1APLAY(1) General Commands Manual APLAY(1)
2
6 arecord, aplay - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA sound‐
7 card driver
8
10 arecord [flags] [filename]
11 aplay [flags] [filename [filename]] ...
12
15 arecord is a command-line soundfile recorder for the ALSA soundcard
16 driver. It supports several file formats and multiple soundcards with
17 multiple devices. If recording with interleaved mode samples the file
18 is automatically split before the 2GB filesize.
19 aplay is much the same, only it plays instead of recording. For sup‐
21 ported soundfile formats, the sampling rate, bit depth, and so forth
22 can be automatically determined from the soundfile header.
23 If filename is not specified, the standard output or input is used. The
25 aplay utility accepts multiple filenames.
26
29 -h, --help
30 Help: show syntax.
31 --version
33 Print current version.
34 -l, --list-devices
36 List all soundcards and digital audio devices
37 -L, --list-pcms
39 List all PCMs defined
40 -D, --device=NAME
42 Select PCM by name
43 -q --quiet
45 Quiet mode. Suppress messages (not sound :))
46 -t, --file-type TYPE
48 File type (voc, wav, raw or au). If this parameter is omitted
49 the WAVE format is used.
50 -c, --channels=#
52 The number of channels. The default is one channel. Valid val‐
53 ues are 1 through 32.
54 -f --format=FORMAT
56 Sample format
57 Recognized sample formats are: S8 U8 S16_LE S16_BE U16_LE U16_BE
58 S24_LE S24_BE U24_LE U24_BE S32_LE S32_BE U32_LE U32_BE FLOAT_LE
59 FLOAT_BE FLOAT64_LE FLOAT64_BE IEC958_SUBFRAME_LE IEC958_SUB‐
60 FRAME_BE MU_LAW A_LAW IMA_ADPCM MPEG GSM SPECIAL S24_3LE S24_3BE
61 U24_3LE U24_3BE S20_3LE S20_3BE U20_3LE U20_3BE S18_3LE S18_3BE
62 U18_3LE
63 Some of these may not be available on selected hardware
64 The available format shortcuts are:
65 -f cd (16 bit little endian, 44100, stereo) [-f S16_LE -c2 -r44100]
66 -f cdr (16 bit big endian, 44100, stereo) [-f S16_BE -c2 -f44100]
67 -f dat (16 bit little endian, 48000, stereo) [-f S16_LE -c2 -r48000]
68 If no format is given U8 is used.
69 -r, --rate=#<Hz>
71 Sampling rate in Hertz. The default rate is 8000 Hertz. If the
72 value specified is less than 300, it is taken as the rate in
73 kilohertz. Valid values are 2000 through 192000 Hertz.
74 -d, --duration=#
76 Interrupt after # seconds. A value of zero means infinity. The
77 default is zero, so if this option is omitted then the arecord
78 process will run until it is killed.
79 -s, --sleep-min=#
81 Min ticks to sleep. The default is not to sleep.
82 -M, --mmap
84 Use memory-mapped (mmap) I/O mode for the audio stream. If this
85 option is not set, the read/write I/O mode will be used.
86 -N, --nonblock
88 Open the audio device in non-blocking mode. If the device is
89 busy the program will exit immediately. If this option is not
90 set the program will block until the audio device is available
91 again.
92 -F, --period-time=#
94 Distance between interrupts is # microseconds. If no period
95 time and no period size is given then a quarter of the buffer
96 time is set.
97 -B, --buffer-time=#
99 Buffer duration is # microseconds If no buffer time and no buf‐
100 fer size is given then the maximal allowed buffer time but not
101 more than 500ms is set.
102 --period-size=#
104 Distance between interrupts is # frames If no period size and no
105 period time is given then a quarter of the buffer size is set.
106 --buffer-size=#
108 Buffer duration is # frames If no buffer time and no buffer size
109 is given then the maximal allowed buffer time but not more than
110 500ms is set.
111 -A, --avail-min=#
113 Min available space for wakeup is # microseconds
114 -R, --start-delay=#
116 Delay for automatic PCM start is # microseconds (relative to
117 buffer size if <= 0)
118 -T, --stop-delay=#
120 Delay for automatic PCM stop is # microseconds from xrun
121 -v, --verbose
123 Show PCM structure and setup. This option is accumulative. The
124 VU meter is displayed when this is given twice or three times.
125 -V, --vumeter=TYPE
127 Specifies the VU-meter type, either stereo or mono. The stereo
128 VU-meter is available only for 2-channel stereo samples with
129 interleaved format.
