Volume Limits

[damaev]

Hi there,
For v2, running on raspbian stretch, I had a nice softvol mixer for my PCM5102A, which has no hardware mixer. The best thing about the old config was that I could easily set the alsamixers 0% and 100% volume limits with min-db/max-db. max-db=-20.0 corresponds to a volume of about 30% of the soundcard's uncontrolled output. It further reduced it, with a softlimit of 80%.
Now everything runs with pulseaudio with 100% equals uncontrolled output of my card. My typical startup volume is currently 10%, giving a good output volume. At 3%, the output is barely noticeable. Hence, I have about 7 volume-steps. Therefore, I'm wondering if it's possible to set similar limits in pulseaudio as the alsa-softvol was providing.
Does anyone have an idea?
Finally, my old alsa setup:

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm {
      type softvol
      slave { 
        pcm {
          type dmix
          ipc_key 1024
          ipc_perm 0666
          slave {
            pcm { 
              type hw
              card 0
            } 
#            format "S16"
            rate 32000
            channels 2 
            period_size 2048 # bytes
            buffer_size 32768 # usec
          } 
          bindings { 0 0 1 1 }
        }
      } 
      control {
        name "PCM"
        card 0
      }
      min_dB -80.0
      max_dB -20.0
      resolution 128
    }
  } 
}

[damaev]

Finally I found a solution:
at first, use old setup by saving it in e.g. ~/.asoundrc

then edit ~/.config/pulse/default.pa:

1. manually load alsa-module
   load-module module-alsa-sink
2. disable autodetection
   commenting out

.ifexists module-udev-detect.so
load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0
.else
load-module module-detect
.endif

Now the old alsa-config is working again

[damaev]

update to the .asoundrc, because the sound was scratching

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm {
      type softvol
      slave { 
        pcm {
          type dmix
          ipc_key 1024
          ipc_perm 0666
          slave {
            pcm { 
              type hw
              card 0
            } 
              buffer_size 4096
              rate 44100
              channels 2 
          } 
          bindings { 0 0 1 1 }
        }
      } 
      control {
        name "PCM"
        card 0
      }
      min_dB -80.0
      max_dB -20.0
      resolution 128
    }
  } 
}