I have a small problem which really annoys me.
If I watch a movie or listen to a song and change the volume in the current program then the volume remains changed even after I've closed the media program (it doesn't seem to matter which program I use). I did a little experiment by having alsamixer open while changing the volume in VLC and the master volume is changed. This shouldn't be the case, right? How can I fix this?

Some info on my system; g505s 20255 laptop with debian jessie

Audio: Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel
Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.13-1-amd64

From alsamixer:
Card: HD-Audio Generic
Chip: Conexant CX20757

cat /proc/asound/modules
0 snd_hda_intel
1 snd_hda_intel

If OSS4 or Pulseaudio are options, either will give you separate mixers for each application.