"Holistic" volume controls: seeking opinions

[Ralphred]

So, "we" get "our" media from various sources nowadays, some of the authors understand the concept of "volume normalisation", others erroneously spell normalisation with a "z", and so on...
Suffice to say that the "old way" of having one or two sources actively playing through a "master" volume control does not intuitively match the way in which we source/consume media anymore.
As an example of a "background set-up" I have the physical knob of my 5.1 speakers set to ~80-90%, I have alsamixer set to 100% on any hardware that matters, and the "pulse/pipewire master" (PPM) set to 35% on login. I control the PPM with media keys (+/- 1%) and other KB shortcuts (+/- 5/20% respectively).

I've come to the conclusion (over time) that this is "sub-optimal", and having PPM set to 100%, and any "new audio source" set to 35% by default would yield the same result, but with greater "intuitive convenience for change".
Hence my (prospective) new baby, holistic volume control (HVC) - It expects everything to be set at sensible (no one wants you too amplify the sound of your mobile phone switching cell towers etc) maximums, then all new sources of audio are pegged at your chosen default level (e.g 35%).
The next aspect is "active window correlated volume control", (somehow) there is a local database that correlates the equivalent of xdotool getactivewindow with a specific "audio-server client-instance", so when you mouseover an ffplay window and hit the "voldown" media key, it doesn't decrease the PPM volume, but the specific "audio-server client" volume associated with that instance of ffplay on the "audio server". Similarly you open the latest publication from you favourite podcast host and they are (because reasons) in their car and the audio couldn't wake a sleeping cat, you hit volup and instead of you hearing the wind blowing past your character in the minimised tab of your game, it just turns up your "podcast host's" volume.

I understand that an endeavour of like this requires "complicity" on multiple levels (excepting a lot of trial end error/coded automagic self config nonsense), hence me testing the waters for others who might say "Yeah that's a good idea, I'd like that." as opposed to "FFS; just turn the volume knob up or down you morbidly autistic geek!"...

[szatox]

I solved this problem with an aggressive compressor (easyeffects + lsp-plugins, at least for now).
It does get stuck every now and then at the end of audio stream though, which requires restarting ee. Still, makes the overall experience much better. Once I get back to digging through wireplumber's docs, I might try replacing it with Calf. (Ee apparently _should_ work with calf, but it clearly doesn't on my system. Oh, well... Maybe I'll fix this too, eventually)

There is "automatic gain control" plugin too, but it's much slower, so you can get your ears blown by a sudden volume change. Compressor does a better job.
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[Ralphred]

Yeah, I've toyed with compressors too, they are good for traditional broadcast media but are also really resource hungry.

[szatox]

Hmm... So, you played with compressors, decided they eat too much, and ditched them in favor of Rube Goldberg machine.
You know, maybe AGC would actually be a good option for you. I bet it would be far less resource hungry, just follow it up with a limiter for overdrive protection. It must be possible to spawn additional instances of AGC to adjust multiple independent audio sources, though I don't know of any software that already offers is. Still, wireplumber is scriptable, so maybe it could be used to manage that too, in addition to connecting virtual ports with virtual wires.

Unless you just really really really like Rube Goldberg machines, in this case there's no helping it
Or am I missing some important point? Because I don't see how using multiple controls for various applications would be more convenient. I mean, it's good too _have_ them, but I don't want to _be_using_ them. I'd rather have source volume normalization + a single output knob for matching the playback device to my ears.
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