Music vs Voice Chat Volume on Mac: Set Each Level

You want music playing while you talk to friends on Discord (or Zoom, or FaceTime). The music should be there in the background; the voices should be clear and on top. Simple request, but macOS has one system volume for everything.

Turn it up for the call and the music gets too loud. Turn it down for the music and you can't hear your friends. There's no built-in way to put these two at different levels.

Option 1: Use each app's own volume slider

Both Spotify and Discord have their own volume controls, and that's the free way to get a better mix:

• Spotify: lower the volume slider in the player bar, for example to around a third.
• Discord: in its Voice & Video settings, keep the Output Volume high. You can also right-click a person in a voice channel to change just their volume.
• Zoom / FaceTime calls: keep the call app's own speaker volume at or near maximum in its audio settings.

Then use the Mac's master volume to set the overall loudness. Because each app is scaled by the master slider, the gap between music and voices stays roughly the same when you turn everything up or down.

Where in-app sliders fall short

• You have to switch to each app to change its slider.
• Not every app has its own volume control (many games and browser players don't, or hide it).
• Spotify's slider is small and shows no number, so it's hard to land on the same level twice.
• In-app sliders can't make a quiet call louder than the app's own maximum.

Also check the basics: in System Settings > Sound > Output, make sure the right output device is selected. If your headset is in hands-free mode during calls, music can sound worse too; picking a different microphone in the call app often helps.

Option 2: Separate sliders in one panel with SoundDial

SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac puts every running app in one menu-bar panel, each with its own slider from 0% to 200%. Spotify and Discord sit next to each other, so you can set the mix in a couple of seconds:

• Voice chat high: Discord, Zoom or FaceTime at 100%, or boosted above 100% if a friend's mic is quiet
• Music lower: Spotify or Apple Music at whatever level sits comfortably under the voices

The right levels depend on the music, your headphones and your ears. Adjust while you talk until voices are always clear. If you need silence for a moment, mute Spotify with one click and Discord keeps going.

A few things to know:

• SoundDial works per app, not per browser tab, so if your music plays in a browser, all its tabs share one slider.
• Auto-ducking is on by default: while a call app such as Discord, Zoom or FaceTime is using the microphone, SoundDial lowers other apps (Spotify included) to 30% of their level and restores them when the call ends. Change the level (10% to 80%) or turn it off in Settings > Auto-Duck if you'd rather set the mix yourself.

See the per-app volume control on Mac page for more, or the related guides on separating game audio from Discord and lowering Spotify without lowering everything.

SoundDial needs macOS 14.2 or later and costs €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription.

Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.