Mac Audio for Music Production: DAW and Voice Chat

You're producing in Logic Pro, Ableton Live or FL Studio, and you're also on a Discord call with a collaborator. Both come out of the same speakers or headphones, so they fight for one volume knob. Turn up to hear your mix and the call is too loud in your ears. Turn down for the call and your mix is too quiet to judge.

That matters more for production than for casual listening. If you keep changing your listening level, it gets harder to make consistent decisions about your mix. The goal is simple: keep the DAW at one steady level, and set everything else around it.

Why one volume knob is the problem

macOS has one output volume for everything that plays sound. The volume keys and the Control Center slider move all apps together. There's no built-in panel where your DAW, Discord, Spotify and the browser each get their own level.

So the fix is to stop using the system volume as your mixing tool and set each app separately instead.

What you can do without extra software

1. Set the system volume once and leave it

Pick a comfortable listening level for your DAW with the macOS volume (or your audio interface's volume knob) and stop touching it during the session. That becomes your reference.

2. Adjust the other apps inside themselves

Most communication and media apps have their own volume control:

• Discord: look for the output volume in its voice settings, and you can also turn individual users up or down by right-clicking them in a voice channel.
• Spotify and Music: each has its own volume slider in the player.
• Browser videos: the YouTube player has its own volume slider.

Lower these instead of the system volume, and your DAW stays where you set it.

3. Silence notifications while you work

Turn on a Focus mode (Do Not Disturb) from Control Center so message alerts don't cut into your listening. You can also quit chat apps you don't need for the session.

The limits of this approach

It works, but it's fiddly. Not every app has a volume control, in-app sliders can't go above their own maximum, and you end up adjusting several different windows during a session. If a collaborator's voice is too quiet even at full volume in the app, there is nothing left to turn up except the system volume, which also raises your DAW.

Per-app levels from the menu bar

A per-app volume mixer gives each app its own slider in one place. A typical production setup looks like this:

• DAW: your main listening level, left alone during the session
• Discord or other voice chat: lower, audible but clearly behind the mix
• Spotify or Music for reference tracks: set by ear so switching between your mix and a reference feels fair
• Chat apps that ping: muted while you work
• Browser: lower, for tutorials without a jump in loudness

The point is that each of these moves on its own. Turning the call down doesn't touch Logic, and muting Slack doesn't touch Spotify.

SoundDial for production sessions

SoundDial is a menu-bar app that gives every running app its own volume slider:

• Per-app volume from 0% to 200%: lower Discord without moving your DAW, or boost a quiet collaborator's call above 100%
• Per-app mute: silence a chat app with one click while everything else keeps playing
• Works per app, not per browser tab (all tabs of a browser share one slider)
• Does not record anything
• macOS 14.2 or later, €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription

You set the levels from the menu bar when you sit down to work, or save them as a profile and apply it to the running apps with one click.

One setting matters for this setup: auto-ducking is on by default. While Discord or another call app uses the microphone, SoundDial lowers every other app, your DAW included, to 30% of its level. Since the goal here is a steady DAW level during the call, turn auto-ducking off (or raise the duck level) in SoundDial's settings. More on how it works: per-app volume control on Mac.

If you also stream your sessions, see our guide to Mac audio for OBS streaming. For more on running two sources at once, read playing two audio sources at the same time on Mac.

The short version

Keep your DAW at one steady level and change everything else around it. Use each app's own volume and a Focus mode first. If you want every app's level in one place, try SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac.