XEmacs Sounds Modulate System Volume Under Alsa and FC4

Hi Randy,

Sorry for the delay.  We had a minor problem that held up
the mailing
lists for a little bit.

Randy Yates <yatesieee.org> wrote:
> Everytime XEmacs plays a sound, the Alsa mixer volume
is increased
> momentarily for the duration of the sound (e.g., drum,
whip, etc.).
> This causes the volume from other PCM music sources
(e.g., the xmms
> player) that may be active at the time to be modulated
up and
> down. The amount of the volume change is significant
and is very
> irritating. This behaviour also makes the sound XEmacs
is playing very
> loud, in addition to increasing the volume
(momentarily) of the other
> PCM sound sources.
>
> Specifically, if you start the gnome-volume-control
application to
> monitor the mixer settings, you will find under the
playback tab there
> are two volume sliders: Master and PCM. When XEmacs
emits a sound, you
> can visually see the PCM volume being momentarily
increased. (If the
> sound is short, a change in the slider position may not
happen every
> time the sound is played - try it several times). 
>
> If you could look into this and repair it, or give me
suggestions
> on how it can be avoided, I would be thankful.

Well, doggone.  This is what I get for trying to get sound
working on
Fedora Core 5.  I'm the one who stuck you with this
horrible behavior,
Randy.  I'll try to fix it.

I wrote the code trying to cope with the sound interface's
volume
parameter.  I thought the mixer was the right way to deal
with it.
Apparently not.  If any gnomes in the woodwork know how to
set the
volume for one particular sound only, please sprinkle your
magic pixie
dust on me.

Otherwise, I'll have to resort to reading documentation!

Regards,
-- 
Jerry James, Assistant Professor        jamesxemacs.org
Computer Science Department             http://www.cs.usu.edu/~
jerry/
Utah State University