I love streaming music and my favorite anime on my Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 more than on my Google Pixel phone because of its compact, versatile foldable form factor.
It also offers more advanced audio enhancements, but they’re tucked away in the settings.
But what I don’t like is how tiny the volume rocker is, which makes it clunky to adjust the volume on the fly.
Even worse, I have always faced the dreaded issue of missing which app volume to silence or turn louder when jumping from a stream to a call or another service.
Add that accidental trigger of completely blasting the volume to the max.
Fortunately, One UI has a dedicated feature that addresses these audio issues I thought were caused by the volume buttons.
Turns out my Android phone’s buttons are not broken
I blame this on the single slider for all media
Android now offers multi-system volume adjustment, a big improvement over before. This lets you adjust volume individually for notifications, ringtone, alarm, and media.
That’s great, giving you more flexibility to prioritize sound levels for a specific system.
However, it’s not a seamless solution if you’re like me and juggle multiple apps, especially streaming on a handful of platforms.
Sometimes, I want to set Spotify to a high volume while keeping YouTube and other media apps lower. Or have Facebook and Instagram set to low every time I launch them, without affecting other toggles.
With a single media toggle, it’s annoying to expand the entire volume control panel to check whether I have the right slider.
It’s also frustrating that sometimes I have to check which slider was the default after closing YouTube or ending a call.
While that’s true on Android in general, Samsung devices have an easy workaround that doesn’t require a third-party app.
Good Lock has a hidden gem
Sound Assistant is the fix I ignored for years
I’ve been a Galaxy user for many years, though I use Samsung devices as my second device, such as the Flip 7.
While I’ve used the Good Lock suite to fancy my keyboard and home screen, I haven’t tried other modules. One of them is Sound Assistant.
The Sound Assistant module expands volume and sound controls, including granular step control. I can dial down from 1 to 100 or even higher.
For customizations, I can add effects to the sliders or change the size and shape to a round tuner style.
But the main feature that addresses my problems is the individual volume control for all apps, including media.
This means I can set different loudness levels for each app, without overlapping them or relying on a single toggle to control the volume.
It’s a lifesaver for users like me, as I set select apps and games to a higher volume and social media to a lower volume.
It also lets multiple apps play simultaneously without pausing one another. I noticed that I rarely touch the wrong volume slider after enabling the tool.
The module has a lot to offer, from voice effects to smart audio features, and all I can say is that I wish I had used it sooner.
How to use Sound Assistant
Get each app a separate volume control
Sound Assistant is available on Good Lock, which you need to install first if you haven’t already.
After that, install Sound Assistant via the app suite. You can launch it inside the app.
I started customizing how the volume panel appears by choosing the expanded panel, then setting a changing gradient color on each slider from the available presets.
It gives a swanky, flashy vibe, but you can choose a more muted color or customize a theme for the panel. But the real deal is the feature that lets you control each app’s volume.
I added a bunch of my media apps, which gives me a dedicated slider for each, such as Spotify, YouTube, Messenger, Instagram, and the phone/dialer.
In this section, I can set the volume level for each app. For example, I’ve prioritized my favorite streaming apps and dialer over other apps, ensuring the volumes are maximized.
Alternatively, I can access this in the pop-up panel through the shortcut button, skipping launching Good Lock.
After I set the list, I stopped thinking about which app volume I was adjusting every time I tapped the rocker.
More importantly, it protects my ears when I’m listening via connected headphones, since the feature keeps track of the fact that I will not blast the volume when I press play on a media player.
There’s also a nifty toggle that makes the volume rocker default to media volume adjustment instead of ringtone.
This is particularly useful if you rarely take or manage voice calls on your phone and mostly consume media.
It’s the fix I wish was available on my Pixel and other Android phones
There’s no problem with having default volume control on Android, but for power users who frequently stream or consume media, and even for audiophiles, dedicated volume sliders via Sound Assistant are a big enhancement.
Sound Assistant does more than give my favorite apps their own set of volume controls. It also made me confident that whichever volume rocker I click, I will not miss the right slider.
It’s a shame it’s only available on my Samsung Galaxy devices, and I wish Google would copy this and make it a native Android audio feature in the future.
