Lion + volume control external soundcard

Dear Apple users,
I recently bought my iMac 2,5 Ghz (didn't buy it brand new). I installed the iMac to factory settings.
On the moment I am using Lion 10.7.5. Is it necessary for me to update to Mountain Lion? What are differences that I am gonna experience with Mountain Lion?
Another question is about my external soundcard
I' m using a M-Audio Fast Track Pro (1.8.1. drivers). The card is working. But, I can't set it as my main sound card. So I cant use the volume control on my keyboard. When Im going to System Settings -> Sound; the input/output settings aren't recognized by my Mac?
Whats the problem?

No one?

Similar Messages

Remote control's volume doesn't work with external soundcard

I use an external EDIROL FA-101 firewire soundcard connected to my macbook. Ofcourse I listen to music and watch movies with my computer just like we all do. But the problem is, that I can't control volume using apple remote. It only works for the integrated soundcard. It probably isn't hard for it to control volume of the iTunes, instead of the main volume (which doesn't control my external soundcard's volume). It just isn't comfortable at all (and I'm not going to use the integrated soundcard, because of what it sounds like).

I'm not sure there's anything we can do for you here. You may be able to do something with an additional remote, like a bluetooth phone and Salling Clicker, to execute AppleScripts to control the volume control on your card.
-Doug

Volume keys in combination with external soundcard; How?

Hi folks,
I recently bought a new MBP alongside a Focusrite Saffire 6 USB external soundcard, and an Apple wireless keyboard. As of now, if i want to adjust the volume of the music I'm playing I have to turn the knob on my Focusrite Soundcard, since using the volume controls on my keyboard show up as disabled; when I press them the volume logo shows up on my screen, but it denies me to alter the volume.
What's the way to go to enable this? I already checked the Audio & Midi preferences, to no avail.

Hi,
What you experiencing is normall behavior, once the saffire is selected as your sound card it takes over control. If you want to control volume using you keyboard you would need to change your sound prefernces to built in.

Clamshell Mode Question - Yosemite - Volume Controls on External Keyboard

Forum,
I was wondering if it was possible while in clamshell mode to, instead having to use the remote on the TV to adjust volume controls, but rather use the external board to control the TV's volume controls?
Obviously when I change the output device to the Macbook Pro the speakers kick on, a lot lower than the TV of course, but the external keyboard picks back up the volume control scroller. Again when I switch it back to the TV the TV speakers kick back on.
I am using a Macbook Pro (Late 2011) on Yosemite 10.10.1.
Using a HDMI adapter to connect to the TV, and the keyboard is the Corsair Gaming keyboard.
Thanks in advance!

Here is what worked for me. My scrolling on the mighty mouse and a few buttons on my wireless keyboard weren't working properly. I reset the SMC, a link explaining the process is below. Hope it helps you too!
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Volume control problem in Lion

MBP 13" mid 2010 (7.1) just installed a fresh copy of Lion. After reboot volume control does not work (audio device - which is internal speakers - has no controls), but there is sound. After inserting headphones the volume control starts working, and remains functional after removing the headphones.
Basically after each reboot I have to temporary plug headphones to get volume control working. Nothing in dmesg or system.log
I'm familiar with linux so if you tell me how to debug this I'll happily do it, not afraid at all of command line or searching through logs.
(and you'd think that having control both over hardware and software would prevent such frustrating problems)

It looks more like a race condition or uninitialized variable in the kernel sound driver. That's not good since it may not affect too many people and may not be easy to reproduce by the developers (if it makes it onto apple's bug list)
One day it happened after every restart, for at least 5 restarts.
The other day it happened only after shutdown/poweron.
So I don't think the pram reset is more then a coincidence.
Only good think is you don't need to reboot often, sleep (standby) works just fine and the battery drain is minimal.

Can the external volume control be lock on model Md128c

can the external volume control be locked and accidental adjustments

I only just spotted this myself... by accident! fantastic feature- maybe should try and make more people aware of it though.

Lion: Anyone having volume control on iMac?

I'm noticing that the volume controls don't work after a while. I repair permissions, restart and it's fine, but after a while when I press the volume buttons, no sound or activation happens. Anyone else having this issue after Lion install?

