Debian sid as of now, AMD 64, KDE 4.4.5. Last week or so Kmix channels have disappeared other than the volume. Nothing is listed to add channels either in Kmix or system settings. All seems to work OK but I do need to adjust microphone levels frequently as well as other settings. I do know how to add other packages for adjustment. Is this the way it is now or is there a problem?

when kmix opens on the bottom a box says "mixer" did you try clicking it - for me it opens the channels

I've been using it for 5 years! Yes, I know all the in's and out's of Kmix including all the problems in the past. This is a new one and no matter how you bring up the mixer or where you look for the the other channels, only the volume is listed. In fact, if you try to select another master channel, there is no other option. I just installed the other guys "G***E" mixer and all the channels are there and operational. I'll keep looking. Something changed in a sid update a week or two ago that is the culprit.

Well, the problem was PulseAudio! It is a known problem that it doesn't play nice with Kmix. A quick purge of PulseAudio and Kmix now shows all channels again. Now I have to figure out why I had PulseAudio in the first place!