**One of the most useful "tricks" is replacing some standard Windows features or controls with improved ones, which are easier to
use and prettier to see. When you see things like Audio Control 4, you definitely know: it's just Better than you had before. Audio Control's task is to
provide full replacement of Windows volume control, you know, those boring window with a handful of huge ugly "sliders"**
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| Audio Control is an audio mixer software.
It has extremely ergonomic design and extended functionality, including saving space in the work area of the screen
and on the taskbar, easy access, improved precision, intuitive interface, idling features and much more. Audio Control helps by
saving time, space, efforts and frustrations making the computer sound system easier to manipulate and pleasant to use.
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| Audio Control ver. 4.236 supports: |
| Windows 2000 | all flavours |
| Windows XP | all flavours |
| Windows Server 2003 | all flavours |
| Windows Vista | all flavours |
| Windows Server 2008 | all flavours |
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Watch Video =>
(aprox. 18 min)
or Read Below: |
| What is Audio Control and how to use it |
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| Audio Control is a replacement for the standard system Volume Control which on a Windows XP and previous systems looks like this: |
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| and on Windows Vista and later systems looks like this: |
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| The standard Volume Control does the job for which it is designed, however to say that it is a convenient and functional utility
would be a stretch of imagination. In addition to all inconveniences that it offers, such as to chase controls behind menus and secondary windows, its controls
and their behaviours are not ergonomic or user friendly to any extent. For example on a pre Windows Vista systems the user can access the recording controls
only after passing a barricade created from a menu, modal dialog and a set of check boxes. The same type of "conveniences" are also present in post Windows XP
systems. In addition the actual adjustment controls are made difficult to manipulate and ergonomically irrational. Consider the fact that the fader
(volume) controls are positioned vertically. While it may be argued that vertical positioning presents intuitively logical operation, an argument which can be
easily shown as fallacious, it is absolutely ergonomically wrong thing to do. The reason is that in order to adjust a vertical control the user must lift and
move their entire hand, for which they have to use heavy and less precise muscles. In difference Audio Control was made to increase the volume by controlling
a horizontal bar, thus the user need to only turn (rotate) their wrist, which is the natural movement for the wrist, using muscles designed for precise
movements. The conveniences that Audio Control offers are not limited only to ergonomic design and friendly behaviour of its controls. It also displays all
available controls, lines, and devices in an very easy to access manner. Further it offers a great number of view modes and all sorts of user customizations. |
Operating Audio Control is easy and intuitive while at the same time it gives precise, flexible and powerful control over the sound
of the computer. Changing the state of a fader control can be made by using:
- pointing device (mouse/trackball/tablet) by simply:
- click at desired position
- click - drag - release
- click on the spin control Up and Down arrows
- click on the edit control and roll the mouse wheel
- or by the keyboard:
- enter a numeric value by typing or pasting it at the associated edit box
- using the Up, Down, Left and Right keyboard arrows, you can also use the Home, Page Up, Page Down and End keys.
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| The fader controls are made to operate with values from 0 to 100 inclusive, displayed in proportional size. The pointing device operates as smoothly as the
keyboard with the same range and resolution. Operating the other controls implemented in Audio Control is as easy and intuitive as operating the fader controls. |
| Audio Control version 4 has 7 basic view modes:
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| Note that on different systems Audio Control might have slightly different look. For example Windows XP and Windows 2000 systems tent to expose
a great number of audio lines in which case Audio Control would look in a similar way: |
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Audio Control version 4 performs according to the host system configuration and user settings. It allows
customizing every available property for which it is aware, including:
- Display Mixer Entries by Relative Importance
- Mixer Entries Arrangement
- Visible Mixer Entries
- View Mode
- Idle Mode
- On Top
- Title Bar
- Taskbar
- Accessibility
- Buddy Acceleration
- Device name mapping
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| When there are many audio devices connected to the system one might become easily confused which device is what. For these
scenarios Audio Control offers name mapping functionality. With this feature the user can easily name/rename easy for them to remember names to their hardware
e.g. "External Speakers", "Laptop sound system", "Web cam", etc. The user then has the choice to use one or the other set of names as they like. Of course they
can edit the assigned names at any time. See the image below:
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| As a result it is much easier to handle the computer sound without constantly changing the volume of the wrong device: |
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| Audio Control supports volume control adjustment via all possible inputs such as mouse, mouse wheel, clicking on the up
and down arrows, entering numeric value from the keyboard, hitting the keyboard arrows, Page Up and Down keys, Home and End keys, etc. There are many more
advantages that Audio Control offers, including size, position, accessibility, logic, etc. Audio Control is easily customizable, allowing the user to set
their preference for almost every property of the application. Audio Control displays all audio lines of an audio device in a single window and allows
appropriate sizing of the window. Then using the scroll bar(s) the user can easily reach the precise control that they need. Audio Control is also able to
sort the controls by use, alphabetically, value and other properties. There are more nice and neat features that Audio Control offers, e.g. idling and more. |
Audio Control version 4 is an outstanding software application for its class and purpose for many reasons including because of:
- Devices, Lines and Controls enumeration
- Devices, Lines and Controls representation
- Improved precision
- Logic and functionality
- Idling features
- Ergonomic design
- Accessibility and Intuitive user interface
- Total Customization
- Help system
- Great look
- Technical features and applied methodologies that ensure robustness at low cost of system resources
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| Download Audio Control version 4 |
