51

Googling for solutions to this problem seems to lead to third party solutions like this, sometimes with scripting like this. I'm no stranger to either, but It seems crazy to me that there isn't a better solution.

I'm on Windows 10. I use HDMI audio to my monitor from my AMD video card, and I use a set of headphones plugged into the back of my motherboard. I use both often, but right now I need to tediously switch the default playback device to switch between them (sometimes, for reasons I don't yet know how to replicate, I even need to fully disable the device currently making sounds.

This is what I see in the volume mixer after starting my computer up with AMD HDMI as the default, and opening Chrome to watch a video:

AMD HDMI is playing System Sounds and Chrome's audio.

When I switch to the Speakers device

About to select Speakers device.

I see that it is not assigned any applications, and I see no way to reassign applications:

Speakers device is lonely.

I can usually hammer all of the applications over to the Speakers device by switching the default playback device, and usually vice versa. But that sometimes that only switches some applications, and sometimes it doesn't do anything. But that's besides the point...

How can I assign an application to a specific audio playback device? The Volume Mixer looks like the right place, but it doesn't seem to do it unless I'm missing something.

Community
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kdbanman
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3 Answers3

59

Found a free (GPL) alternate and thought I would throw it out there for anyone else stumbling in from google... before anyone throws away $20 to CheVolume or installs their adware-containing trial software (at least according to my AV scan on version 0.5.0.0, downloaded directly from their site).

found something called Audio Router on reddit / github / alternative.to

https://github.com/audiorouterdev/audio-router

I'm on Win 7 SP1 x64. I've only been playing with it for about 2 minutes but it's correctly playing my Firefox (YouTube) audio through the TV and my game (SR3) audio via my headset with minimal effort. I think I might have a winner.

Will report back if I run into any problems.

bad_coder
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spiritpyre
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13

Go to "Playback devices" and disable the type of output you want to unassign from the app. The application will automatically switch to the next available sound output, and you can then re-enable disabled output device.

Wes Sayeed
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EasyCargo Support
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2

I'm sorry, but Windows just does not have a concept of an application-specific sound output device. Many apps just use whatever the default is. Some (the more elaborate "multimedia" apps) include an option menu that let you pick a device from a list, and most of them will let you save that as a default, but the app has to be coded to provide that option.

I like the scripting option. You start a program via a script that changes the default to whatever you want it to be for that program, then after the program is good and running, it sets the default back to whatever you want most programs to use. PowerShell can do this too.

Jamie Hanrahan
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