1ALSAMIXER(1) General Commands Manual ALSAMIXER(1)
2
6 alsamixer - soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver, with ncurses in‐
7 terface
8
10 alsamixer [options]
11
14 alsamixer is an ncurses mixer program for use with the ALSA soundcard
15 drivers. It supports multiple soundcards with multiple devices.
16
19 -h, --help
20 Help: show available flags.
21 -c, --card <card number or identification>
24 Select the soundcard to use, if you have more than one. Cards
25 are numbered from 0 (the default).
26 -D, --device <device identification>
29 Select the mixer device to control.
30 -V, --view <mode>
33 Select the starting view mode, either playback, capture or all.
34 -g, --no-color
37 Toggle the using of colors.
38
41 The top-left corner of alsamixer shows some basic information: the card
42 name, the mixer chip name, the current view mode and the currently se‐
43 lected mixer item. When the mixer item is switched off, [Off] is dis‐
44 played in its name.
45 Volume bars are located below the basic information area. You can
47 scroll left/right when all controls can't be put in a single screen.
48 The name of each control is shown in the bottom below the volume bars.
49 The currently selected item is drawn in red and/or emphasized.
50 Each mixer control with volume capability shows a box and the current
52 volume filled in that box. The volume percentages are displayed below
53 the volume bar for left and right channels. For a mono control, only
54 one value is shown there.
55 When a mixer control is turned off, M (mute) appears below the volume
57 bar. When it's turned on, O in green appears instead. You can toggle
58 the switch via m key.
59 When a mixer control has capture capability, the capture flag appears
61 below the volume bar, too. When the capture is turned off, ------- is
62 shown. CAPTURE in red appears when the capture switch is turned on.
63 In addition, L and R letters appear in left and right side to indicate
64 that left and the right channels are turned on.
65 Some controls have the enumeration list, and don't show boxes but only
67 texts which indicate the currently active item. You can change the
68 item via up/down keys.
69
72 alsamixer has three view modes: playback, capture and all. In the
73 playback view, only the controls related with playback are shown. Sim‐
74 ilarly, only the controls for capture (recording) are shown in the cap‐
75 ture view. The all view mode shows all controls. The current view
76 mode is displayed in the top-left position together with the mixer
77 name, etc.
78 The default view mode is the playback view. You can change it via -V
80 option.
81 Each view mode can be switched via keyboard commands, too. See the
83 next section.
84
87 alsamixer recognizes the following keyboard commands to control the
88 soundcard. Commands shown here in upper case can also be given in
89 lower case. To be reminded of these keystrokes, hit the h key.
90 General Controls
93 The Left and right arrow keys are used to select the channel (or de‐
94 vice, depending on your preferred terminology). You can also use n
95 ("next") and p ("previous").
96 The Up and Down Arrows control the volume for the currently selected
98 device. You can also use + or - for the same purpose. Both the left and
99 right signals are affected. For independent left and right control, see
100 below.
101 The B or = key adjusts the balance of volumes on left and right chan‐
103 nels.
104 M toggles muting for the current channel (both left and right). If the
106 hardware supports it, you can mute left and right independently by us‐
107 ing , (or <) and . (or >) respectively.
108 SPACE enables recording for the current channel. If any other channels
110 have recording enabled, they will have their recording function dis‐
111 abled first. This only works for valid input channels, of course.
112 L re-draws the screen.
114 View Mode Controls
117 Function keys are used to change view modes. You can switch to the
118 help mode and the proc info mode via F1 and F2 keys, respectively. On
119 terminals that can't use function keys like gnome-terminal, ? and /
120 keys can be used alternatively for help and proc modes.
121 F3, F4 and F5 keys are used to switch to playback, capture and all view
123 mode, respectively. TAB key toggles the current view mode circularly.
124 Quick Volume Changes
127 PageUp increases volume by 5.
128 PageDown decreases volume by 5.
130 End sets volume to 0.
132 You can also control left & right levels for the current channel inde‐
134 pendently, as follows:
135 [Q | W | E ] -- turn UP [ left | both | right ]
137 [Z | X | C ] -- turn DOWN [ left | both | right ]
139 If the currently selected mixer channel is not a stereo channel, then
141 all UP keys will work like W, and all DOWN keys will work like X.
