Preparing for Windows 10: Cool Volume Dials and Advanced Controls

Let’s say your keyboard is not fitted with volume controls, and your computer is not the fastest thing on the market, your speakers or headphones have no dial, and you’re forced to pause whatever you’re doing to turn down the volume. Frustrating, right?

Sadly, Microsoft has yet to introduce the possibility to assign custom hotkeys for volume adjustment. However, what it did think of bringing to the new Windows version that’s about to come out later this year is a new, polished, horizontal slider. Apart from the fact that it looks cool, the functionality is the same.

While doing a little research through our software database, we stumbled upon a pretty neat application that seemed like a visual replacement for the slider at first but turned out to be quite the catch. Below are a few things it can do, and it does them well.
Advanced volume controls and visual customization

The application you want, and we mean it, is Volume2, so go ahead and download it. It’s free of charge. Throughout the installation process, you can choose a few general settings and visual aspects.

What you need to do next is double-click on the tray icon and prepare to spend some time adjusting controls and visuals.

The Main settings let you select the preferred audio device. In addition, you can pick custom applications to suffer from volume change, while leaving the rest of the system intact. Speed and Balance can also be modified.

The On Screen Display options give you the possibility to have a small gadget appear whenever the volume changes. Apart from the impressive array of styles, you can set position, transparency, and when to show OSD.

Moving to System Tray, a similar array of different icons can be set to indicate the volume level. You can even turn on tooltip notifications, but it can get a little frustrating.

More visual tweaks are made available in the Screen Edge section. It can be enabled for all four edges, with a slider appearing on mouseover, letting you adjust volume either by Moving the mouse or Scrolling.

Controls are sure to come in handy. The mouse can be set to change volume by simply Rotating the Wheel over the taskbar, the desktop, or anywhere as long as another keyboard key is pressed. Custom Keyboard Hotkeys need to be manually created and can do several tricks, like volume up, down, mute, open mixer, and more.

Last but not least, there’s a built-in Scheduler in case neighbors tend to pick on you because of volume. It’s got a lot of settings, such as the one that automatically sets volume to a certain level every time you run a specific program, which is suitable for gaming, or entertainment.

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