(I picked up a Behringer at a Guitar Center sale for like $60.) It was awkward and clumsy, but it worked, and using a Mac was worth it over using Windows (2000 was the last version I ran at home by Jaguar Mac OS had become a viable UNIX + "real app" (Word, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, Premiere / Final Cut, StarCraft )) operating system, and I didn't have to dual boot like I did with Windows / Linux, so I was hooked). When I switched to a Mac, I had to buy a small mixer to get the same sort of thing working. Watching TV, I could still get alerts for new email (or AIM/ICQ/etc messages). So I had the TAPE 2 loop output running into the Line In input on the sound card on my Wintel tower, and then the Line Out from the PC fed back into the receiver (TAPE 2 IN), and with that, I could source audio from anywhere. It was great for movies, music, and editing video in Premiere. :) I had a nice home theater system in the 90s and early 00s, one of the first JVC Dolby ProLogic receivers with a 5.1 speaker setup, etc. Unless you're me, and you needed that literally every day. It is also seldom the case that users have to deal with multiple audio sources regularly that a mixer is needed. A specific app being too loud or soft, normie user is probably already switching to that app to change the volume there. So despite me also wanting a volume mixer in MacOS, I get why it's not there. However, when we go back to typical user behavior, there's half the chance that when you need to change the volume of something, you're probably already in the active window of the app you need to change the volume of, making the mixer redundant. On the other hand, if the mixer controls were proxies of app volume controls, it would be more efficient and useful. In which case then, one already manages the volume from within their own apps - a good practice from good gain staging. Given most circumstances, nobody is crafting the perfect mix balance for OS audio, and assuming we are treating the mixer as a real mixer, adjustments to the volume would always likely be to turn down the source, so that in any event that anything has to be brought up in the mixer, it will never be too loud. moving the Spotify slider in the volume mixer will not affect the volume control within the app). moving the Spotify slider in the volume mixer will also move the volume slider in the app), and second is to act like an actual mixer as a separate gain stage prior to the master out (i.e. The volume mixer can be implemented in two ways: first is to act as a proxy for the volume controls of the app (i.e. The volume mixer is a power user thing, and if we know the history of MacOS and its apps, catering to complexity was never its thing (just ask the people who had to deal with Logic X and FCP X).Įven from an audio perspective, it actually makes more sense to not have the mixer for most applications. Īnd that's why the volume mixer doesn't exist - because the core feature addresses the typical user behavior. When it becomes something that has to be wrangled, it would often be the case that the audio sources are actually reduced than managed. So by ordinary intuition, say, if you want to turn Spotify up or down, you either press your volume keys (master volume), or switch to the Spotify app and turn it down. Thinking about it then, it really comes down to (extreme) simplicity and keeping things neat for the OS.Īside from the main system volume and your notification volume, each volume control a volume mixer would have has an app behind it that has a volume control. In fact, the only time I invoke the Windows Sound Mixer is when I am gain staging because for whatever god forsaken reason Windows will allow a signal path to distort even when it's internally routed. But I think it's also notable that I have never actually ever installed a third party app to mimic Windows' Sound Mixer. I work with audio, so I do have third party apps to cover some audio needs, specifically routing internal audio (for screen capturing with sound, for example). Having worked with Windows much longer than MacOS, I get the frustration.
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