Speaking of .asoundrc, I had set up my like so (which predictably no longer works, even though my usb card is still at index 0):
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvol" #make use of softvol
}
pcm.softvol {
type softvol
slave {
pcm "dmix" #redirect the output to dmix (instead of "hw:0,0")
}
control {
name "PCM" #override the PCM slider to set the softvol volume level globally
card 0
}
}
I doubt this would cause a mess up (even so, even *that* is no longer working, my soundcard ignores any changes made by alsamixer).
At this point, would I guess there's some pulseaudio weirdness happening? Any ideas how I can use alsa straight up, unless I've somehow been using a pulseaudio-alsa wrapper this entire time.