Thanks for this observation about plugging in head phones; it did work. Although, I have only one attempt to count in these stats. But very worthwhile to note.
I did write on this in another thread where I also speculated about FileVault.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3328016
But maybe there is also interference with Parallels Desktop and how it handles anything on that when a virtual machine is running?
Anyway, before reading this thread, I could only try rebooting, and the disabling would only randomly disappear.
So, thanks again for noting the trick about the head phones

Volume control when using front row with an external audio interface

Hi,
I got my macbook last week, and so far, I love it. But I've got a small gripe with FrontRow - in my room at college, I have my macbook plugged into an oldish Tascam US-122, which I use a lot for recording. The Tascam is connected to my expensive active speakers, and ideally, I'd like to be able to play back via FrontRow to the Tascam, to the speakers, while retaining remote control. This isn't a problem for selecting Photos/Videos/Music etc, but the problem arises when I want to change the volume - the remote simply controls the volume of the macbook's internal speakers, not affecting the output of the Tascam.
I know I could just connect the speakers via the headphone output, but that would mean more cables, and more chopping and changing system preferences to suit whether I'm making music or just listening.
*So - is there any way at all that I can make the macbook's global volume control (using the volume hotkeys and remote) affect the signal its sending (via USB) to the Tascam?* I know its not impossible, because until recently I used it with a PC running XP, and that allowed me to use the volume control app to boost or cut the Tascam's volume. Perhaps its an issue with the Tascam's OSX driver?
The Tascam has its own physical volume knob, so its not like I'm stuck listening at deafening or very quiet volumes, and I know this sounds like an issue with my laziness rather than FrontRow or the macbook, but surely it defeats the point of FrontRow if I have to walk across the room every time I want to turn the tunes up or down?!
Any help would be much appreciated!
Cheers,
Thom Bishop

hmm, yeah, thats kinda what i suspected - i reckon this is to do with the way the frontrow interface is set up, but theres no way (as far as i can see) to make everything pass through the main system stereo channel BEFORE going to an external audio interface... which is COMPLETELY bizarre, since system sounds/alerts get passed to the audio interface fine.
and no, i very much doubt whether ANY external audio interface would respond to apple remote (gap in the market, perhaps?).
this would be a fairly simple problem to solve, if only apple were aware of it... of course, i COULD try getting to grips with audio units and seeing if i couldnt fix it myself, but ive frankly not got the time to learn how that works! how can i make apple aware of this issue?? are they already aware??

External volume control on ihome

When I plug my ipod touch onto two of my iHomes, it charges the device, but I cannot get the volume controls to work. It only plays out of the itouch's speakers. However, when I put another itouch on the same iHomes, they work fine. My itouch has always worked on both. It is just recently that it is not working. Is there a setting on my itouch that is wrong?

Gern geschehen

Mapping Alsa Volume Control for USB SoundCard (C-Media 650)

Hello everyone who is interested in helping me solve my volume control problem!
Lets see, I have sound playback working, currently I am listening to some Foo Fighters mp3s in XMMS using the Alsa plugin, so I can't complain too much.
However, volume control doesn't work. If I set the alsa plugin to use software volume control, then I have volume control but its not ideal and it doesn't help me when I'm not using xmms. When I run alsamixer or open the gnome volume control, I have multiple volume controls for the "Speaker" device. The 1st pair of volume controls do nothing, I can mute them and my music keeps playing... no idea what they're controlling. The 2nd pair ("Speaker 1") DOES control the sound volume. I just need to find a way to remap it or something so I can configure my applications/tray icon/etc to use it. (And preferabbly not the other 6 channels)
In the Gnome sound control, the devices are:
"Speaker" - stereo control that doesn't do anything
and "Speaker 1" - a 7.1 channel (8 sliders) with the first two controlling front left and right sound for my stereo speakers.
I've tried setting xmms to use "speaker 1", but the option is not in the drop-box, tried typing it manually but that didnt work.
I set my tray icon to control "speaker 1" but the sliders don't seem to lock properly and the volume just jumps around, unlocking the channels and not staying balanced or scaling with the slider.
The only way to get the volume to change as expected is to open the gnome volume manager, make sure the channels of "Speaker 1" are UNLOCKED and slide the first 2 sliders to the desired volume.
So I was thinking if I could just remap the first two channels of "speaker 1" to something else using an alias or link or editing asound.state (which just confused me) for example, then I could use my alias to control the sound in my applications. Thanks for any help with this!
Here's some system info that may or may not help:
AMD Athlon 5400 X2
Asus M2N-E SLi /w C-Media 650 onboard 8-channel audio CODEC (transfer audio signal over USB bus)
Fully uptodate Arch Linux 64-bit (pacman -Syu'd this morning)
aplay -L
default:CARD=default
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=default,DEV=0
PnP Audio Device , USB Audio
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null
$ cat /proc/asound/devices
2: : timer
3: : sequencer
4: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
5: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
6: [ 0] : control
asound.state:
state.default {
control.1 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Mic Playback Switch'
value false
control.2 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 8065'
comment.dbmin -2400
comment.dbmax -2400
iface MIXER
name 'Mic Playback Volume'
value.0 6144
value.1 6144
control.3 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'CD Playback Switch'
value true
control.4 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 8065'
comment.dbmin -2400
comment.dbmax -2400
iface MIXER
name 'CD Playback Volume'
value.0 5575
value.1 5575
control.5 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Speaker Playback Switch'
value false
control.6 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 8065'
comment.dbmin -2400
comment.dbmax -2400
iface MIXER
name 'Speaker Playback Volume'
value.0 6144
value.1 6144
control.7 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Speaker Playback Switch'
index 1
value true
control.8 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 8
comment.range '0 - 197'
comment.dbmin -3693
comment.dbmax -147
iface MIXER
name 'Speaker Playback Volume'
index 1
value.0 196
value.1 196
value.2 196
value.3 196
value.4 196
value.5 196
value.6 196
value.7 196
control.9 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Mic Capture Switch'
value true
control.10 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 6928'
comment.dbmin -1600
comment.dbmax -1600
iface MIXER
name 'Mic Capture Volume'
value.0 4096
value.1 4096
control.11 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'PCM Capture Switch'
value true
control.12 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 6928'
comment.dbmin -1600
comment.dbmax -1600
iface MIXER
name 'PCM Capture Volume'
value.0 4096
value.1 4096
control.13 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'CD Capture Switch'
value true
control.14 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 6928'
comment.dbmin -1600
comment.dbmax -1600
iface MIXER
name 'CD Capture Volume'
value.0 0
value.1 0
control.15 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'PCM Capture Switch'
index 1
value true
control.16 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type INTEGER
comment.count 2
comment.range '0 - 6928'
comment.dbmin -1600
comment.dbmax -1600
iface MIXER
name 'PCM Capture Volume'
index 1
value.0 4096
value.1 4096
control.17 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type ENUMERATED
comment.count 1
comment.item.0 Mic
comment.item.1 Mixer
comment.item.2 'CD '
comment.item.3 'Input 3'
iface MIXER
name 'PCM Capture Source'
value Mic
Thanks again!