130 -I, --separate-channels
132 One file for each channel. This option disables max-file-time
133 and use-strftime, and ignores SIGUSR1. The stereo VU meter is
134 not available with separate channels.
135 -P Playback. This is the default if the program is invoked by typ‐
137 ing aplay.
138 -C Record. This is the default if the program is invoked by typing
140 arecord.
141 -i, --interactive
143 Allow interactive operation via stdin. Currently only
144 pause/resume via space or enter key is implemented.
145 -m, --chmap=ch1,ch2,...
147 Give the channel map to override or follow. Pass channel posi‐
148 tion strings like FL, FR, etc.
149 If a device supports the override of the channel map, aplay
151 tries to pass the given channel map. If it doesn't support the
152 channel map override but still it provides the channel map
153 information, aplay tries to rearrange the channel order in the
154 buffer to match with the returned channel map from the device.
155 --disable-resample
157 Disable automatic rate resample.
158 --disable-channels
160 Disable automatic channel conversions.
161 --disable-format
163 Disable automatic format conversions.
164 --disable-softvol
166 Disable software volume control (softvol).
167 --test-position
169 Test ring buffer position.
170 --test-coef=<coef>
172 Test coefficient for ring buffer position; default is 8.
173 Expression for validation is: coef * (buffer_size / 2). Minimum
174 value is 1.
175 --test-nowait
177 Do not wait for the ring buffer ‐ eats the whole CPU.
178 --max-file-time
180 While recording, when the output file has been accumulating
181 sound for this long, close it and open a new output file.
182 Default is the maximum size supported by the file format: 2 GiB
183 for WAV files. This option has no effect if --separate-chan‐
184 nels is specified.
185 --process-id-file <file name>
187 aplay writes its process ID here, so other programs can send
188 signals to it.
189 --use-strftime
191 When recording, interpret %-codes in the file name parameter
192 using the strftime facility whenever the output file is opened.
193 The important strftime codes are: %Y is the year, %m month, %d
194 day of the month, %H hour, %M minute and %S second. In addi‐
195 tion, %v is the file number, starting at 1. When this option is
196 specified, intermediate directories for the output file are cre‐
197 ated automatically. This option has no effect if --sepa‐
198 rate-channels is specified.
199 --dump-hw-params
201 Dump hw_params of the device preconfigured status to stderr. The
202 dump lists capabilities of the selected device such as supported
203 formats, sampling rates, numbers of channels, period and buffer
204 bytes/sizes/times. For raw device hw:X this option basically
205 lists hardware capabilities of the soundcard.
206 --fatal-errors
208 Disables recovery attempts when errors (e.g. xrun) are encoun‐
209 tered; the aplay process instead aborts immediately.
210
213 When recording, SIGINT, SIGTERM and SIGABRT will close the output file
214 and exit. SIGUSR1 will close the output file, open a new one, and con‐
215 tinue recording. However, SIGUSR1 does not work with --separate-chan‐
216 nels.
217
220 aplay -c 1 -t raw -r 22050 -f mu_law foobar
221 will play the raw file "foobar" as a 22050-Hz, mono, 8-bit,
222 Mu-Law .au file.
223 arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav -D copy foobar.wav
226 will record foobar.wav as a 10-second, CD-quality wave file,
227 using the PCM "copy" (which might be defined in the user's
228 .asoundrc file as:
229 pcm.copy {
230 type plug
231 slave {
232 pcm hw
233 }
234 route_policy copy
235 }
236 arecord -t wav --max-file-time 30 mon.wav
239 Record from the default audio source in monaural, 8,000 samples
240 per second, 8 bits per sample. Start a new file every 30 sec‐
241 onds. File names are mon-nn.wav, where nn increases from 01.
242 The file after mon-99.wav is mon-100.wav.
243 arecord -f cd -t wav --max-file-time 3600 --use-strftime %Y/%m/%d/lis‐
246 ten-%H-%M-%v.wav
247 Record in stereo from the default audio source. Create a new
248 file every hour. The files are placed in directories based on
249 their start dates and have names which include their start times
250 and file numbers.
251
254 alsamixer(1), amixer(1)
255
258 Note that .aiff files are not currently supported.
259
262 arecord and aplay are by Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz> This document
263 is by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>. Updated for Alsa 0.9 by James
264 Tappin <james@xena.uklinux.net>
265 1 January 2010 APLAY(1)