After installing Alsa and starting it, it must be mentioned that alsa must be restarted (if the configuration worked), orelse the configuration will not be saved. Not restarting leeds to the file /etc/asound.state not be saved(created). See this forum report: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=281368&highlight=asound+state Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
when you shutdown alsasound will be stopped which will save your settings
SpankY is correct, the changes are saved when you shut down your system.