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How to set Windows audio balance using Python

In our previous post we showed how to set the Windows audio volume using pycaw.

First, we install the library using

install_pycaw.sh
pip install pycaw

Note: pycaw does not work with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)! You actually need to install it using a Python environment running on Windows. I recommend Anaconda.

In order to set the audio balance, we can use volume.SetChannelVolumeLevel(...):

set_audio_balance.py
from ctypes import cast, POINTER
from comtypes import CLSCTX_ALL
from pycaw.pycaw import AudioUtilities, IAudioEndpointVolume
import math

# Get default audio device using PyCAW
devices = AudioUtilities.GetSpeakers()
interface = devices.Activate(
    IAudioEndpointVolume._iid_, CLSCTX_ALL, None)
volume = cast(interface, POINTER(IAudioEndpointVolume))

# Get current volume of the left channel
currentVolumeLeft = volume.GetChannelVolumeLevel(0)
# Set the volume of the right channel to half of the volume of the left channel
volume.SetChannelVolumeLevel(1, currentVolumeLeft - 6.0, None)
# NOTE: -6.0 dB = half volume !

Note that by convention, the left channel is channel 0 and the right channel is channel 1. Depending on the type of sound card, there might be as few as 1 channel (e.g. a mono headset) or many channels like in a multichannel USB audio interface. use volume.GetChannelCount() to get the number of channels.

Check out similar posts by category: Audio, Python, Windows