Some other observations that may be helpful (and, hopefully, get closer to the heart of the problem)...
(1) Whenever VLC is playing audio (as mentioned in previous post, it is only application that works in desired manner), it will show up in Kmix's "Playback Streams" tab. Whenever Wine and Firefox are playing, they do NOT show up in the "Playback Streams" tab.
(2) Kmix will not allow more than one open application to grab the UA-5 sound (e.g. If I open Firefox and play audio, stop playing audio (while leaving Firefox open), then open VLC and try to play audio, VLC will not play audio (unless Firefox is closed)). This is likely a related problem to the problem outlined in the previous post, but it might not be. If it isn't, I'll take advice on how to let KMIX grab multiple audio sources simultaneously on the same sound card.
Thanks for reading!

How can I set up a custom keyboard shortcut for volume control?

Hi all,
I use my black MacBook at work, connected to an external monitor and external keyboard. I'm looking for a way to set up the F buttons on my external keyboard as volume control, just as they do on my laptop keyboard. Looking for F3 to F5 to be volume mute, down, and up, respectively.
I tried going into Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences but since there is no menu item for volume control I can't seem to add it. Anyone know how I can go about doing this or what I'm missing?
Thanks
Mike

paste the following into Applescrpt Editor (it's in /Applications/Utilities)
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
set curVolume to output volume of (get volume settings)
-- work out the new setting
if curVolume < 96 then
set newVolume to curVolume + 5
else
-- can't go over 100
set newVolume to 100
end if
-- and apply it
set volume output volume newVolume</pre>
this script will increase volume by 5 (out of 100) any time you run it. you can adjust this of course. save the script somewhere.
You can use a 3rd part app launcher to bind a keyboard shortcut to it. I use Butler. there are many others: Quicksilver, ikeys, quickeys, Spark, Launchbar.
this will work the fastest.
If you don't want to use 3rd party tools for this you can make a service using automator but that might be a bit slower than the first option. open automator. it will give you a pulldown screen wiuth the choice of what you want to make. choose "service". set it to receive no input and be available in all applications. add the following "run apple script" action to the service
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
on run {input, parameters}
set curVolume to output volume of (get volume settings)
-- work out the new setting
if curVolume < 96 then
set newVolume to curVolume + 5
else
-- can't go over 100
set newVolume to 100
end if
-- and apply it
set volume output volume newVolume
end run</pre>
save the service, go to keyboard system preferences->keyboard shortcuts->services and make a shortcut for the service you just created.

