[RANT] The Most ANNOYING Thing About Windows Audio

[@Xehlwan]

This is just a small part of the biggest problem with Windows (and Microsoft): The UX is completely fragmented. There is so little effort put into unifying and improving UX that it boggles the mind. I have a lot of respect for the engineering under the hood of Windows, but the interface is atrocious. I mean, in what other professional software would you find it acceptable that the user interface is split into *at least* 3 completely different designs, from almost 3 different decades? Or that interactions with a single feature are spread across a dozen different windows, dialogs, and integrated apps? This is supposedly the flagship product of one of the biggest tech companies on the planet. Don't try to tell me that they don't have the resources to do even the most basic of UX passes over the course of a decade.

[@bowiemtl]

100% agreed but the problem is that microsoft won’t see a difference in revenue to make it one of their priorities.

[@BassLiberators]

That's what the Ribbon interface in Windows 8 was meant to be. And everyone hated it so much they went back to the old UI for Win10.

[@Lodinn]

Oh, when it comes to professional software there are PLENTY weird UX choices, the more niche it gets the more fun you're going to have. In some cases, duplicating functions over quickly accessible menus and the leviathan that is main menu or settings is how they do it, and often that makes sense. Configuring Windows system functionality has always been a mess though, but it has just gotten a lot worse over the past few releases, supposedly with focus on touchscreens. I guess with tablets/transforming laptops having multiple sound outputs is bit less common. Welp, not that guessing what Microsoft was even thinking makes for a good experience. I mean, I'm most sure they actually DID UX passes, and quite a lot of them - it's just this is legitimately their best idea of how to do it. If you give detailed config A and obscured config B to 10 people and 1 of them hates digging for settings in 10 different places but 9 love "cleaner" look and didn't even pay that much attention to it because it's not something they use often, guess what happens...

[@edenrose2374]

Well considering the fact they /think/ their target audience is tablet users (surface), they dont consider many of the "advanced" options necessary. This is why Windows 11 (Which is just Windows 10 with a UI update) is just the latest iteration of "Simplifying" UX by removing more. They dont want power users, power users /disable/ things. Things like Telemetry, and power users /choose/ to use things outside of the Microsoft Ecosystem. | Their intention is to make things more and more difficult in a goal of being "More like apple". This is more evidenced by their desire to prevent "Side loading"(EG: installing apps outside of the MS store) a impossibility in the future. Yet again, seeking to be more "Apple like" with a closed ecosystem. - Problem is very few people actually use the MS Store as its unreliable, has extremely out of date software (often), doesnt handle patching of applications well and competes directly with services like steam and epic in the game world. So your entire conversation should be "Microsoft, be more Windows XP like", as the goals stretching from Longhorn were always about closing out third parties in the long run and making a ultra-simplified UI with no poweruser-options.

[@edenrose2374]

@@BassLiberators thats debatable too. The problem with the ribbonUI was that it was worse. It took the worst aspects of a console/phone based UI design and put it on a /desktop OS/. MS can argue its about making things "Uniform". but i certianly wouldnt want to daily-drive a Android based UI on my desktop. its clunky, inefficient use of space and relies heavily on the idea that the user is navigating with a finger. Worse, there is people like myself that actually /like/ the start menu. its easy to launch new programs, multi-task and not rely on search queries to remember everything. If you only use your PC for Word and a web browser, this is fine. But use it for everything? well your simply stuck trying to remember the name of a application you used twice that either looked or sounded like it started with S in your head... Search engines are great when you know what your looking for, but terrible when you cant recall everything you use sparingly. -- Current iterations of the "Settings" menu is annoying like this. Trying to find some setting buried deep in it, with some weird MS Centric naming scheme is a pain. Much less if you need to use custom settings like you own DNS servers or want to disable WiFi Roaming...

[@odinsplaygrounds]

There’s a lot of jank in windows, but in particular the control panel and it’s maze of different setting pages spanning about 20 years of different UI design all slapped together, is definitely the worst.

[@edenrose2374]

whats even worse is what MS tried to replace it with. For many settings they either dont work, are missing advanced options the older UI interfaces had or simply /perform poorly/. - Great example of this is VPN usage. Try it... The new UI has had a reported bug since 2017 that breaks DNS resolution on VPN's. So if your using it for work, whelp. You better hope you dont have any custom DNS names used internally... Even going further, it tries to route /all/ traffic through the interface, rather than treating it like another LAN. not allowing custom routing or actually restricting subnets. only domains. So if you need to use Google to search for a solution to a problem at work, or use Teams, whelp, its going over the work network. Oh? your work net doesnt allow leaving the network? need to disconnect, search, reconnect... but you cant reconnect as the UI fails to do so, soft-locking...

[@FireWyvern870]

@@edenrose2374 also, when wifi suddenly disconnected while connecting to vpn, after the connection to wifi is restored, it refused to reconnect to the vpn in my case. I don't know if it's a problem in vpn server or from windows.

[@edenrose2374]

@@FireWyvern870 that's due to how VPNs are treated as PPPoE(DSL) connections internally. Its "dialing" the VPN and authenticating. The problem is most of this code hasn't been updated since win9x, so dialing code is shared with wifi authentication(wpa/wep) and the new menu gets confused at the states. So if you dial a vpn, while connected to a encrypted wifi connection, while using the new menus it would enter a state where it confuses the wifi interfaces auth for part of the dialing plans auth for the VPN and hangs. When the connection fails, it flags in the menu as successful. But as it causes the wifi interfaces to timeout from the process. When it reconnects the vpn dialer stays in a half open state. Breaking it. This also happens with wired Ethernet where smart card or other authentication is used. Microsoft puts minimal effort into alot of the networking side of things. Never considering "concurrent" networking. - best example of this is the lack of nic teaming groups having a gui interface. You have to use PowerShell to set them up even though they are part of the OS. This is what I meant when I said it's been a downhill roll since longhorn. So much new development went into the backend and gui during longhorn development. Some of it incompatible. Rather then taking time to let the developers flesh out all their ideas into a superior new product. Microsoft decided "deadlines are more important, scrap 98% of it" so we got a bunch of the framework in the kernel but much of the GUI remained directly from XP. windows 10/11 is closer to vista(longhorn) then it appears. While it's gui has changed and it's kernel has updated. The kernel shares most of its code from there, excluding all earlier NT and 9x code that was refactored. In short it's a mess and they should hire a team to come look at it as a whole and clean it and refactor it all. | While they are at it, they should bring back the teams from LH development to expand functionality like adding a Filesystem SDK interface to add Filesystem drivers like ZFS which is much needed.

[@FireWyvern870]

@@edenrose2374 I see, it's so infuriating that I need to wait few seconds to connect to vpn again. Great info, thank you.

[@flosa1995]

@@edenrose2374 So true, I still open the control panel because the metro UI settings are useless af Buggy mess and convoluted

[@wecsam]

As an ex-Microsoft employee, I can confirm that we were prohibited from having too many good ideas.

[@qbzerodp]

Did they tell you why?

[@TechHaris_]

I hope this is a joke

[@2ears1mouth786]

really? do tell of example!

[@Codyslx]

@@TechHaris_ It's obviously a joke

[@TechHaris_]

@@Codyslx Well with what companies are doing of recent I wouldn’t surprise me

[@aquapendulum]

There is another way to adjust volumes for individual programs in Windows 10 and 11: Windows + G. This brings up the Xbox overlay. One of the widgets for this overlay is the Audio widget which contains the mixer for individual programs. This method works in fullscreen programs so you don't have to Alt + Tab out of it to adjust volumes for other programs.

[@chan6708]

Yeah i use that most of the time especially since ive got the xbox controller

[@toshiroyamada2443]

I disabled that as it was using a tonne of ram in the background for some reason.

[@dreamliner8745]

yes you are right, its even more frutrating that they cant do it right in the normal desktop

[@KalebSDay]

You're incredible, thank you. Now I have 2 reasons to use that overlay, the other being to connect with my xbox friends haha.

