Disclaimer

The content of this blog is my personal opinion only. Although I am an employee - currently of Nvidia, in the past of other companies such as Iagination Technologies, MIPS, Intellectual Ventures, Intel, AMD, Motorola, and Gould - I reveal this only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I may have towards my employer's products. The statements I make here in no way represent my employer's position, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of my employer. In fact, this posting may not even represent my personal opinion, since occasionally I play devil's advocate.

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Thursday, September 11, 2014

More hassle switching sound devices ...

More hassle switching sound devices this morning:



In a Fuse meeting.  Started up using the internal speakers and microphone on my tablet PC - NOT the headset mike that I prefer to use.



Manually changing default audio device via Control panel did not switch over - apparently Fuse reads the default devices when it starts, and uses those for the rest of the session.



In the past I have been able to find a clickable way in Fuse to change the active audio device - but could not find it today.



Exiting and reentering Fuse would probably have worked - but the meeting was running, and I did not want the interruption.



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Later, after undocking and returning, I received a Google Voice call.  Made the mistake of picking it up on my PC using Google Hangouts.  Same problem.



The default sound devices had changed back to the internal speakers when undocking disconnected the headset mike.



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There are many apps to change or switch sound devices, e.g. audioswitch - Switch between default audio input or output + change volume - Google Project Hosting:( 'via Blog this')



All that I have tried change the DEFAULT audio device.



What I want is to change the ACTIVE audio device. Possibly on a per-app basis, although personally I have not seen the need.



I also want the DEFAULT sound device to change according to what sound devices are plugged in. Rather like the way Windows remembers that if I have a particular set of monitors plugged in, I want one arrangement of resolution and orientation.  I.e. software configuration dependent on hardware configuration.



I.e. when undocked with no headset, use the internal sound devices.



When docked, I get a headset, plus external speakers.  In my case, make the headset the default.



I also wish that my sound devices, like a headset, had a button that did something like "signal OS to make this the default or active sound device". And mute and volume control...