Well, it seems I'd figured out how to fix it independently of everyone's help, or to a degree. I'd forgotten I made this post.
Anyway, I found out the volume knob wasn't working in bmp because in the ESD options I had had it set to "Use OSS volume mixer", unchecking that fixed that. Then I had xine set to use the OSS plugin because of a tutorial I had read on the itnernet. Setting it to ESD fixed that rather simply.
Now my only problem is that when I try to, say run bmp and Xine at the same time, the audio will play from both, but xine will go off sync after a while.
I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this and how I might fix it.
-Thanks
Also: There is no arts plugin for bmp, well there is, but it's packaged seperatly and won't compile with this new version I've got apparently. :-\