[@NoWayAroundIt_]

I use that to clip stuff and that as well so it’s pretty useful, would be an extreme bummer if it was removed

[@deepblue812]

Windows has been scattering the OS settings for years. It's amazing you can still click through 4 or 5 linked menus and end up at one that's straight out of WinXP...

[@takisk.7698]

Wish we could just straight up disable all the new menus and have only those said XP ones.. you typically need about 2-3 less clicks to get things done in the old ones lol

[@thany3]

And also why are those menus in lightmode even though they are made up of native controls?

[@Lumineszenz]

Those XP and Windows 7 menus are also the only ones that you can actually fix real issues with. All the other menus only serve to disable Windows "features" that cause more trouble than they are worth as they rarely work right and break a bunch of other stuff.

[@kyonblack7901]

You can still find Windows 3.1 (like, the one that came out in 1992) menus in Windows 11, which is hilarious.

[@Arcangel0723]

@@takisk.7698 a better idea is to properly integrate the old windows into a user friendly system to replace the current mess.

[@JojOatXGME]

For me the most annoying part ist that you cannot change the "communication device" without going into the old (pre Windows 8)-Settings-Menu. Especially because connecting a new headphone or monitor already changes the default device AND communication device. So your have to navigate into this dialog whenever you connect a new device (which you haven't connected before) and make a voice call or use TeamSpeak.

[@TonySesek]

Yup, I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned at all.

[@kirkmooneyham]

At some point, Windows will get rid of all the old menus like Control Panel. And, when they do, I will stop using Windows finally.

[@TLAngus1337]

This was bothering me so much as well. I am frequently switching comm devices, found an app by nirsoft that can create a desktop shortcut to switch both audio & comms to a specific device

[@XIIchiron78]

3:57 literally they are. Employees are required to follow the assigned roadmap handed down from above, which usually consists of designing new layers of menus and skins to pile on top of the old ones instead of doing anything like updating the underlying structure. And that's not even getting into the high degree of employee turnover on these teams.

[@boneman-69]

holy shit, we really need some serious competition in the OS market lol

[@Codyslx]

@@boneman-69 Mac OS is the closest we have, and it ain't all that.

[@tkanal1]

Yeah, missing Sound Mixer when right clicking on the sound icon was the first thing I noticed in Win11...this new Windows is just a huge leap back in the user experience...I don't know how stupidly they could screw this system up...

[@danial71]

You literally only need to right click the sound icon to bring up volume mixer on windows 11. It's literally the same thing you do on Windows 10.

[@tkanal1]

@@danial71 But it is not classic sound mixer but this opens that ugly Settings window with applications not intuitively organized in rows. Why to make it easy when you can make it complicated...

[@m4ster_root]

@@tkanal1 The old sound mixer was HORRIBLE! I never used it, especially because my volume is always quite low and when you dragged a slider for an application higher than your volume, it increased your volume as well. To zero everything you'd have to drag all sliders to 100%. I always needed to scroll in the old volume mixer, the new one is so much easier to use... And yes. As a pro I too complained about the new consumer friendly, non-pro, settings windows. But sometimes we need to forget the past and embrace new things and I actually like it now. It's only getting better. And I can still access the old control panel if I need to find a tool I cant remember the filename of.

[@DerrickRG]

@@m4ster_root Ok, nobody cares.

[@m4ster_root]

@@DerrickRG Apparently you cared enough to comment... How sweet of you! :)

[@jtnachos16]

The one feeling I always have any time windows tries to 'update' anything ux related: "STOP SCREWING WITH MY UI! You wanna change the look of the bits and bobs, fine, BUT LEAVE THEM WHERE THEY WERE! STOP HIDING THEM!" Between that issue and the constant attempts to prevent users from being able to change the more advanced options by hiding those in 'deprecated' menus that require you to really go digging in the guts of windows, it gets infuriating, especially when you are family tech support and have to deal with versions of windows ranging from 7, all the way up to 11, all in varying states of major update. It should not be easier to memorize the filepaths so you can use 'run' or command shell, than it is to get there with the UI. On a side note, 8.1 can die in a fire. I'd almost rather have to deal with Vista.

[@rrteppo]

I don't mind things being moved as long as it's more intuitive than previous generations. I can learn where new stuff is, I wouldn't want to open 4 windows with setting spread out across them

[@thomasandersen6025]

I've been suffering from windows audio settings for years. And third-party apps are the way to go because Microsoft doesn't look like they are going to fix it ever.

[@jody024]

Linus is just lazy.

[@newguy69]

@@jody024 any particular tip for a third party app?

[@MRJMXHD]

@@newguy69 eartrumpet

[@WyattOShea]

@@newguy69 Voicemeter maybe?.

[@BolusTube]

Press Windows Key + G and you have all the volume settings you need.

[@UberDragon]

I remember when a major selling point of Windows7/Vista compared to my beloved Windows XP was individual volume sliders for each application... Why did we not make any major steps forwards since then? While we're at it, could Microsoft, at least as long as they are unable to provide all the functionality in their new interface, please stop making getting to the old sound interfaces harder?

[@SNIPERTHATSUCKS]

They don't need to. When you have a monopoly you can get real comfy and stop giving a fuck.

[@carel0069]

You still have volume sliders for each application - just a pain to get to

[@QuadPowerful]

As matter of fact the changes made to the GUI in Windows 10 and 11 made it worse than it was in Windows 7.

[@SidneyCritic]

@@SNIPERTHATSUCKS You should try MacOS, and see what a dictatorship is like - lol -. They're all FKed, that what 3rd party apps are for. Win has the most 3rd party, so they have an advantage.

[@SNIPERTHATSUCKS]

​@@SidneyCritic oh yeah i have used MacOS, my ant was hailing it as the second comming of PC christ. Its what microsoft presumably wants to turn windows into the next 30 or so years but are trying to do so slowly for us to not notice. The new types of DRM indoruced in win 11 that bricked TW II warhammer of all things are only a taste of the things that expect us in the future.

[@tatsuuuuuu]

Now compare that to gnome where you have an all-in-one settings menu for audio that does both the multi-app mixing and output/input switching. All without the use without sub-menus. On top of that when you switch something there, it's system-wide there aren't settings that, in Windows, fail to be applied to certain apps, like bluetooth headset that has two outputs in windows and you first have to switch to the right output (both of which are emitting the same sound, confusingly) in order to be able to change the volume.

[@LarinzodKolmir]

I constantly fight Windows sound levels. Randomly finding Chrome or Discord set to 25% volume because Windows decided "hey these aren't important when you take a call. Let me reduce them for you" even though I have that function disabled. I'm overly familiar with the labyrinth of sound configuration dashboards because of it.

[@himearikawa3130]

For me it's cuz on my old pc sometimes the volume would be ear piercing.

[@Excelsis27]

I might be wrong, but Discord has a function that automatically adjusts program volumes and that directly interacts with Windows' sound mixer, that could possibly be your issue.

[@RichMantaray]

thats cos u use discord :)

[@maxsteffey6521]

that’s a discord thing

[@thecrazyinsanity]

@@Excelsis27 I didnt know it directly used sound mixer, that is really dumb. I have the feature disabled though and dont have this problem but had it before i turned it off, maybe this is why

[@SRC267]

I dislike it when the Dolby Atmos spatial sound keeps switching off

[@AstoundingAmelia]

Or windows decides "this device can't use Atmos"

[@tokyofamily8536]

Sounds fancy

[@lancerboi83]

I got THX and dose the same :(

[@ericwright8592]

Had the same issue with my gaming pc connected to my AV receiver with Atmos setup. I realized the problem always happened if I turned off the AV receiver before the PC. (or turned on the pc before the receiver). In next boot up the pc would be like "what atmos?" The atmos compatible sound device has to be on first before the pc and turned off last after the pc. That worked for me.

[@STABloid]

@@ericwright8592 We shouldn't have to do this. It needs to stop resetting to the most basic defaults, just because your particular device wasn't or can't be detected during boot.

[@BlissBatch]

Wow, I've been enabling and disabling audio outputs every time I want to switch from speakers to headphones. Never knew there's a menu!

[@brainstormsurge154]

Just found this out. Never knew it existed.

