Set the mood or punctuate a moment—play a sound effect, queue up a playlist, or drop in a YouTube link, all without leaving the session. Sounds & Music is a facilitator and host panel for controlling audio that everyone in the space hears together.
Opening the Audio Panel
Click the Audio button (the music-note icon) in the top-right activity bar to open the panel. Only facilitators and hosts see this button—participants don't have access to it.
Inside, you'll find two tabs:
- Soundboard: tap-to-play sound effects
- Music: background tracks for the whole space
Soundboard: Sound Effects
The Soundboard is a grid of buttons—tap one and it plays instantly for everyone in the space. Sounds can overlap if you trigger a few in quick succession, so don't worry about perfect timing.
Kolab ships with 9 built-in sounds to get you started: Applause, Ding, Drumroll, Airhorn, Tada, Woosh, Buzzer, Crickets, and Fanfare.
Tip: Sound effect volume is deliberately kept a bit lower than music, so a well-timed airhorn punctuates the moment without drowning out conversation.
Adding Your Own Sounds
Want a custom effect? Drag an audio file into the panel, or use the file picker, then give it a name and an emoji so it's easy to spot in the grid.
Keep these limits in mind:
- Up to 32 custom sounds per space
- Clips up to 30 seconds long
- Files up to 10MB
To remove a custom sound, hover over it to reveal the ×, then confirm.
Favoriting Sounds
Star a sound to pin it to the top of the list. Favorites are a personal preference—saved to your browser, not shared with the rest of the team—so everyone can build their own quick-access set.
Music: Background Tracks
The Music tab plays background music for the whole space. Paste a YouTube or SoundCloud link, or upload your own audio file (up to 25MB), and playback starts for everyone.
Playback Controls
Standard controls—play, pause, skip—plus a volume slider. Whatever volume you set as facilitator is where everyone starts, though each participant can adjust their own from there.
Queue and History
- Up next holds your queue
- Recent keeps a history of what's played
Both persist even if everyone reloads the page, so you won't lose your lineup mid-session.
Saved Library
Star a track or link you use often and it lands in your personal Saved library—shared across every session you facilitate in that space, and visible to any facilitator working alongside you. Handy for the intro song or transition track you reach for every time.
What Participants See
While music plays, participants see a small "now playing" widget float on their screen, with a spinning-record look. They can adjust their own volume or minimize the widget, and expand it again to see full track info.
Managing Your Library Outside a Session
You don't need a live session to organize your audio. From the dashboard, open Audio library to manage your sound effects and music library ahead of time—so everything's ready before you start facilitating.
Hold Music for the Waiting Room
You can also build a looping playlist—YouTube/SoundCloud links or uploads, drag to reorder—that plays for participants held in the waiting room before you arrive. Set it up from the Share panel, under the waiting room options. See Waiting Room for the full setup guide.