[alsa-devel] plughw vs default / per-application volume changer

[antony k]

Hello,
I am new to ALSA and I cant figure out 2 things.

a) if and why should I prefer the "plughw:0,0" over the "default" device
name.
I am developing a simple audio player which is based on the latter.
I made this choice because when I was using plughw:0,0 with other audio
programs(flash player,vlc) open in the background I would get the "Device
is busy" error code.
With default, it's fine.

b) can I have an application specific volume changer? So far I have managed
to tweak the master volume of the "default" device which has a global
effect. Im guessing a) and b) are connected.

Thanks for your time