[@RougeEric]

EarTrumpet is amazing for Windows 10, it basically fixes everything! Let's hope it gets upgraded for Windows 11!

[@Maki-ng4jk]

this! this is how audio should've been handled in win 10, and i don't see many problems for it to continue into win11

[@scottcurrall]

I use it on windows 11, doesn't need upgrading

[@emilymarriott5927]

I've been using it on Windows 11 since beta. It works perfectly. I can't stand Windows audio without it!

[@Cobxcorn]

This

[@Captain_Biggles]

@@scottcurrall How did you get rid of the W11 audio icon?

[@Sfekke]

This is a problem for all things Windows, it's insanely fragmented. M$ can't decide what to put where & if they want the new or old interface. Best of all when they do decide to pick the new interface for said fragment, they always assume we are dummies and never used the more ""advanced"" options.

[@Setsuna_Kyoura]

A big problem nowadays is, that Microsoft tries to make Windows absolutely idiotproof. They want the "normal" settings right in front of you with huge sliders and always with a small describe what it exactly do, so even your grandma can change the volume. But because the huge sliders and text for every setting, there is not enough space for some advanced stuff and that gets hidden in countless separate menues.

[@GrimlandCS]

This is why I left windows

[@Setsuna_Kyoura]

@@GrimlandCS I tried it for over a year with Linux Mint, but it was still too much hussle for me. The constant need for the terminal because so many programs still don't having a GUI has killed the experience for me. It's an amazing operating system, but I have to say that it's simpler for me to dig through endless hidden menues on Windows, than always having to google the terminal commands... Linux needs just a little bit more development on the user friendlyness to be a fully replacement for Windows. But when that happens, Microsoft will be in huge trouble.

[@janthasopano1897]

Microsoft Win-Idiot-Of-Window should be named.

[@Sfekke]

@@janthasopano1897 Microsoft Winblows or my personal favorite Microsoft Windows CEMENT! Combing Windows CE, ME & NT funnily enough gives you that perfect acronym!

[@ShooterQ]

Honestly, I've been using Soundswitch for so long that I forgot it wasn't built into windows. Essentially, you get to cordon off your own preferred audio outputs and assign a hotkey for switching between them.

[@Rlmorrison74]

Thanks for the eartrumpet recommendation Linus, I've recently been irritated that I have to remember to switch audio to my VR headset every time I use it and remember to swap back when I take it off, so this whole per app output device thing is going to change my life.

[@mryellow6918]

Yh same. Then each time manually have to change all the audio volumes.

[@SamPhoenix_]

Tbf Oculus is pretty good at getting windows to switch if you have it set up right, though sometimes it doesn't work

[@Rlmorrison74]

@@SamPhoenix_ hasn't been working at all especially not in steam vr

[@DropTableIfExists]

@@Rlmorrison74 did they change something with the newer headsets? The audio has worked flawlessly for me ever since I got my Rift CV1. I simply disconnect the HMD while it is still set as default output. W10 automatically switches to it once i reconnect it.

[@dingomatic]

My eartrumpet setup has been working fine until I started using HDMI audio connections. Now it keeps defaulting audio out to HDMI rather than my Mobo output

[@switzerland]

I love this video, I tried to explain this to an old retired friend of mine and had a pretty hard time. It's a horrible UI experience. It's also why Microsoft re implemented all of these into Microsoft Teams since in no way ever people would switch between headsets like this.

[@Azarilh]

Audio control on Linux KDE Plasma is one of those "OMG THIS IS AMAZING!" kind of thing that i never understood why never came to windows. It's so easy to copy yet they don't care about the user experience for some reason.

[@nulian]

default audio with gnome in popos is even worse then windows.

[@Azarilh]

@@nulian Damn..

[@PerryStevPT]

I'm so used to Windows audio that I never realized how messy it is.

[@javianbrown8627]

LOL it's like how apple users don't realize it's backward to leave the camera just to change your video format or resolution. Sometimes you just get used to the problems but it doesn't make them less of an issue

[@ghajik.]

it isn't much better on the mac side of things. AS A MATTER OF FACT you CANNOT even adjust volume per app basis on a mac by default. Additionally you can't ofcourse select which audio device to listen to per app. It even lacks features like HDMI audio passthough for dolby digital, dts or hd formats like truehd or dts-hd. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT PASSTHROUGH audio through hdmi on a mac. Apple be like, we don't manufacture a audio receiver so our customers are not allowed to have a good experience with any other receiver on the market.

[@henrik1743]

I tried running a wireless USB headset and logitech USB speakers at the same time and I've never had so much gray hair in my entire life, it was horrible.

[@chadmann2724]

It wont provide help transferring audio through hdmi without a second monitor…. Like what? I need to screens to use my speakers?

[@madness1931]

This is actually a excellent format for that cool software series, you used to do. Grieve about an annoyance, and introduce a solution. I think I'll be installing EarTrumpet on future Windows installations, as it seems really cool. Cheers for the tech tip. EDIT: Nevermind. It's MS Store, or CLI only.

[@mocachino__]

@Madness1 Are you saying nevermind because you are unsure about installing via a Terminal? I get the MS Store sucks so many avoid that.

[@thany3]

What's wrong with the Store? Just using it to install a program works fine.

[@madness1931]

@@thany3 Long list, but just a few things I (or a relatives PC, I manage) have encountered are: 1. Apps not installing. 2. The Store claiming there is no internet, when internet is working fine. 3. Account issues, with it erroring out, after log-in. 4. Apps not updating. 5. Store crashing. 6. Tons of bloat, with useless filler apps. 7. Claiming a piece of software is not on the account, despite it being installed and used for years. 8. Claiming an app is no longer installed, when I can literally see it in the file manager. 9. Reinstalling apps I don't want, and never asked for. 10. It is connecting to other services (like MSN), despite never using, or ever intending to use those services. Those are just issues I've found in the past 12 days. It is one of the worst GUI oriented application centres, I've used.

[@thany3]

@@madness1931 True, but I mean apart from every but of fuckery MS throws at us, it works brilliant 😅

[@Notpoop906]

This is the main thing I find baffling about Windows' design philosophy over the past decade. They seem to think that hiding features behind extremely over simplified and often nonsensical context menus and sub menus somehow makes it more user friendly. Look at what they have done to the right click menu in Windows 11. It's needlessly been divided into confusing and over simplified sections that make even just right clicking to print or cut something take twice as many actions. The click economy almost doubles with each Windows revision. It takes 4x as many clicks in Windows 11 to access identical features we had in Windows 7 and 8 at the click of maybe 2 buttons

[@ericlegacy8834]

Ugh this was one of my main gripes with Windows over the years. The fact there's also like 3 different menus for sound options is frustrating.

[@Zoooker1]

Yeah, should be one menu. Treats the user like a preschooler or something

[@MaverickBlue42]

Only 3? You have the Mixer, you have the Settings, you have App Volume and Device Preferences, as well you have Device Properties, which is the only way to get into the Additional Device Properties to access specific Enhancements your sound device supports....so I count 6....

[@ikonix360]

Agreed. Every so often usually after an update Windows decides my default audio devices need to be changed and does so without my knowledge. I then have to go to the sound control panel and fix it.

[@ericlegacy8834]

@@MaverickBlue42 I meant 3 + 3 more :p

[@seifenspender]

What drives me absolutely nuts: Changing the sound output does not change the default communication device - only the default device. For this you need to go into the Win7 interface. It constantly makes my music play on the headphones, but I can't hear my colleagues over Discord.

[@robindenkik]

It really surprised me that they did not talk about this in the video, it's extremely annoying.

[@Ultrazaubererger]

For me this is actually a good thing. I don't want to ever use my speakers as a communication device. I don't need my mom to hear what my friend has to say about his big PP on Discord...

[@seifenspender]

@@Ultrazaubererger Weird friends then tbh

[@LelandHasGames]

It's actually a little more than mildly infuriating. I was expecting an overhaul of the audio settings in windows 11 and I was crushed when I discovered it all to be virtually the same. I understand that they may be trying to go for a simpler, more streamlined interface for normies but, they should at least have an "advanced" option/function that would allow us to tweak every individual setting to our liking.

