For some mysterious reason, Microsoft has made it very challenging to find the “legacy” Sound control-panel on Windows version 10 and later.
The Sound control-panel is an essential tool for adjusting the input (receive) and output (transmit) audio levels for the “radio-modem” / “virtual TNC” software (SoundModem, VARA FM, VARA HF) that you use to connect the Winlink Express program to your rig-interface device (SignaLink USB, Masters Communications DRA- device, Rig-Blaster, etc.) or, possibly, to the USB sound-card system built into your transceiver.
This is how the Sound control-panel looks, with the ‘Playback’ tab selected:
You’ll use the audio output of a device listed on this ‘Playback’ tab to control the signal level of your transmit audio.
The audio input on the same device, listed on the ‘Recording’ tab, is used to control the signal level for receive audio. It’s likely your list on the ‘Playback’ tab will have different names than what is shown above… you have the option of renaming any of the devices on your list.
As you can see, I have renamed the output channel for my Masters Communications DRA-45 rig-interface device to “DRA-TX”. When I first connected this device to my computer, the default device name on this tab was “Speakers – USB PnP Sound Device”.
Regardless of how you rename any device on either the ‘Playback’ or ‘Recording’ tab, the second line of each entry is a hardware description of the device. Almost all commercially available rig-interface devices, including transceiver built-in USB sound-card interfaces, will be identified as “USB PnP Sound Device” on this line.
In Windows 10 and Windows 11, you must traverse at least a couple of layers in the ‘Start -> Settings’ menu system to find this control panel. One way to access this control-panel “applet” directly, that works across all versions going back at least to “Windows XP”, is through a Windows “Run” command. You can open a “Run” command entry window by pressing the “Win” key and ‘R’ key together (the “Win” key is normally in the lower left of your keyboard, marked with a window-pane icon). In the entry window, type “control mmsys.cpl” and click ‘OK’ (or press the “Enter” key). Another way to open the “Run” command entry window is to right-click on ‘Start’, and then click on the ‘Run’ item, a few lines up from the bottom of the list.
By default, the Sound control-panel will be opened with the ‘Playback’ tab displayed. If you’d like to open the control-panel with the ‘Recording’ tab displayed, type “control mmsys.cpl,,1”. The number ‘1’ at the end of the command specifies the second (‘Recording’) tab. A number ‘0’ at this location specifies the first (‘Playback’) tab.
While remembering this Run command sequence might be even more difficult than trying to navigate through the Start->Settings menu system to find the Sound control-panel, it is possible to save this command process in a one-click desktop shortcut. The instructions for doing this are here: https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10/create-sound-shortcut-on-windows-10-desktop.html.
I’ve found this procedure works equally well with Windows 10 or Windows 11. Here’s what my desktop shortcut looks like:
Note that I modified the default “control-panel” (gear) icon that results from the instructions given above. I did that by right-clicking the shortcut, and selecting ‘Properties”, at the bottom of the drop-down list. In the Properties window, there’s a “Change Icon” button in the middle, at the bottom of the settings area. When you click on that button, you’ll see an array of icons you can choose from. These are actually standard system icons that are contained in the “SHELL32.dll” file that is selected by default, in the “Look for icons in this file:” address field. The icon I used is in a different file… if you click on the “Browse” button at the right of the address field, you can scroll down and select the “SndVol.exe” file, where you’ll see the icon I used… select the icon you want, and click OK, and then click OK on the main Properties window.
If you followed the directions on the web link provided above, you’ll end up with a shortcut labeled just ’Sound’, or (depending on your desktop settings) with a 2 line label “Sound Shortcut”. You can “Rename” it to look like mine by editing the name to “*Sound**Control Panel”, where each ‘*’ represents a space. Note that there’s a space before ’Sound’.
As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to email me, at ad7ef@clackamasares.org.
Regards –
Mark Davis – AD7EF