So this may be stupid to put here, cause yall probably know this. But I went into the sounds today and noticed something I hadn't before. Maybe cause I hadn't messed with that too much. But in the sound things when you go Settings, Sounds, Volume, it'll give you ringtone, media, and alarm and if you uncheck the other box it'll let you move up the notification bar so that it's not at whatever level you have your ringtone volume set at. Anyways, I load up my songs on my droid and use them as notifications and alarms and they are always pretty loud. Again you probably know, but if you uncheck the box below alarm it lets you set the notifications sounds seperate than your ringtones.