[@chadarendse3222]

One thing that always bugged me was how tedious it is to set up a Bluetooth device on windows. Why's it still buried in the settings app. If WiFi can be configured by the notification area, why didn't Bluetooth get the same treatment?

[@Matthew-.-]

BT has a taskbar icon for me. I just double click it and it opens.

[@ilovefunnyamv2nd]

yeah, I've never had luck on bluetooth. if it wont connect over bluetooth, toss it. Get a mouse with a dongle

[@chaos.corner]

There's at least two different ways to add bluetooth devices too. I was trying to add a wii balance board and one requested a PIN that there was no way to deal with (it wanted it to be entered on the device) and the other was fine. There's no way to tell which is the "correct" method either or that the other would be needed if the one didn't work. The one that didn't work was the most visible option too.

[@rafagd]

That said, it's really stupid how they killed the old menu for searching wifi networks and now they force you to use the notifications. That menu doesn't provide you with the same functionality you had before and doesn't even have a button to rescan for new networks. So you have to spam the plane mode until Windows decides to detect the correct one.

[@Chuck_Huckler]

Linus, that app just solved a problem that had been bothering me for YEARS. I absolutely hate windows' audio settings. Let me just say, THAT was a good fucking tech tip. Well done.

[@Plumtopia]

1:45 we all had this moment as a kid: *Sneaks downstairs at 3 am to use the computer* "Gotta be super careful not to wake anyone up or I'm dead" *Clicks on a random website* Random pop-up at full volume: "THE ALL NEW DODGE CHARGER 2011! REDESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP TO GIVE YOU THE SPEED AND THE STYLE YOU NEED..."

[@JoonasD6]

Oh, this was just about things hard to find. I'm expecting the next video to please be about WASAPI/WDM/kernel streaming, no bluetooth audio settings, inability to use multichannel audio devices globally properly, multichannel *standard* audio devices just plain not working properly and manufacturers giving up on driver support (while everything just works immediately on Linux!) inability to mix/route separate audio channels, unclear how the Windows volume mixer's choice of audio device prioritizes over a choice of audio device inside a game's settings, no aggregate and virtual devices, pushy "audio enhancements", no functionality to deal with audio devices which are regularly plugged/unplugged (as "default" audio device is always the newest), ... THAT IS PAIN.

[@jeppeaim3039]

Yes, I'm trying to use two separate audio devices, a USB headphone amp and a USB interface for my mic, and I have to resort to using voicemeeter which is also an absolute nightmare. If you know of any better solutions, let me know (I could plug my headphone amp into my interface's output but I tried that and, for a reason I can't recall, I decided it wasn't better)

[@drishalballaney6590]

With Pipewire on Linux audio is infact going to be much MUCH more better and awesome

[@JoonasD6]

@@jeppeaim3039 If you only one a single device for input and one for output, what is the issue you are having that needs Voicemeeter? (I have to use Voicemeeter too, but other reasons, because my MR18 digital mixer is lacking some capabilities (because Windows is lacking capabilities...)...)

[@FlybelFideos]

Also noteworthy that changing the audio device in the Win10 settings is different from changing it in the old settings menu that you can still access, because only there you can change Default Audio and Communication Devices, which the new settings don‘t do. But tbh. there have been improvements that were needed for many years, sending individual applications to different output devices being one such example, so things are slowly getting better. What is still missing are virtual audio channels to send them to. I solved this for me by buying a GoXLR mixer which provides multiple such virtual output devices to a single hardware device and gives me the ability to control them using hardware. But I‘ve used Voicemeeter before for this reason.

[@anonym3017]

@@JoonasD6 windows being utterly stupid and the USB dac only working when being asigned as both input and output. at which point the microphone obviously doesn't work.

[@psistorm04]

What grinds my gears is that you need special apps to say, separate discord audio out from game audio when streaming on OBS if you want to sit in a conversation but not have people you talk with heard on stream. Windows ALREADY natively allows us to set the volume per app, so it already can manage separate app sources, why can we not simply choose which to stream /without/ having to send different apps to different virtual audio outputs?

[@Supern00bmaster]

Not really, there's an OBS plugin that does this all for you. But yes, it's janky.

[@placeholderplaceholder3448]

@@Supern00bmaster That plugin's actually pretty new compared to the olden ways, and not really widely known, but I have non OBS reasons for splitting audio as well, like trying to isolate and fix the volume of particularly quiet or loud games, because apparently not even default volume is standardized in 2022. Audio tech has ceased to advance on a consumer level for a very long time and it's become far more annoying to work with than video.

[@saricubra2867]

Windows audio APIs latency absolutely suck. ASIO drivers are the way to go for music producers.

[@TheBlackBeltPanda]

My issue: Volume Leveling missing (or the entire "Enhancements" tab missing) in the sound options unless you install very specific audio drivers. Then, if you update your audio drivers to the recommended ones, or install from your motherboard software's update app, it disappears again. Super annoying and has happened with EVERY computer I've used since Vista.

[@pauliisosomppi]

I never understood why Windows doesn't support class compliant audio devices like audio interfaces, without requiring a separate driver. The way linux and mac os handle this is far better.

[@FireWyvern870]

Because of decades old kernel

[@Codyslx]

@pta2002 LMAOOOOO

[@Codyslx]

@@FireWyvern870 get rekt

[@FireWyvern870]

@@Codyslxmy point still stands. Because it's decades old, it's close to impossible to untangle the gigantic codebase Windows has.

[@Martin-wx8gd]

@@Codyslx ??

[@KaosArbitrium]

When I first transitioned to windows 10 from a mix of 7 and XP, I was absolutely infuriated by not being able to find the Sound Mixer menu that had been my goto for years. Ended up getting EarTrumpet and I've never stopped recommending it since.

[@lakojake4215]

So far, I've regretted updating to Windows 11. I don't think there's anything I like about it. Another thing that's annoying is not being able to right click on the task bar and open the task manager. Ctrl + Shift + Esc still works, but I usually use the task bar, so I pinned it to the task bar.

[@kevinh888]

You can right click on the start icon to open the task manager on Windows 11

[@lakojake4215]

@@kevinh888 Thanks, you're right. Why the heck did they change that though? What was the point? lol

[@balesjo]

This video reminded me why, after installing and trying out Win 11, I went back to Windows 10. I was amazed how a company like Microsoft could go backwards in the usability department. I remember trying to adjust the sound, which is no picnic in the park with Win 10, in Win 11 and having to hunt around even more than with prior Windows versions. Did Microsoft have a class of new hires fresh out of college that they decided to put to work on updating the Win 11 UI?

[@xavengarcia851]

I just use win+G It has all that right there.

[@KiraSlith]

Windows 10 itself was a regression from 8, which itself was a severe regression from 7. It's been a fairly linear descent since 2005 that Microsoft has done nothing to smooth out.

[@-Burb]

@@KiraSlith Windows 10 is absolutely not a regression from 8. Windows 8 was garbage.

[@johnmckeon4498]

@@xavengarcia851 That's an awesome shortcut. Thank you.

[@xavengarcia851]

@@johnmckeon4498 Your welcome. There really is a ton of good features!

[@IrishFeangol]

You know what annoys me about Windows audio. The fact that every time it updates it changes default audio devices and resets things like Format and enhancement settings. And don't even think of using the mixer for Windows Store / Gamepass games. Every time they update the Mixer volume for those resets. EDIT: On disabling / delaying updates. That's not really a fix. A fix would be the windows team starting to care about people with work to do.

[@igameidoresearchtoo6511]

That is precisely why I pause updates for 7 days until it won't let me anymore, and when the day arrives I unhook my internet and pause again, unless the update is security related ofcourse.

[@Brunleffe]

OMG yes the reset of settings drive me NUTS! My desktop uses a studio soundcard because i need the MIDI interface (plus it has zero buzzing unlike the cheap stuff intergrated in the motherboard/monitor etc). And every freaking time Nvidia updates their drivers it switches over to output sound through the monitor, witch isn't even connected to anything. Had to add the sound settings as an icon on the start menu because i need to change standard output so often.

