If you are playing a game on Windows 11 while talking to your friends on Discord or Microsoft Teams, you might notice a highly annoying phenomenon: every time someone speaks, the volume of your game drops by 80%. When they stop speaking, the game audio suddenly blasts back to full volume.
This is a built-in Windows 11 communications feature called “Volume Ducking.” It is designed to make phone calls easier to hear by automatically suppressing all background applications. While useful for office work, it completely ruins the gaming and movie-watching experience. You can safely disable this automated feature from the legacy Sound Control Panel.
How to Safely Disable Windows 11 Automatic Volume Ducking
You must navigate past the modern Settings app to find the classic Sound Communications tab.
- Click the Start button, type mmsys.cpl, and press Enter. This is the fastest way to directly open the legacy Sound Control Panel.
- A small, older-style window will appear with tabs at the top (Playback, Recording, Sounds, Communications).
- Click on the Communications tab.
- You will see a question: “When Windows detects communications activity:”
- By default, Windows is set to “Reduce the volume of other sounds by 80%.”
- Click the radio button next to Do nothing.
- Click Apply, and then click OK.
The fix is instantaneous. You do not need to restart your computer or your game. The next time you receive a Discord notification or someone speaks on a Zoom call, your background audio will remain perfectly stable at 100% volume.