Hacker News Reader

> As an aside, volume on Windows is a horrible mess. You can have an external speaker volume, a system Master volume, an app-specific volume (the last 2 through the Windows Volume Mixer) and then volume settings inside a game.

You never have 2 applications outputting audio and you want to balance them? Sometimes I'll be playing a game and listening to a podcast at the same time, and I want the podcast to have the louder audio, so I turn the game down.

On my Mac I use for work, sometimes I'll be in a Teams meeting where I only need to be partially paying attention, and I'd like to be able to turn the Teams volume down and have something else at the forefront, but I can't do it because there's no volume mixer.

You misunderstand my complaint.

Windows already does this. There's a volume mixer where each app has its own volume. That's still the case AND the game/app has a separate volume.

So the actual volume playing is effectively:

Hardware volume x Windows master volume x Windows app volume x In-app volume

No one wants or needs that level of control. You end up adjusting these separately as you need until you find out one day the hardware volume is on max but the master volume is near zero and you've been compensating for that by maxing out the in-app volume.

There is one x too many, yes. But otherwise I absolutely do want that.

Hardware × software master × in-app,

maybe condensed with "flat volume", so that raising the in-app volume also raises master if necessary, while leaving other sounds at the same effective level.

The only difference I see compared to what you call iOS is that that one throws all "video" together in one giant pile. Thus youtube, netflix, spotify etc. all get the same default volume. That is really annoying me with android and I want that off!

> So the actual volume playing is effectively:

> Hardware volume x Windows master volume x Windows app volume x In-app volume

> No one wants or needs that level of control.

I don't have a separate hardware volume relative to the Windows master volume, but otherwise I want and need that level of control.

- Windows Master Volume: I turn the knob on my headset or keyboard and things get quieter or louder. This is the thing I adjust most frequently.

- Windows App Volume: I turn games down, usually to 10-20% or so. Then I turn everything but comms (discord, zoom, etc) down to 80%. This ensures that I hear live communication over all else, and that my games aren't drowning out whatever I'm watching in the background.

- In-App Volume: Here I adjust balance in games. Music unfortunately gets set to 0 because I'm rarely just playing a game these days. Voice lines get set higher than sound effects until I'm sure I can distinguish them clearly.

Not all apps have in-app volume. In which case you have Hardware volume x Windows master volume x Windows app volume -- and which should be removed? No hardware volume? Everything controlled by software? Sounds horrible. No Windows master volume? What if you want everything quieter, turn it all down one-by-one? No Windows volume mixer? I explained why that's an issue in my previous comment.

Your example of a good implementation is iOS which is hard to compare to because mobile OSes are generally single-task focused. But I certainly wouldn't want an iOS-style volume control on my PC.

I use Voicemeeter Banana to control audio on Windows. Works great for exactly that scenario, where I want my voice comms to have a higher volume than games, and also nice when I have multiple inputs (microphones) and outputs

> I can't do it because there's no volume mixer.

Have you tried Rogue Amoeba’s Loopback?

The media keys are atrociously implemented on macOS - I don't know how they've managed it so badly, for so long, without a fix. Listening to Spotify and pressing play/pause, you'd expect the music to pause, not to suddenly be listening to additional sound, often from a video in a browser tab you last played a month ago.

> In an ideal world, the hardware volume could be synced to the system master volume

This already works if you're using something that can be controlled via the windows volume. Eg, a USB dac+amp usually works like this. That is, the "hardware volume" and "windows master volume" become one synchronized slider.

Very often there's a break in the digital chain that prevents this from working more broadly, though (for example if you're outputing analog to your speakers, or using separate dac & amp)

One of things that drives me crazy about iOS volume control is trying to adjust the volume of navigation while driving.

Navigation system pipes up; that’s a little more quiet than I’d like; by the time I can adjust it safely, it’s only time to adjust the ringer; repeat.

They're a bit pricey but the gear from Intec would be perfect for this: https://intech.studio

I'm doing similar with a Novation Launchpad X that I already had.

I'm primarily using it with OBS but also use it with Zoom and a few other applications.

Any resources that you could recommend on this? Was thinking of trying to put mine up to a similar use.

A lot of apps that I use support midi input. The Launchpad has a webapp that lets you configure the outputs of each pad to send different types of MIDI outputs.

The only hitch is that the Launchpad doesn't send NoteOff messages, it sends NoteOn twice with the second time being volume 0.

For apps that don't support MIDI input, there's a tool called Midikey2key which lets you map MIDI messages to keyboard inputs/shortcuts.

Ah, so it gotta be done on the OS level, and the approach would differ per individual midi device (to set which exact midi signals are sent per button) and OS (for automating actions based on those signals received)?

Got it, thanks for answering this.