[@Wraithdagger]

If only we could disable updates

[@arachnenet2244]

Seriously! Every time there's an Nvidia driver update it sets my fucking monitors as the default output!

[@kalpaucjusz8741]

​@@arachnenet2244 disable monitor audio out if you don't use it. Nvidia update don't enable it, at lest in my case.

[@ZachDxn]

A huge issue I've had with Windows 10 for years is the fact that changing the audio output from the volume slider doesn't change the "default communication device", which means you'll hear your game audio from the device you just selected but people talking in discord will continue to come out of the previous audio device. To get both communication and game audio coming from same audio device you need to right click the little volume icon, select sounds and go to playback then click Set Default for the device you wanted. It's brutally annoying...

[@YygrecsPlanet]

Also Bluetooth audio on Windows seems to be a new form of pain. It creates two different devices when the headset is connected and you have to chose between one that works for calls and one that works for listening... and both of them somehow sounds bad. It shouldn't be so complicated for something that is "plug" and play on mobile.

[@raze4524]

Yes! Had trouble in the past with Sony's XM3's and had to open Device Manger to manually uninstall drivers, and reconnect my headphones to reinstall them, and then SOMETIMES fixed the problem.

[@Ballissle]

@@raze4524 I use xm3s. Just disable the call output audio in sound settings. No issues.

[@Fiendir]

Always disable the "headset" or "handsfree" version of the device in your old school windows sound devices menu. Locks it from being used, and windows remember it between disconnects.

[@mastafull]

My friend has a Bluetooth headset with terrible bandwidth (early gen maybe?). So the headphones sound great if the mic is disabled, and the mic sounds great if the headphones are disabled. But trying to do BOTH at the same time lowers the sample rate to telephone levels of awfulness.

[@AlexGelinas42069]

As someone who uses an external audio interface, tell me about it. Windows is an absolute nightmare for audio - especially when, randomly, it'll decide all on its own that the audio interface is set to 7.1 rather than stereo. It doesn't warn you when it does this, it does not tell you it's doing this, it does not ask you if it can do it - it just does it, which means you don't notice until you're watching some content with more than 2 channels and you can't hear things like dialogue. There's tons more issues, but yeah, the worst. Mac does audio significantly better

[@somewhereontheinternet1190]

I've found that Voicemeeter helps a bunch with handling external interfaces. It's not perfect by any means but it's the best solution I've come across so far for sure, especially if your interface supports ASIO.

[@sigma-erebus]

@@somewhereontheinternet1190 Yup, Voicemeeter works like a charm. I has it's issues, such as crashing when disconnecting an active audio out, and might get some errors when other apps are taking exclusive control over an audio output. But once it's set up and you know how to work it, it's a damn powerful tool.

[@techalyzer]

Apple fanboy detected. Mac does absolutely nothing better in any way, shape or form.

[@monkaudio6077]

@@techalyzer beep boop. windows fanboy detected. macos and windows both have strengths and weaknesses and saying mac does nothing better is ill-informed and biased

[@foxypotato3094]

@@techalyzer I don't like apple products but that isn't exactly true. using external audio devices with a daw is a pain to work properly in windows, installing aiso4all and aiso4all drivers just so my XLR mic and audio interface is recognized in my daw is dumb. windows has sound as its last and lowest priority in its order scheduling I don't have such issues on macs it's not like there isn't solutions on windows for this but, they are not from coming from Microsoft themselves

[@Turd_Ferguson666]

As someone's who has had every main daily driver PC he has owned integrated into some kind home theater battlestation, Windows Audio Settings, shitty featureless GPU audio drivers (mainly Nvidia and Intel), shitty implementation of HDMI standards by hardware manufacturers, and confusingly implemented paywalls and limitations to different "premium" audio formats/codecs, have been some of the most annoying things to deal with. But the audio settings is the ultimate time waster, as both uncommon major and common minor adjustments are often hard to find or buried someplace stupid, so every experience is more painful than nessasary.

[@burningglory2373]

This is something I think Linux distros exceed in over windows. As much pains as there is with Linux, I think they take the W here.

[@masaufuku1735]

Agreed - Pulse Audio Volume Control and KMix both contain all of the settings mentioned and one or the other comes pre-installed on most distros (I believe there are a few other alternatives as well with similar features). The big downside is that the audio subsystems on Linux leave a lot to be desired.

[@sparkleshyguy85]

@@masaufuku1735 Yeah, was gonna say, pulseaudio sucks donkey’s balls. Linux audio does seem to finally have something coming that’s decent in pipewire from what I’m hearing, but ye gods pulse was a mistake. …Not that Windows Audio is much better. Windows’ audio subsystem is godawful too if you need to do anything professional. There’s a reason Mac is popular with creatives, and it’s this.

[@Alice_fern]

Agreed, the way linux handles this is *chefs kiss* however I hate that when I accidentally unplug my mic, everything using audio decides to stop working :/

[@HAWXLEADER]

Just that? What about the working animations system? Windows 11s animations are atrocious... GNOME has them nailed down on a macOS level of polish.

[@olbaze]

I tried these on my install of Linux Mint. Left click on the volume icon in the panel brings up a menu. That Menu has a volume slider, which controls System volume. There's a clearly labeled option called Sound Settings. Clicking on that brings you to the Output section of the Sound settings, where you can select your output device from a list with icons (e.g. audio passthrough to your monitors has a monitor icon). There's a tab up top that says "Applications". There you will find your audio player, and any application that is currently playing audio, and you can turn it up or down.

[@ikonix360]

That's extremely simple.

[@madmen2288]

@@ikonix360 When it working it's great emphasis on the when. Pulseaudio it's not the best audio solution for Linux it's the only one not deprecated. At least untill pipewire mature.

[@masaufuku1735]

@@madmen2288 Audio is one of the weird situations where the GUI situation is vastly better than in Windows but the backend is extremely lacking.

[@CirkuitBreaker]

@@madmen2288 I mean pipewire is ready for daily driving for a lot of people

[@FengLengshun]

@@masaufuku1735 PipeWire is fine. It's just not good enough yet to be fine for professional audio - as I saw from unfa who tried it for that. Idk why but PipeWire is for some reason also has to fix the mess of Wayland like screensharing, and potential remote control for TeamViewer and the like.

[@franceslarina5508]

Eartrumpet permissions: Account Info: Access any of your account info. Allow elevation: Allows the app to run with administrator privileges without prompting the user first. App diagnostics: Get diagnostic information about other running apps. Bluetooth: Activate and use any Bluetooth connections between your device and other devices. Calendar: Access your calendars. Call history: Access history of phone calls you made on the device, in Skype or other telephony apps. Contacts: Access your contacts, people, or address book apps. Custom install actions: Install additional software. Email: Access your email and account info for your email accounts. Facial recognition: Activate and use any facial recognition hardware. File system: Access the files and folders to which you have access and read or write to all your files (including documents, pictures, and music). Fingerprint reader: Activate and use any fingerprint reader hardware. Local system services: Install a service on the machine that runs with maximum privileges. Location: Activate and use the GPS or other location-finding features on your device. Access location data in Maps and other location apps. Messaging: Access your instant messages and account info.

[@NekoSnowy]

Imagine how good Windows 11 could have been if it were designed by passionate people who care about customization and the overall user experience, rather than designed by the marketing department, who are also engaged in deep sea salvage, saving what they can from the corpse of 10X~

[@Leoappeared]

I am already happy to have a Volume Mixer, MacOS doesn’t even have that

[@texrot9781]

You litterally described Linux community lol. I think people finally started to realise how wrong windows monopoly is right now.

[@kim-hendrikmerk4163]

This is basically every Linux community in existence

[@zaxmaxlax]

I wonder if the people who design this things actually use them. Win XP was so easy to change settings, even a 11 year old like me could figure it out, I get lost half of the time on win 10 and end up googling before even trying.

