rncbc.org a.k.a. Rui Nuno Capela

Re. background color
- can't really tell how gnome deals with global qt4 applications color palette, however it's dead easy on kde4 as you might expect; you can even have kde4 color themes apply to gtk/gnome apps so that your desktop apps look consistent in style. It might also be distro specific. Anyway, if all else fails, try using qtconfig to the rescue.

Re. level meters
- I can't believe you missed looking at the mixer (menu View/Mixer)

:)