Output slider association with Windows Volume Mixer

[DickN]

I'm using Vista Home Premium and a RealTek sound card. No matter what I select in Audacity as Output Device, Audacity's Output Level slider is coupled to the Speakers slider on the Volume Mixer panel. The Audacity slider on the Volume Mixer panel only reacts to the Speakers slider proportionately as do the others on that panel.

I've tried enabling and disabling "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" in
Control Panel->Sound->Playback->Speakers->Properties->Advanced, and it makes no difference.

Shouldn't Audacity's Output Level slider be coupled to the Audacity slider in Volume Mixer? It is in version 1.2.6 with the same setup.

- DickN

[Gale Andrews]

I'm using Vista Home Premium and a RealTek sound card. No matter what I select in Audacity as Output Device, Audacity's Output Level slider is coupled to the Speakers slider on the Volume Mixer panel. The Audacity slider on the Volume Mixer panel only reacts to the Speakers slider proportionately as do the others on that panel.

I've tried enabling and disabling "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" in
Control Panel->Sound->Playback->Speakers->Properties->Advanced, and it makes no difference.

Shouldn't Audacity's Output Level slider be coupled to the Audacity slider in Volume Mixer? It is in version 1.2.6 with the same setup.

I wouldn't say that the linkage between the Audacity 1.2.6 Mixer Toolbar output slider and the Audacity slider in Windows Volume Mixer works perfectly on Windows 7 - if you turn the Audacity slider up in Volume Mixer so that it increases the Speakers level, the Audacity Mixer Toolbar output slider often locks on maximum, so that bringing the Audacity Volume Mixer slider back down does not affect the Mixer Toolbar slider.

Anyway 1.2.6 is no longer being developed. Most of the developers want the Mixer Toolbar output slider to couple with the system master output, directly affecting the hardware, so they would see the 1.2.6 behaviour as a "bug" that does not exist in XP and earlier. The rationale is that the input slider directly affects the hardware, and that turning down a software volume control gives worse signal-to-noise ratio than turning down a hardware control. I'll add your vote to our Wiki Feature Requests page, but for now if you want a software output control that doesn't affect the system volume, you'll have to use the Audacity slider in Volume Mixer.



Gale