[@thany3]

Imagine a Windows where, when you report a bug, you're NOT first instructed to check 5000 settings, repair your installation, and check this&that&such&such, before you're instructed to reported it to a horrendous and mostly broken app where you can't get any counter-feedback, and where people have to FUCKING VOTE for a bug. Imagine... reporting a bug and Microsoft going "Thanks for taking the time & effort to report this, mate. We'll fix it and have an update ready within a few weeks." Or better yet, imagine being able to just file an issue with the dev team. This would happen automatically if your passionate devs would be working on Windows. But then again, why would they?

[@kevincarlos973]

YES! THANK YOU! For years I've been annoying by the complicated, click-heavy audio settings that gets worse on each update. Damn it Microsoft! Hopefully they listen to this feedback.

[@ludwig2345]

"Hopefully they listen to this feedback." lol

[@WhooptyDoo]

The whole UI gets worse, not just audio. Also, your naivety is cute

[@kevincarlos973]

@@ludwig2345 I know 😂

[@K3V0M]

My only contact with Windows 11 was when I was shopping for a laptop recently and played around with them in a store. What I noticed were the improved, colored icons in the settings app closer to Windows 7. I don't like the flat design in the settings app. The icons are not recognizable, or at least it's not obvious for me where to go for certain things. Sometimes I still end up in a Windows 7 looking window for some reason. Windows 7's control panel, which you can still access, might have had a lot of options but at least they were there. I don't think I have the option to treat the front and rear ports as separate outputs in my sound card's software and I didn't find an option just now but that's not a huge deal for me. But now I can see what Linus has complained about in the past. He said Windows 10 made it difficult to switch output devices when it was just clicking on the icon, clicking on the arrow, and changing a different device and I thought that this was as simple as it gets. I think Microsoft should look more to the side and into independent projects like phone manufacturers did in the past. "Oh, this Root/Jailbreak hack is neat, let's implement it in the next OS version"

[@brunomola.2293]

Free Tech Tip: Win + G have a sound panel that you can quickly change audio input and app volumes, you can open it anywhere, not just inside games.

[@purplen33t17]

I am completely surprised he doesnt mention that option, it is so convenient espeically with how it doesnt interrupt full screen apps

[@s2korpionic]

This needs to be pinned.

[@BarryMahcockiner]

Win+G does nothing for me? :/

[@purplen33t17]

@@BarryMahcockiner make sure you enable xbox game bar (dumb name i know) from windows settings

[@lizzam]

One of my biggest gripe when using bluetooth headphones, is that Win11 ditches the Connect app or downgrades it to only handle displays, not BT headsets. You'll need to use the Bluetooth settings each time to manually connect to any BT devices! *Yes, BT headsets can automatically reconnect, but not always if you use the headsets for other devices or multilink.

[@BassLiberators]

How does it work in Win10? I always just use the Bluetooth settings every time I connect my headphones.

[@xavengarcia851]

Windows doesn't have any codecs for Bluetooth audio anyway.

[@FlakAttack0]

I love when people talk about how fragmented the Linux community is as if Windows isn't also filled with gaping UX holes. This has to stop, seriously.

[@iselink]

As ex-employee said: windows is built feature-upon-feature. They aren't gonna update something that already exists. Authors of DE if necessary will update already existing components (which is good as one of the changes is button to backup and restore toolbars config in XFCE).

[@frosty295]

Yep and ironically it's so much easier in Linux especially with properly changing audio devices or changing applications to the right audio device just like all the settings not being hidden in so many menus and submenus or fragmented between different settings/control panels. Now Windows 11 is even more fragmented than 10 with it's UI

[@dtemp132]

Ubuntu 20.04 here… every time I connect my Bluetooth headphones I have to manually change it from the Headset profile to A2DP so it sounds decent.

[@frosty295]

@@dtemp132 once you've done it, it should stay on that profile.

[@nulian]

@@frosty295 Sorry but pulse audio is even worse then windows audio. Maybe pipewire will be better the end but it really needs to become default.

[@frosty295]

@@nulian pulse audio isn't perfect but managing audio even with it is still way better than managing audio on Windows with its clunky horrible UI lmao. Pipewire on-top of how much better the UI to manage audio Linux already has just shits on Windows but again even with pulse audio it's still better than dealing with Windows audio

[@lootria]

audio mixing was so simple in plasma

[@mattlodder]

Shout-out to VoiceMeeter, who solve this problem in many ways (although they're hamstrung by the fact that third-party volume mixers apparently can't natively detect new Bluetooth connected audio devices without a restart of their engine. For some reason, Windows can't (according to VM developers) pass Bluetooth audio connections to Voicemeeter seamlessly...

[@SamPhoenix_]

It cant pass any audio seemlessly. If my USB headphones disconnect, I have to restart the engine before it can output to them again

[@TheFingerMove]

VoiceMeeter introduces delay even for wired devices which is really annoying.

[@dereckguerra6863]

yupp i use voicemeeter as a way to have dedicated speakers for every monitor connected and to a quick change audio when i move programs to those monitors

[@somewhereontheinternet1190]

+1 for voicemeeter, it can be annoying to figure out but once it's set up you can get it to run pretty well. It also pairs great with eartrumpet. As for other conerns in the thread here... Latency can be mostly solved if you have an audio interface that supports ASIO (set you A1 channel to your asio device). As for needing to reset the engine fairly often (definitely the biggest downside), making use of the MacroButtons software that comes with voicemeeter you can easily set up a shortcut to restart the audio engine using either a keyboard shortcut or even a midi device should you have one handy.

[@dodg3rii]

Pairing voicemeeter with Touch Portal has worked really well for me. But I admit that learning how to use voicemeeter properly took me quite a while...

[@kaioocarvalho]

Honestly, as someone who quit Windows for Linux years ago, yes, I don't appreciate that much the modern Windows experience, but what is the problem here exactly? It is not hard. Just because you had to read a little bit out on the internet, doesn't mean its bad. One google search later and it's fine. Although the mouse clicks and the extra panels are annoying. The one thing I am curious about, as I don't remember anymore... Can you set up shortcuts to these more advanced audio things? Like what I've done in my computer: Super Alt j - global volume down Super Alt k - global volume up Super Alt J - toggle global mute Super Alt P - toggle output device Super Alt p - play/pause Super Alt h - previous track Super Alt l - next track Super Alt 1~0 raise volume on output streams 1~10 Super Alt !~) lower volume on output streams 1~10 Super Alt Ctrl 1~0 toggle mute on output streams 1~10 Super Alt m toggle mic mute Super Alt , lower mic volume Super Alt . raise mic volume Super Alt M toggle input device There's more, but you get the point. Also, you might not agree with the keys I chose, but that is beside the point. Make keybinds and call it a day.

[@rustyshackleford5166]

I have thought these things for years and was annoyed when they changed the windows7 style in favor of the stupid settings app. What used to be a right click away is now buried.

[@MiniRockerz4ever]

I feel better and better each day I keep using win 7

[@youmyon]

I learned that you can use the game bar (Windows Key + G) to set individual volume stuff on windows 10/11. Still kinda wished you can just do it like on Win 7.

[@m2mdohkun]

Wow. This is a good one! Thank you soldier!

[@roku3045]

Yes, EarTrumper is very good when considering switching and controlling OUTPUT audio. When it is INPUT audio, the quickest step is to right-click on the speaker icon and open the Sound settings, then go down to check which input device is being used. That is still a big pain.

[@Spectral352]

What really annoys me is how Windows just switches to other sources of sound. Yeah, i really wanted my main audio not to come out of my headphones anymore, but out of my plugged-in PS4 controller instead. I mean the option to set a specific source as "default" exists for a reason, right?

[@LRM12o8]

Yeah, I'm having this same problem for years now. What does that menu even exist for, at that point?

[@Zayfod]

Windows: Hey your monitor's woken up from sleep mode, you must want your sound routed through the headphone jack on the back of it, rather than your speakers! The only way I've found to stop this from happening every single time is to never install the Nvidia audio drivers.

[@colenado]

Yeah I finally went and disabled the PS4 controller in the audio settings to finally get that to stop. Man that was annoying as hell, especially if Steam decides to switching audio when a game is open means you get no audio until you close out. Lol

[@LordSandwichII]

OMG THIS! It does this when I use pc vr. It switches my microphone to the Oculus microphone, but then doesn't switch it back. I've wasted several minutes of online lessons trying to figure out why my students can't hear me, only to find that Windows has fucked with my settings and not changed them back!

