I've explored the ALSA API a bit, and there are some great examples at alsa-project.org that describe the basics of creating a playback buffer and dumping sound into it or creating a capture buffer and reading data from it. However, the documentation I've found for features beyond the basic sample is fairly terrible (as in, doxygen-only). Doxygen is great for class reference, but what it doesn't do is fill in conceptual gaps and/or implementation details. The main questions I have about ALSA are: 1) Are you on your own for panning (have to calculate sound levels for each sample before sending to the buffer) or is there some functionality, i.e. a buffer->setPan() equivalent. 2) Same question, but for volume. Do you calculate it yourself before filling the buffer or is there a buffer->setVolume() equivalent? 3) Is there any good documentation available for using recording callbacks?