alsamixer
soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver, with ncurses interface
see also :
amixer - aplay - arecord
Synopsis
alsamixer
[options]
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
no example yet ...
... Feel free to add your own example above to help other Linux-lovers !
description
alsamixer
is an ncurses mixer program for use with the ALSA soundcard
drivers. It supports multiple soundcards with multiple
devices.
options
-h,
--help
Help: show available flags.
-c,
--card <card number or
identification>
Select the soundcard to use, if
you have more than one. Cards are numbered from 0 (the
default).
-D,
--device <device identification>
Select the mixer device to
control.
-V,
--view <mode>
Select the starting view mode,
either playback, capture or all.
-g,
--no-color
Toggle the using of colors.
keyboard commands
alsamixer recognizes the following keyboard commands to
control the soundcard. Commands shown here in upper case can also
be given in lower case. To be reminded of these keystrokes, hit
the h key.
General Controls
The Left and right arrow keys are used to select
the channel (or device, depending on your preferred terminology).
You can also use n ("next") and p ("previous").
The Up and Down Arrows control the volume for the
currently selected device. You can also use + or -
for the same purpose. Both the left and right signals are
affected. For independent left and right control, see below.
The B or = key adjusts the balance of volumes on
left and right channels.
M toggles muting for the current channel (both left and
right). If the hardware supports it, you can mute left and right
independently by using , (or <) and . (or
>) respectively.
SPACE enables recording for the current channel. If any
other channels have recording enabled, they will have their
recording function disabled first. This only works for valid
input channels, of course.
L re-draws the screen.
View Mode Controls
Function keys are used to change view modes. You can switch to
the help mode and the proc info mode via F1 and F2
keys, respectively. On terminals that can’t use function keys
like gnome-terminal, ? and / keys can be used
alternatively for help and proc modes.
F3, F4 and F5 keys are used to switch to
playback, capture and all view mode, respectively. TAB key
toggles the current view mode circularly.
Quick Volume Changes
PageUp increases volume by 5.
PageDown decreases volume by 5.
End sets volume to 0.
You can also control left & right levels for the current channel
independently, as follows:
[Q | W | E ] -- turn UP [ left | both |
right ]
[Z | X | C ] -- turn DOWN [ left | both |
right ]
If the currently selected mixer channel is not a stereo channel,
then all UP keys will work like W, and all DOWN keys will
work like X.
The number keys from 0 to 9 are to change the
absolute volume quickly. They correspond to 0 to 90% volume.
Selecting the Sound Card
You can select another sound card by pressing the F6 or
S keys. This will show a list of available sound cards to
choose from, and an entry to enter the mixer device name by hand.
Exiting
Quit the program with ALT Q, or by hitting ESC.
Please note that you might need to hit ESC twice on some
terminals since it’s regarded as a prefix key.
mixer views
The top-left corner of alsamixer is the are to show some
basic information: the card name, the mixer chip name, the
current view mode and the currently selected mixer item. When the
mixer item is switched off, [Off] is displayed in its
name.
Volume bars are located below the basic information area. You can
scroll left/right when all controls can’t be put in a single
screen. The name of each control is shown in the bottom below the
volume bars. The currently selected item is drawn in red and/of
emphasized.
Each mixer control with volume capability shows a box and the
current volume filled in that box. The volume percentages are
displayed below the volume bar for left and right channels. For a
mono control, only one value is shown there.
When a mixer control is turned off, M (mute) appears below
the volume bar. When it’s turned on, O in green appears
instead. You can toggle the switch via m key.
When a mixer control has capture capability, the capture flag
appears below the volume bar, too. When the capture is turned
off, ------- is shown. CAPTURE in red appears when the
capture switch is turned on. In addition, L and R
letters appear in left and right side to indicate that left and
the right channels are turned on.
Some controls have the enumeration list, and don’t show boxes but
only texts which indicate the currently active item. You can
change the item via up/down keys.
view modes
alsamixer has three view modes: playback, capture and all.
In the playback view, only the controls related with playback are
shown. Similarly, only the controls for capture (recording) are
shown in the capture view. The all view mode shows all controls.
The current view mode is displayed in the top-left position
together with the mixer name, etc.
The default view mode is the playback view. You can change it via
-V option.
Each view mode can be switched via keyboard commands, too. See
the next section.
bugs
Some terminal
emulators (e.g. nxterm) may not work quite right with
ncurses, but that’s their own damn fault. Plain old
xterm seems to be fine.
see also
amixer ,
aplay , arecord
author
alsamixer
has been written by Tim Janik and been further improved by
Jaroslav Kysela <perex[:at:]perex[:dot:]cz> and Clemens Ladisch
<clemens[:at:]ladisch[:dot:]de>.
This manual
page was provided by Paul Winkler
<zarmzarm[:at:]erols[:dot:]com>.