[@phoenixrising4995]

Don't have this issue with pipewire on KDE, haha and Windows users think there OS is better for audio, lol!

[@challengegravity]

Windows should address this, but in the meantime I've been using *Volume2* - Great lil program. Endless options for audio key/mouse inputs, different OSDs for the volume display, and a nifty feature to adjust the volume on the scrollwheel when either the Windows key is held, or the pointer is over the taskbar. You can even make it control the app on it is hovering over. I highly recommend it.

[@yorkie984]

Audio was perfect in XP, since Win 7, it's been a pain, especially if you need devices to change between sample rates on the fly. In XP, it just happened, from 7 up, you have to do it manually.

[@Bejeerk]

As a music producer on my free time, Windows' sounds settings piss me off, I don't know how they could have gotten it so wrong all these years...

[@Azarilh]

KDE Plasma on Linux has a great sound control. Although i dunno about the apps you use so...

[@Bejeerk]

@@Azarilh Thank you for the suggestion! I use Ableton Live, and I don't know if it runs well on Wine nowadays.

[@rudymoralesjr]

I'm all for more of these kinds of rant videos. ESPECIALLY since you provide a lovely solution to the rant. 100 internet points for the video and for the recommendation app!

[@bootinnj]

Absolutely i agree

[@KamIsFam]

To add to the confusion, there are extra sound settings that exist for under a separate, older looking, section called "Change System Sounds". From there, you can enable/disable, view properties, set/unset as default device, change quality, and check drivers of recording and playback devices, as well as look at system sounds. I hate the interface for the newer audio menus and everything feels so scattered, by the System Sounds dialog box feels more contained and easier to work with. Sure it looks 15 years old, but it's my go to when devices aren't working and I need to troubleshoot.

[@johnbo2488]

I use voicemeeter. Theres 5 inputs and 5 outputs. I love it, it's so flexible; you can redirect sources, for example, making KZbin coming through my discord mic, or Spotify coming out of more than 1 output. Also you can plan audio left and right and add filters. Highly recommended!

[@FockaffenTVjunior]

Best tool ever! Especially for laptops with their shitty onboard soundcards it gives you complete freedom in managing audio

[@Hoekstes]

Love the 🍌

[@johnbo2488]

@@HoekstesI use banana but 🥔>>>

[@SPACER-97]

Windows + G opens the Xbox game bar, which actually has some pretty decent audio controls for the entire system. It basically opens the volume mixer immediately and I personally find the layout quick to interact with.

[@cmdr.shurimal8980]

All I want is a logarithmic volume control relative to dB(FS). The 50-step (if using keyboard shortcuts) linear volume control is just unusable for when you need to set anything at -20 dB(FS) or lower, which you have to if your monitors will do 110 dB(C) at 0 dB(FS). As an alternative I'd need an 8 channel analog volume control after my DSP, which is another headache inducing level of "wholly impractical". For reference, I use ASIO with Foobar2000 and usually operate at around -36 dB(FS) for more compressed source material like metal/EDM, which gives me around 80 dB(C) at listening position, a moderately loud but not uncomfortable level. -42 to -45 dB(FS) for quiet background music. -15 or even -9 dB(FS) for classical music/live recordings with insane dynamic range. Windows volume control is absolutely useless for this.

[@PuneetMhajan]

I'm sure they'll listen and improve just like the time they gave people option to do updates manually. Oh wait...

[@kremtegutt1]

Also duplicating a sound say like spotify or a game would be amazing! (having spotify play out of 2 devices at the same time like headphones and speakers) there was programs which did this a few years ago but last time I tried them they were real buggy and havent been updated since like 2017.

[@ikonix360]

Voicemeeter Banana will do exactly what you want and it works just fine in Windows 10.

[@ajaasuncionn]

You can actually do this at certain games. In my case: playing spotify on my speakers while moving the output device of valorant to my earphones

[@Donnerwamp]

I've got basically 6 audio devices and 2 input devices connected (3 screens with speakers, speakers, headset and my Index) and I'm constantly switching between 3output and both input devices. Something that helps me a lot is NIRcmd, you create a .bat file for marking a certain device as standard and... It just works! Another improvement can be achieved when having a keyboard that supports linking makro keys to .bat files (like my G110 back then or the G910 now), now you can map those switching files to a key each and you're good to go!

[@ahriik]

I remember listening to a WAN Show episode (might've been an LTT video, can't remember) where Linus briefly touched on how Windows fundamentally changed how audio was handled by Windows around the Vista-era, which essentially made audio-acceleration hardware pointless. I'd love a more in-depth dive on this topic, I think it's a part of Windows that is still in dire need of revision. For anyone with multiple pieces of audio hardware connected to a PC, it becomes a hassle trying to manage it all within Windows, even with ASIO drivers. You're forced to use a single device for both input and output, or else you have to deal with extreme latency or other artifacting. Anyone semi-serious about working with audio on a PC is basically forced to do most of their routing totally outside of Windows via specialized hardware, so your computer only has to communicate with a single audio device directly. Things would be so much more convenient if something as simple as channel routing could be done inside Windows, it seems so primitive that it can't really handle it without very specialized hardware. And if you want actual audio acceleration, you are stuck choosing from a small pool of usually quite expensive and always proprietary hardware with capable built-in DSP that can usually only accelerate plugins made by that specific brand. Otherwise, you just gotta get the best processor you can afford, lots of RAM, and pray your DAW is somewhat multi-core optimized (and even then, the nature of digital audio often requires linear processing after a certain point. Oh, and surround sound? That's a whole other conversation in and of itself. I understand a lot of this only applies to a small part of the community who work in audio production, but I think its kinda crazy how even in 2022 we still deal with these issues in Windows.

[@Seskoi]

Surround sound always give me headaches with Windows!

[@ahriik]

@@Seskoi The way Windows manages surround sound is a joke. And most other software solutions aren't much better. You're best bet is to only let Windows send clean PCM surround channels and let a hardware solution do the rest. Good ones can be really pricey and cumbersome though, seems wild we have to do it this way in 2022 on Windows.

[@Firing_Order]

This is one of the things that I was unexpectedly pleased with by building my own home music production studio. With a dedicated interface that has an amplified headphone out and everything, I can switch speaker outs and headphones with real hardware buttons and jacks. Just install the driver for your interface, then set windows to recognize all the inputs on your interface and the single Left/Right out to the interface. You just set everything to maximum quality and everything you need to adjust is now out of the box.

[@jtimleck]

OMG… I am a high end user in today. I finally buckled - I went on KZbin and started googling “how to use windows, sound inputs, and outputs” because, even as an advanced superuser, kind of person, doing VR, programming, modding etc., I am absolutely flummoxed sometimes when I am trying to figure out which audio source, I am trying to pack to use for inputs into something like OBS, or to be able to hear output in my VR headset AND my receiver (TV via HDMI out of GPU), etc. It’s. FXXKING nightmare. I routinely end up recording and finding and I don’t have audio. Even though I can see imports and Vu meters moving etc. So thank you for the third-party solution and I will take a look at it. I really don’t know how this is just such a gawd awful piece of crap still after all these years.

[@christopherrodriguez653]

100% agree, honestly it's really archaic and it's one of the reasons I've been looking for an out from Windows

[@Leoappeared]

MacOS is not an option. No volume mixer at all, and no good third party options either. (Background Music is not really supported anymore)

[@texrot9781]

Well there is only Linux left for you and i think it's not really a good option for a beginner, so good luck.

[@christopherrodriguez653]

@@texrot9781 Yeah, I've kinda been looking into Linux but I honestly don't know if I can adapt to be as comfortable with its functionality as I feel with Windows, even with all the underlying issues

[@DogsAreGods]

OMG, exactly! I thought it was just me that had these types of issues! It is so annoying! Thank you very much for doing a video on this. I really appreciate it.

