I believe I took all the steps I needed to configure ALSA, here's what I did:

alsaconf
alsamixer
alsactl store

The problem is when playing xmms, there was no sound, and the beeps in the console were louder. I'm not 100% sure what needs to be muted and what doesn't in alsamixer. I basically have a laptop with 2 speakers, a head phone port, a built in microphone, and a microphone port. I tried unmuting alot of stuff, and raised the volume about 3 bars, but the only thing I seemed to make louder was the console beeps, which I would like to get rid of.

So basically I have 2 problems: I would like to know what I need to unmute to hear sound out of my speakers and headphone, and I would also like to mute my console beeps.

Last thing, am I right that the console beeps aren't actually coming from the speakers, but something else on the motherboard?

Thanks in advance.

unmute your Master and PCM soundchannels

also check your xmms output plugin, quite frankly i've had better luck w/xmms using the oss output plugin.