These CDs are intended to help you enhance the gaming experience through creative sound design. We've provided several ambiences and short scenes for you to play on your CD player to give your gamers a sense of atmosphere.

The Toxic Bag Game Masters Collection also offers opportunities to create your own sound design pieces to best suit your adventure. One example is cut #34 on the Twentieth Century disc,"Radio Static." This is sixty seconds of just that-static. By combining the static with a message you write and record yourself, you can produce a custom sound effect for your particular adventure. There are several ways to do this.

The first, and simplest, is to use a CD player and a cassette deck with a microphone built in (most boom boxes have this feature). Write the script for your radio transmission, practice it a few times, and then set up the CD player so that it's close to the mic on the boom box. Place a blank cassette into the cassette recorder, and begin recording. Play the "Radio Static" track on the CD, and read your script aloud. When you're done, rewind the cassette and play it back to check your work. You may have to repeat this process a couple of times to achieve the proper balance of static and voice.

Another way to accomplish this custom sound design is by using your computer. Most PC computers come with a sound card of some sort, and most cards ship with basic sound applications for editing and recording sound. By following the directions that came with your sound card, you can learn how to record sound from the Toxic Bag CD into the computer (some sound cards will even let you import the sounds directly from the disc) and combine it with sounds you record in using a microphone. You can also use this software to loop sounds that need to be longer. Macintosh computers may have sound hardware built in, and basic sound applications that ship with the computer.

There are several shareware apps available on the World Wide Web for both platforms, as well. Now you have several options as far as how to play back the sounds you've made on your computer. You could simply play your game in the same room your computer is in, and play the sound files straight from the computer. Or you could record the sounds onto cassette. Or, if you have a CD-R drive, you could make your own custom CD of sound effects. Again, refer to your computer and CD drive manuals for more information on how to do this.

There are far too many products on the market for us to go into specifics; you'll have to do some homework. But the whole point of the Game Masters Collection is that you are able to customize your gaming experience to fit the adventures you create.

Update 2006: With the advent of iTunes, iPods, and even more built-in audio capabilities than ever before on personal computers, we find we will have to update this page from the way it was written almost ten years ago...and cassettes?? My, how times have changed! Look for an update soon!