This is the first look at the project was code named “Obnoxious Howler Monkey” (though now that it’s done I will have to come up with a good name. If you’ve got one, comment below).

The Obnoxious Howler Monkey is basically a customizable soundboard built with the GM/DM in mind. It consists of several parts.

1 – A row of buttons to control play and playlist.
2 – A Vinculum VMUSIC2 module.
3 – An Arduino Microcontroller (See the back photos).
4 – A USB Flash Drive (visible in the front photos, decased).
5 – An external set of powered speakers

It looks like this from the front:

And this from the back:

Here’s how it works. You create 6 different folders on the flash drive according to mood. For example, the one in this example has the following playlists: Action, Angry, Happy, Misc, Sad, Silly. You put mp3s for the corresponding mood into each folder until you’ve got a good selection of music. Then you put the flash drive into the USB port on the front (this is the port to the VMUSIC2 module). You plug the external speakers into the headphone jack.

When you power up the Arduino, it tells the VMUSIC2 to start playing music out of the Misc folder. When you press the first button, the Arduino tells the VMUSIC2 to stop playing, switch to the Action folder, and start playing music from there. The buttons are in order (Action, Angry, Happy, Misc, Sad, Silly) and there is ample room to label each button to avoid confusion.

This first iteration of the device is designed to be built into a large piece I’m working on (Pandoran Apothecary Chest) but it could also be hastily slapped into a case and it would be ready to use.

There are a number of improvements I want to make. Significantly, right now it starts at the beginning of each playlist whenever it switches from one playlist to another. This means the same songs would get regularly played. Also, I have a lighted switch built into the device that currently doesn’t switch anything. It will ultimately be the power switch. I’d also like to add multi-button macros to do things like control volume, skip back, and so forth.

This project was a lot of fun to work on. I plan on putting together a project page once I feel like I’ve worked out the kinks and come up with a good name. Video of it in action follows.