Pocket Bard

Pocket Bard Inc.

About this app

Pocket Bard is a fully immersive audio experience for your D&D or tabletop RPG session. With just a tap, change your entire soundscape to match the tone of your session. From moment to moment, alter the intensity of the music, ambience, and sound effects to pair perfectly with your gameplay.

Free to download, no ads. The free library gives you 20+ complete scenes, including the full Fantasy Essentials collection (tavern, town, forest, cave, swamp, graveyard, dungeons, and more), enough to run an entire fantasy campaign without paying a thing.

HOW IT WORKS
More than a soundboard or a background playlist, every scene is a complete, layered soundscape you control live at the table.
• Intensity slider (patented): one control reshapes the arrangement of the music in real time, from minor encounter to intense battle.
• Music state controls: jump from exploration to combat with a single tap, and trigger a victory stinger when the fight ends.
• Layered ambience: rain, wind, crowds, and creatures, each with its own intensity control.
• Ambience variations: step indoors or out, into open fields or forest paths.
• One-shot sound effects: a door slam, sword clash, thunderclap, or howl right on cue.
• A mix that's already balanced: music, ambience, and effects are mastered to sit together at any volume. No mixing required.

PREP LESS, PLAY MORE
Built for game masters and dungeon masters, Pocket Bard runs on the phone, tablet, or desktop computer you already bring to the table. The controls stay out of your way, so you can shift the mood without breaking the flow of the story. When the party moves on, switch scenes with one tap, and the music and ambience automatically adapt. No more interrupting ads, juggling browser tabs, or clunky UI. No files to manage, no audio know-how needed.

WORKS WITH ANY GAME
Your weekly DnD group, a Pathfinder campaign, a Sci-fi one-shot, Blades in the Dark, Mothership, or your own homebrew. Scenes are built around places and moods, not rulebooks, so they fit any TTRPG and any setting.

WORLDS TO EXPLORE
Free with Fantasy Essentials: Tavern, Town, City, Village, Dark Streets, Mountains, Plains, Forest, Cave, Ancient Grove, Swamp, Graveyard, Dungeon Entrance, Dungeon Corridors, Dungeon Lair, Dwarven Kingdom, and more. Your free library also includes select scenes from other collections, like Deep Space and Shipwreck Cove.

Open Worlds unlocks many more collections: Sci-Fi, Horror, Seafaring, Desert, Feywild, Northern, Cyberpunk, and Modern Urban. Think starships and derelict stations, haunted libraries and cursed lands, frozen harbors, buried tombs, enchanted glades, and high-speed chases. New scenes are added throughout the year.

MADE BY HUMANS
Every note, sound, and piece of art in Pocket Bard is thoughtfully crafted by real humans. Scenes are composed by professional musicians and mastered by our audio team. No AI-generated music or art.

STREAM IT
Pocket Bard owns the rights to its music, and you're welcome to use it in your streams and videos. A credit is always appreciated.

OPEN WORLDS
Open Worlds is our subscription: every collection, plus every new scene as it's released, billed monthly or yearly. One subscription, everything included.

Immersive audio, made simple. With Pocket Bard, you can focus on what matters most: your story.

Pocket Bard is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Chaosium, or any other game publisher. Dungeons & Dragons and D&D are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Ratings and reviews

The app seems great and very user friendly but $50 is too much for a music app that only has like 50 something songs, especially if its only for a one year subscription. If it was a one time payment I would maybe consider it but a lot of campaigns can go for over a year which means I'd be paying for it multiple times which just doesnt seem reasonable. I want to use this for a sci fi campaign but most of those songs are locked behind the pay wall. Might try the free songs out sometime though.

Overall, the utility of the app is overshadowed by odd updates that delete all my content. If I don't check a day before a game, I often find that the app updated and wiped all my downloads. What's worse, is that with every update it tells me I don't have a subscription, which is confusing and annoying, until I remember to hit a restore purchases button. I got this app to simplify music and sound effects for my tabletop games but I find half the time I'm back to my music library.

As a free to play dungeon master I've tried to find something for theme music but free spotify is just bad. This app was a real lifesaver, not only are there themes for almost every scene in a campaign but there are also sound effects like crowds, fighting and way more. The only missing scene themes here are underdark variants to some nature and urban scenes. I wouldn't even mind that mutch if it were a gamepass for this app or something because it already offers so mutch to your world

What’s new

- Added bulk add and remove for scenes, ambiences, and one-shots
- Fixed downloads failing on slow connections
- Improved preview behavior
- Fixed minor bugs
- Playback and previews now pause when you switch to another audio app
- Audio pauses for calls, alarms, and headphone disconnects
- Improved system language sync
- Added playback control on the lock screen, notification shade, and Quick Settings
- Added Bluetooth headset and Pixel Watch controls
- Smaller app size
- Faster app startup