I have this dir called alsa-utils with amixer in it. I go to /alsa-utils/amixer and type 'make' but here are the errors:

g++ @CFLAGS@ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -I/usr/local/include -I../include -c -o amixer.o amixer.cpp
g++: cannot specify -o with -c or -S and multiple compilations
make: *** [amixer.o] Error 1

whats wrong? and it says edit the makefile to point to where the alsa drivers are located...does that mean the dir that was created from unzipping the alsa driver? or is it in /etc or /lib or something?

stay in the alsa-utils directory and compile it as normal there

i.e ./configure <parameters to pass whatever they may be>
make
make install

You probably should compile the drivers with the appropriate settings for your card, before the other bits, at least thats the way I did it following the instructions