Artsd and other sound applications

Hi, I'm using Suse 8.1 with KDE 3.0.3, and have a problem using XMMS. In practice the artsd sound server locks the access to the sound card so that XMMS finds the device busy. The obvious quick remedy would be not to run artsd at startup, but I would rather try to make XMMS pass through it, if possible. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance, Alberto