[badsectoracula]

Note that pavucontrol is a GUI app. It does need Pulseaudio though (Pipewire may also work as it implements the Pulseaudio API).

Notifications aren't handled by the window manager, but AFAIK most applications will use a "system tray"-like service if they find one running.

Check wmsystemtray which implements a system tray as a dockapp, i have it at my dock and all icons and notifications tend to go through it: https://www.dockapps.net/wmsystemtray