Amarok + PulseAudio: volume control changes global volume

Colin Guthrie gmane at colin.guthr.ie
Wed Jun 23 09:30:31 BST 2010


'Twas brillig, and Nikos Chantziaras at 21/06/10 21:49 did gyre and gimble:
> When I change the volume in Amarok, it changes the global volume of the 
> whole system instead of just Amarok's volume.  Currently selected Phonon 
> backend doesn't matter.
> 
> Gentoo AMD64
> KDE 4.4.4
> Phonon-kde 4.4.4
> Phonon 4.4.2
> PulseAudio 0.9.21.2
> Amarok 2.3.1

When you say it "changes the global volume" does this have a practical
impact?

I suspect the effect you are seeing is the "Flat Volumes" logic in PA.

This is a mechanism that tries to always use h/w volume whenever
possible. If you have the global volume of the system set to say, 60%
and you push amarok above the 60% mark then the global volume will
increase to accommodate this, but (and this is the critical part to
ensure that the end effect is what you intended) all other playing
streams will be scaled in software so that they are at the same level.

More info:
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/WritingVolumeControlUIs#FlatVolumes

http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PulseAudioStoleMyVolumes


While it's a bit odd to see when you are used to the previous behaviour,
most users actually find it quite natural.

If you really don't like it, then just turn off flat_volumes in deamon.conf.

Cheers

Col


-- 

Colin Guthrie
gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie
http://colin.guthr.ie/

Day Job:
  Tribalogic Limited [http://www.tribalogic.net/]
Open Source:
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  PulseAudio Hacker [http://www.pulseaudio.org/]
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