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Any program that provides ALL audio level controls in one place?
Hi all,
this is my first post here. Looking for help and suggestions, as is usually the case when somebody joins a forum!
The short version of my question is: Could anybody please suggest a small, simple, practical, ideally portable program, that gives access to all audio level settings, on one single screen?
And now comes the long-winded version:
In my ham radio station I use a desktop computer that has a Realtek audio chip on the mainboard. The board has 3 audio jacks on the back, and headers for connecting two more audio jacks (usually on the front panel, but I mounted them on the back too). I use this computer for digital modes and SDR, with various combinations of radios and SDR hardware, so I often need full duplex audio and lots of audio system reconfiguration.
I have Realtek Audio Console installed, it works fine, and allows me to set up and do basic control of these ports. I set them up like follows:
- Microphone input
- Line input
- Front speakers output
- Rear speakers output
- Line output (Realtek "second audio device", uses a separate audio stream than the speakers.)
I also set the driver to treat all inputs as separate devices.
All that works fine, but the Realtek Audio Console only gives me access to the basic level settings. Specifically for the "Speakers" device, there is just a single level control. Windows gives me controls to set individual volumes by app, and that's useful. And of course the Realtek program also provides controls for the level of the microphone, line input, "second audio device", and the virtual "stereo mix" device, with these three controls affecting just the "recording" levels of those devices.
But I miss controls for setting the level of audio feedthrough from the microphone and line input to the speakers! These controls do exist in Windows 10, but deeply buried. To get at them, I have to right-click on the Windows volume control icon in the taskbar, click on "open sound settings", then click on "device properties" for the "speakers" device, then click on "Additional device properties", then click on "levels" - and there they are, finally!!!
I need to adjust these levels quite often, so it's a chore having to go through that many steps to get at these controls.
So I would love to find a little, simple program that provides a single screen with ALL of the level controls in one place. And it would have to be some program that I can download and then install. An online installation, like from the Microsoft Store, won't work in my case.
I spent all of today searching, and tried several programs, but I found none that would really do what I want. Apparently almost nobody knows about these deeply hidden level controls for microphone line input feedthrough to the speakers, and so most people don't notice when a program lacks them!
So, what I'm looking for is a program that provides a single screen with controls for:
- Microphone recording level
- Line input recording level
- "Stereo mix" recording level
- Speaker volume of software-generated audio
- Speaker volume of microphone input
- Speaker volume of line input
- Line output level
All of these controls are available in Windows 10, but in various different places, and the 5th and 6th of these are too well hidden.
If the program provides any additional controls, that's fine, of course.
And in computers that have more audio devices than mine has, of course the appropriate additional controls should appear. That's not important to me right now, but it is to other people. In short, the program should give access to ALL level controls of a computer's audio system, in one place.
In my previous computer I had Windows XP and a Soundblaster Audigy. Instead of the manufacturer's software, I used the Kx-Project driver. It was absolutely great! Something like that, but supporting the Realtek chips and running on Windows 10, would make me very happy! I know that it's unlikely that anybody would write a program like that for the Realtek chips, so I will gladly settle for just a simple little audio level control program, that doesn't need to access the sound chip proper - just the Windows registers!
OK. I warned you that this would be long-winded!
Manfred