Control volume of a Movieclip

I think you can control the volume of a whole movie clip, but you will need to use the Sound class.

On your main timeline

var mySound:Sound=new Sound(_root);

mySound.setVolume(10);

I believe that will set the maximum volume for the entire swf. I just tried it with a parent and a dynamically loaded swf. I set the volume for the _root and it controlled both timeline placed audio on the loaded file and code controlled audio.

Why do you not want to use the sound class?

no and probably no.