fx) relative to each other.

The UI feels a little heavy, too, but that's just a personal preference. So, although I have a lot of comments, I still enjoy using this app very much!

Has more feature then I expected- options out the yang- great sounds. Some of the battle ambience get repetitive quick. Town noises leave a little bit to be desired - but the other categories are packed. Would like to be able to use it straight from the phone though, without headphones or speakers

I do really like this app an the great selection it has in its libraries plus the option for music, ambiance and sound effects to be played all together.

Where it falls short is that the interface is complicated even with the user Manual, I still can't figure out how to take a snapshot. Also I would love to have this app still play, while I switch apps to use GM tools or look at my PDFs.

It's a bit tricky to access all of the new options, but so far, the results have been worth it. The new interface makes it easier to stack sound effects, and the new music tracks are awesome. And I wish to thank the mod makers for fixing the problem with the previous update so quickly.

I'm a new GM trying to go all out on my game, and we haven't used ambient music before. Can't wait to try it out.

A few requests to the developer*

- As others have said, an option to create a playlist of saved tracks would be awesome

- An easier/ quickly accessible volume control between ambient sounds and music

- Perhaps a tab for a soundboard would work easier to set up both playlists and sound effects, to keep from slowing down the GM when they're in the flow

- Scrolling through the sounds/music would be preferred

- Being able to play in the background while running other apps is essential

Other than that, an awesome app I look forward to use, and with more developments hopefully in the future, a definite recommendation to my gamer friends. :)

I used this in a meeting to describe a project I was demonstrating. It was awesome. Then I used it in one of my games and my players loved it.

I'm excited for the updates to come out with more sounds and music.

One request: please add a button to turn off environmental sound effects. Once they're on, they're on! (If there's an off button already, make it easier to find. The interface could use a bit more interaction design work. )

This app is fantastic, but it lacks one thing: the ability to create a custom mix of environment and music, and then assign that mix to a hot button. Having say, 10 of these would enable fast, one-touch switching between audio cues. If used consistently, those cues will be all my players need to know what type of situation they are in. In short, great app, awesome idea, but this one feature could make it unbeatable!

I haven't seen such a good soundboard for RPGamers and war gamers. I'm glad that I tried this app!

Kudos for the developers on such a polished and well made software. Some suggestions to make it even better:

- make it possible to continue playing music on the background (essential feature!),

- Music and categories should be scrolled instead of divided in multiple pages. It makes for an easier access,

- and of course, adding more sounds and music! The basic sound selection is good, but it can be enhanced. Why not planning on releasing add-ons later?

Hope to see future updates!

I am running iOS 4.2.1, on a 2nd gen iPod. I have issues starting the app, unless I have just rebooted. I have skipping and crashing issues very often. I also have heavy lag. I don't know if it's a issue on my end. But, I would love to be able to use this app for my sessions. I paid for this, I wish I could use it. 3 stars until I can.

Bought on a whim the other day. I was extremely pleased that it was a much deeper and more expansive program than originally thought. I love the effects and the music scores are well put together. Great for a board game night or next DND session, I hope!

As said in another review, I wish to see this be able to run in the background in the future updates. I would love love love that feature... Else, 5 stars though!!!!

When I first encountered this app on my iPad, I could see a lot of potential despite a few minor issues. And just one day after buying the app, an update was released fixing most of them! This app is a wonderful tool for making RPG sessions more immersive and fun, especially with the ability to import music from iTunes!

I am very glad to see the developers continuing to improve their product. At this point, the only thing I would hope to see in a future update, is the option to allow the app to continue to play music and sounds while the app is in the background. This would allow a DM to set up desired ambience for an encounter, and then switch over to another app like an initiative tracker without the need for more than one mobile device.

Keep up the excellent work!

Thanks for fixing the display issue, works great! I've been using this app to add soundtracks to board games, and it really adds to the fun! The music cues for wins/losses are terrific!

Would love some '30's pulp effects for playing Fortune and Glory...

The only reason I didn't give a 5 star review is you can't add in your own sounds to suppliment the existing sounds. Otherwise the program is pretty much perfect. It would be nice if the app would also run in the background like pandora or the ipad music player.

Being able to mix ambient and music together is great. The program is easy to use and has a decent collection of sounds. The only thing that would make it better is more sounds.

It's very good, graphics don't line up with where you need to touch on iPad 3 but otherwise is great. A couple people mentioned that they need AirPlay support, however, on iPhone 4 and forward as well as all iPads you can simply stream your sound, no AirPlay button necessary in the app!

I love your app but I feel like there are so many sounds and effects you could add. On the current app it says more content to come, is there an ETA for an update?? I'm very excited for it! Also you should totally fix the app for the iPad 3 as it would be a much better experience than my iPhone if it worked as intended.

Some sounds I hope you add!! :

• nature sound for a riverbed

• customizable tabs with sound and/or different tabs for exploration, combat, and dialogue. For example it would be sweet if in combat you could pull up the tab and have a list of sword clinking sound effects and other useful sounds! Make it so that instead of the sounds/background sounds/music divided by those categories have them by when you'd use them.

• more voice options besides laughing please (a voice changer for the DM could be legit:D)

• ability to turn the screen off and still play background/music

• some of the win/lose sounds are a little cheesey but I still appreciate them, just thought if comment on them!

I've been looking for this app for ages, but nothing until now has really fit the bill. The audio sounds great, and I can't wait for further updates to really expand the library.

But for iPad3 users you may want to wait for an update. The graphics don't line up with the buttons, so you have to guesstimate where to click using the graphics as oly a guide.

Playing the background would be good. As well as AirPlay support.

But I'm still a fan, and anxiously hope well get more updates soon. Maybe more specific sounds (doors, chains, individual combat sounds, etc.). Can't wait!

Cool app. Haven't seen anything like it soundwise. Lots of dice roller apps out there so (some are better). So could care less about this dice rolling part.

Really like the sound aspects. Like all the changing sounds and background atmosphere it can add. I was a little disappointed that under The Dungeon sounds section there wasn't any actual Dungeon sounds it was all Sewers and other sound selections. If its named Dungeon it should have some Dungeon sounds! Maybe castle sounds too!

I really enjoy using this to enhance may games! You'll be surprised how much a little ambiance sets the tone of play.

Thing is though, I really wish that I could keep the music playing while I use other apps, like DM tools.

It was obvious in the fifteen minutes i played around with the app after i downloaded its a labor of love. The sound fx and music are all high quality, the interface is slick and the customizable dice roller is gravy. I would definitely like some more town sounds like a market and an inn and more individualized sounds for battle like sword and armor clangs but the initial sound suite is a great start.