[@Firestorm2900]

I can recall someone having issues with their mic, and had to direct them to mic boost, which the ONLY place for that in Windows 10 is going into that old sounds tab that still have the 95 style window. Trying to direct the poor kid to that over text chat was nuts. Especially since there's like 2 or 3 other places to modify microphone settings, but none of them have the mic boost option. It's like sound settings is such a low priority they just keep on stacking sound settings on top of each other, with minor tweaks here and there. UGH!!!

[@CatMeowMeow]

Thank you for introducing me to ear trumpet, it's damn good. It's nice to finally have a easy quick way to switch programs to different outputs since I often work with using multiple virtual audio cables when live streaming

[@samthemultimediaman]

I mainly use my sound blasters mixer software, Microsofts work environment is extremely toxic and its amazing they can get any working product out at all because of it.

[@Camelotsmoon]

When I was setting up my audio to stream on windows 10, I realized how much of a nightmare it was after messing with it for a few days. How windows handles multiple audio drivers is absolutely abysmal; it wouldn't matter if I set certain programs to go through another audio driver or not, everytime I would start up the program, I would need to manually go in and switch it's output every single time. I finally ended up just downloading eartrumpet, and now I don't need to worry about MS audio driver BS.

[@FulfillMyWill]

Most of this inconvenience would not be a thing if that damn "settings" app didn't exist. Every setting you need was there in a good old control panel.

[@picklypt]

right!?

[@pokemonfreaky100]

Man I totally agree, always such a hassle...

[@Ghozer]

Beyond that, there are other problems... When I change the Volume for the CENTER SPEAKER ONLY in Windows, next time ANYTHING updates (Windows, GPU drivers, even just Windows Defender) it resets back to default, and I have to go back in, and change it again - with the amount of hardware/drivers/software this equates to having to set the volume multiple times per week... and is REALLY annoying! I use a 5.1 system with DTS Connect (DTS encoding) with Optical Output.. A lot of the 'issues' though, are down to drivers and what options they allow, if the Realtek Audio Center thing added more options (individual app volume/assignment, per speaker volume, whatever else....) then lots of the problems would be resolved, I think the issue is there's no "standard" per-se

[@reecedela]

I use Eartrumpet on the windows store for Windows 10, idk what it's like on Windows 11 but my guess is that It would still work. Ear Trumpet allows you to use a per program volume mixer with a good ui and it stays in the task bar tray.

[@sgrecni]

eartrumpet is the answer to this mess.

[@forgotn42]

0:37 Fuck me. For years now I've been right clicking the sound button and going into Sound Settings to switch between output devices. Never once noticed the arrow to let you change them more quickly. It would definitely be nice if they made these things more intuitive or simple. I'd especially love a freaking hotkey to do that.

[@pcmustardrice7467]

My favorite part is when Windows 10 randomly turns down the volume of individual programs to next to zero once every couple of days, and that nobody on the internet has any idea why.

[@Bellthegaomon]

I'm surprised he didn't talk about how Windows handles latency with audio applications

[@franciscourioste4783]

Microsoft had the ability to complicate Windows 10 and 11 useful features... that were intuitive, simple and easy in Windows 7 and earlier versions (while forgetting for a moment the weird Windows 8 and 8.1). Not only the sound control, sadly.

[@javianbrown8627]

I encounter all of these problems every time I plug in another device that also has a speaker like the ps4 controller. Annoying but even more annoying is when you "upgrade" your OS and the options are either removed or more difficult to find. This is why I like open platforms as you always have more options, like that tool you mentioned

[@agar322]

Going back to Windows 7 was one of the best things I ever did. I really can't fathom how Microsoft can keep making things more annoying and less intuitive with each update since 2012. I really really really hope Steam Deck and SteamOS 3 can bring more support/attention to Linux so I can migrate there once Steam/Chrome stops working on W7.

[@priyanshusharma1812]

SteamOS is nothing but Arch Linux with KDE, you can replicate that experience using endeavourOS' KDE flavour and have a good time, try it in a Virtual machine or dual boot, it might make your purchase decision easier.

[@nasranruwaidi]

Normally in big software projects the placement of things were being decided by the UI/UX team and not by a single developer. As a developer myself I do understand the frustration.

[@KuesschenRocker]

Windows 10: Right klick on the speaker symbol on the Right of the taskbar. Then > Sounds Deactivate everything you don't use at the monent.

[@suchithsridhar]

I strongly feel this rant comes, at least partly, from having done the Linux gaming challenge since it's super easy to do everything mentioned, and it's all in one place! I didn't even know this was POSSIBLE in windows!

[@animefreak5757]

half of this stuff was standard in windows 98\xp, it only changed with windows 7 IIRC (maybe vista, i never used that one)

[@sentient1705]

I'm always very hesitant on upgrading my Windows operating system, so I've stayed with Windows 98 and it hasn't failed me.

[@Hamentsios10]

Finally someone voiced that issue. It's been so frustrating. I never believe Microbrain will ever come up with user-friendly software. I have little to no respect for their work. They always find new ways to make things frustrating. The scrollbar for example. In some apps its contrast with the non-scrollbar background is so little that it's painful to see. Makes browsing 1k+ lines of code unbearably frustrating. They don't deserve to be in their positions.

[@NoSignal_UK]

Soooo, finally someone's calling out Windows Audio for the clusterfudge it really is. Now Intel have decided to screw things up with their SmartSound technology as well which does nothing but make audio sound weird and mess up Windows' audio device detection requiring reboots after attaching/detaching an audio device. (I just disable all of the Intel SmartSound stuff indevice manager to get around this problem). Also since Windows 10, it seems that there are audio processing effectrs applied by default but they are not explained anywhere and cannot be disabled UNLESS you disable all audio "enhancements" on a device. This has resulted in weird "out of phase" or weird reverb effects on some audio devices - particularly on USB audio devices such as gaming headsets. I don't want Windows or anyone else to decide how my audio sounds - let me do it myself.

[@IuriFiedoruk]

After you use Linux, some parts of Windows just start to be annoying as hell.

[@nhlm4257]

Until you try using Bluetooth headsets with Ubuntu. My gosh!

[@davide4725]

Good reason to avoid Linux for a while longer

[@Cruzz999]

The best way I found to get to the proper sound settings (for properly changing audio in and out for example), is to go to the nVidia control panel, HDMI Audio, and from there "open windows sound settings".

[@Keksmania]

What is really infuriating is that windows changes audio settings after (some) updates

[@kornkernel2232]

Thus seems to be inconsistent issue as I don't experience this thing at all on my laptop. On the desktop, when audio driver updated, at times but not always, it change the output. So hard to say if that is Windows or more into audio driver especially if they have their own software interfering stuff.

[@LRM12o8]

Oh yeah, I've had the problem three years ago, that after an update the volume of my headphone output would suddenly be set to 3x my normal level (75 instead of 25, where 30 was my personal threshold) and I had a my dedicated soundcard was kinda overkill for my headphones. If I had not caught it the first time (and then made the habit to start playing music, before putting the headphones on), It would *LITERALLY* have been deafening!

[@esoqueexiste]

Curiously, KDE (the Linux desktop that Linus used) is amazing in that part

[@Azarilh]

I wonder why he didn't mention that.

[@arealboiii4830]

OH MY GOD THANK YOU. I HATE having my music screaming at me while I'm trying to hear discord and not be deafened by a game

[@CoolJosh3k]

When you’ve experienced the competition, Windows finally becomes the obvious cheap junk design revealed.

[@julianmendez4691]

What competition ?? Linux lol

[@tralphstreet]

@@julianmendez4691 lol? Linux is great dude.

[@julianmendez4691]

@@tralphstreet Windows holds like 73% of market share how is their any competition like Linux has only 2%

[@tralphstreet]

@@julianmendez4691 I'm saying it's better, not that it has more users. The real competition may be MacOS, but I think they aim at a completely different market. So, yeah, Linux is the only competition to Windows (and BSD I guess...), even if they aren't real threats to it.

[@CoolJosh3k]

@@julianmendez4691 Linux for example has done a few features first, then when Microsoft finally implements it they make a worse version. Another obvious example is macOS. So much easier to use and way safer, but not bug free of course.