I am using Photoshop CS5 on a new iMac with a wireless keyboard. I used to be able to hit F11 to perform a custom sharpening action but now the F11 key is the volume control key and I have tried everything to disable or switch the volume key. I have also

I am using Photoshop CS5 on a new iMac with a wireless keyboard. I used to be able to hit F11 to perform a custom sharpening action but now the F11 key is the volume control key and I have tried everything to disable or switch the volume key. I have also tried assigning other function keys to initiate the action. Is there a simple solution to this? What am I missing?

Try unmounting the volume on your iMac using Disk Utility. Then mount it again. You may need to reboot the laptop or relaunch its Finder process (using the Force Quit window) after remounting the drive on your iMac. Remember that no process may be accessing any files on the drive you plan to unmount, or the unmount will fail. Unmounting and remounting an external drive on my iMac made it become visible on my MacBook Pro after it had disappeared.

HT4904 Help. I have an older 20 inch iMac and had Lion running on it but the internal hard drive died. I'm trying to install Lion on an external drive but it doesn't look like Lion Recovery is supported. I have Leopard installed but am stuck.

Hello,
My 20inch iMac's internal drive died and I'm trying to re-install Lion on an external drive. If I could get the Lion DMG file I think I'd be all set but am not sure how to do this. It doesn't look like the Lion Recovery feature is supported in my older iMac. And I have Leopard installed on the external drive but there's no AppStore to download the Lion DMG file.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
-Lee

Without a bootable backup/clone or a Time Machine backup of your previous Snow Leopard installation or a saved copy of Lion's install app, you'll have to upgrade your Leopard volume to Snow Leopard (10.6.6+) so you can waste another hour or more DLing the Lion thing again.

No sound except Flash, volume control doesn't work for that.

My sound seems to be cursed. Everything else works fine for me, but in the few years I've been using Arch I've been plagued by constant sound problems. Apparently something in a recent update broke my sound. I get no sound for anything but Flash, except Flash sound is SUPER LOUD, and doesn't adjust with the volume control. Everything else, there's just no sound. Not in VLC, Amarok, Battle for Wesnoth, or other various programs I tried. I tried VLC using the default sound output, the pulse output, and even the ALSA output just for the heck of it. No dice. I was reading in another similar topic that KDE might be the culprit, and indeed I'm using Pulse and KDE. My asound.conf is the default one that comes with the pulseaudio-alsa package. I've tried both gstreamer and xine as backends, they both have the same problem. In pavucontrol, it looks like sound is playing. If I play music or a test sound, the sound bar moves, but you still can't hear anything.
Now here's where it gets weird. Selecting a device within Phonon is screwy. In the output section, the devices listed are as follows. All but the top one are grayed out.
Internal Audio Digital Stereo (IEC958)
Internal Audio Digital Stereo
Dummy Output
Internal Audio Analog Surround 4.1
Internal Audio Analog Surround 4.0
Now, in the audio capture section, the devices are different.
Internal Audio Analog Stereo
NVidia CK804 with ALC655 (NVidia CK804)
NVidia CK804 with ALC655 (NVidia CK804 - MIC ADC)
Pulse Audio
In that list, pulse is greyed out. Are they supposed to be different like that?
In any case... I'm at a bit of a loss. I just can't seem to keep the sound working on this thing. Any ideas?

I think I encountered the sound problem too. I'm using a thinkpad T42, installed gnome, using ALSA. Normally I just enter runlevel 3 into the console, I have ALSA configed and the soundcard is well recognized. But when I play .mp3 using mpg123, everything goes fine but just no sound output (I setted up alsamixer previously, and had all necessary channels unmuted.). That goes several days. And one day, after setting up alsamixer, I also did a alsactl -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.status store, miracle the sound is there. But the day after, the sound disappeared again. Now I'm totally lost, leaving me thinking whether it's a Arch sound bug?
By the way, my system is most updated and upgraded.
Last edited by universalpoe (2011-01-12 01:57:42)

Volume control not working when speakers/headphones plugged in.

When my external speakers or headphones are plugged into the back of my iMac, the volume control won't work. A "no sound" icon appears and the volume slider will not move. When I unplug speakers or headphones everything goes back to normal. All updates are current. My "Audio MIDI Setup" says, "Audio Output....Output Not Supported." Repairing disc permissions was run too. Any ideas?

Hi Paul
*First off:*
Open System Preferences > Sound and select the Output tab. Now plug in your external speakers or headphones, do you see the Device Name change from Internal Speakers to Headphones?
*If nothing:*
Then try another Account, preferably your Admin. Account if your logged into another.
*Still nothing:*
Check the settings in other third party Audio programs you may have installed?
*If still nothing:*
Reset the SMC > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
+(as per the instructions at the bottom of the article)+
and
Zap the Pram > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
*Then if you still get nothing:*
Take it in for service and have it checked for a hardware problem.
Dennis

Lion + volume control external soundcard

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