I'm getting earraped by notifications all the time even though in my volume mixer I muted the notifications. notifications like turning on/off my firewall still make an earpiercing noise. I tried turning the firewall on and off while I had my volume mixer open so I could see where the sound is coming from and where to mute it or lower the volume but that didn't show anything.

currently my volume is set to 27% but the notifications still play at 100% which is extremely loud through my headphones
how do I lower the volume of these or mute them entirely?

You could completely delete the notification core sound file, I don't know its direct source but a quick google tour will do that for you.

In your volume mixer there should appear another sound source called "system sounds".
If not then its probably hidden

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

There you go buddy.

all of the sounds in the sounds menu are already muted so that doesn't seem to be the source of my headaches