Since ALSA provides dmix for soundcards that don't support multiplexing and softvol for those that can't control their volume, it is not necessary to run pulseaudio for that. This application creates .asoundrc default configurations for this purpose, while the GUI may work as a replacement for pavucontrol.

Not having pulseaudio is not compatible with everything. For example, Discord in Firefox and Terraria were silent without Pulseaudio. Maybe apulse helps.

If you encounter problems, don't hesitate to open an issue in this repo! Even if the issues that prevent this app from working are ALSA related, it would be nice if they can be detected and named in the GUI.

You might be interested in https://pipewire.org/. My audio broke in various ways again after updating stuff, breaking multiplexing even with dmix and pulseaudio and preventing the alsa-control sound test from working, but pipewire works.

You can use this to control the volume while running jack. Firefox seems to prefer talking to jack directly over using the default device provided by the generated asoundrc though, so the volume change doesn't affect it. Before starting jack, the ALSA-Control GUI needs to be closed because jack can't acquire the input device as long as the level is monitored, or you select "none" as input in Cadence.

Install alsa-control from the AUR or run:

pip3 install pyalsaaudio
git clone https://github.com/sezanzeb/alsa-control.git
cd alsa-control
python3 setup.py install

It should create an entry in your applications menu. But you can also start it from the console:

alsacontrol-gtk

If the daemon didn't already start due to a system restart, you can start it either from the user interface, or with:

alsacontrol-daemon-gtk

While the above command runs in a separate terminal, try to change the volume with the following commands. For convenience, bind this to your multimedia keys in your user interface.

alsacontrol -v +5
alsacontrol -v -5
alsacontrol -m

Running pulseaudio at the same time may cause problems. Keyboard shortcuts may break if you have the xfce pulseaudio plugin active.

Basically provide everything that is needed to comfortably use ALSA without pulseaudio in a GUI

• Show a volume meter as notification on volume changes or mute toggling
• Change the volume of soundcards without Master controls with softvol
• Generate an asoundrc file that is automatically included in ~/.asoundrc based on config
• Control volumes with sliders and a mute button
• Always show up to date devices in the GUI
• Add a button to test the speaker setup
• Show speaker-test errors in the GUI
• Add a dropdown to change output pcm devices
• Jack support (first start jack, then the GUI to select it)
• Add a list of input devices and show their input level
• Startmenu .desktop entry
• Start the daemon on login
• Make dmix, softvol, dsnoop, channels and samplerate configurable
• Get it into the AUR
• Write some specs for the UI (using stubs for pyalsaaudio)
• Detect when sound-test is blocking and doing nothing
• Provide .deb files

pylint alsacontrol --extension-pkg-whitelist=alsaaudio
sudo python3 setup.py install && python3 tests/test.py

I'm interested in your pull requests and will gladly review them. Make sure to give your code docstrings and make it as PEP compliant as possible.