142 The number keys from 0 to 9 are to change the absolute volume quickly.
144 They correspond to 0 to 90% volume.
145 Selecting the Sound Card
148 You can select another sound card by pressing the F6 or S keys. This
149 will show a list of available sound cards to choose from, and an entry
150 to enter the mixer device name by hand.
151 Exiting
154 Quit the program with ALT Q, or by hitting ESC. Please note that you
155 might need to hit ESC twice on some terminals since it's regarded as a
156 prefix key.
157
160 In alsamixer, the volume is mapped to a value that is more natural for
161 a human ear. The mapping is designed so that the position in the in‐
162 terval is proportional to the volume as a human ear would perceive it,
163 i.e. the position is the cubic root of the linear sample multiplication
164 factor. For controls with a small range (24 dB or less), the mapping
165 is linear in the dB values so that each step has the same size vis‐
166 ually.
167 Only for controls without dB information, a linear mapping of the hard‐
169 ware volume register values is used (this is the same algorithm as used
170 in the old alsamixer).
171
174 Configuration is read from the following files:
175 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alsamixer.rc
177 $HOME/.config/alsamixer.rc
179
182 Comments start with '#'.
183 color element foreground background [attribute...]
186 Valid values for foreground and background are: red, green, yel‐
188 low, blue, magenta, cyan, white, black, none / default.
189 Valid values for attribute are: bold, normal, reverse, under‐
191 line, dim, italic, blink.
192 See section THEME ELEMENTS for a list of elements.
194 set option value
197 mouse_wheel_step <N>
199 Set the mouse wheel step to <N>
201 mouse_wheel_focuses_control 0|1
203 If enabled (1), mixer controls can be changed by hovering over
205 them and scrolling the mouse wheel.
206 background color
208 Set the default background color
210 bind key_definition command
213 A key_definition may be:
215 - a single character
216 - a combination with control: C-a
217 - a combination with alt: M-a
218 - a special keyname: Enter, Escape, PageUp, PageDown, Left,
219 Down, Right, Up, Home, End, Backspace, F1 .. F12
220 See section COMMANDS for a list of commands.
222 COMMANDS
225 textbox_close
226 Close textbox
227 textbox_up / textbox_down
230 Scroll text up/down by one line
231 textbox_left / textbox_right
234 Scroll text left/right by one column
235 textbox_page_up / textbox_page_down
238 Scroll text up/down one page
239 textbox_page_left / textbox_page_right
242 Scroll text left/right one page
243 textbox_top / textbox_bottom
246 Go to top/bottom position of text
247 mixer_balance_volumes
250 Balance both channels
251 mixer_close
254 Close alsamixer application
255 mixer_help
258 Show help
259 mixer_mode_playback
262 Show playback controls
263 mixer_mode_capture
266 Show capture controls
267 mixer_mode_all
270 Show playback and capture controls
271 mixer_mode_toggle
274 Toggle between playback/capture/all controls
275 mixer_refresh
278 Refresh screen
279 mixer_previous / mixer_next
282 Select previous/next mixer control
283 mixer_control_focus_<N>
286 Focus control number <N>.
287 mixer_control_set_<N>[_left|_right]
290 Change volume of current control to <N> percent.
291 mixer_control_up_<N>[_left|_right]
294 Increase volume of current control by <N> percent.
295 mixer_control_down_<N>[_left|_right]
298 Decrease volume of current control by <N> percent.
299 mixer_toggle_mute[_left|_right]
302 Toggle mute state of both/left/right channels
303 mixer_toggle_capture[_left|_right]
306 Toggle capture state of both/left/right channels
307 mixer_select_card
310 Show window for selecting sound card
311 mixer_system_information
314 Show system information
315 THEME ELEMENTS
319 mixer_frame Color of the box around the mixer
320 mixer_text Color of text at the top of the mixer
323 mixer_active Color of AlsaMixer heading
326 ctl_frame Color of the frame around the mixer controls
329 ctl_mute Color indicating the mute state (MM)
332 ctl_nomute Color indicating the unmute state (00)
335 ctl_capture Color of CAPTURE text
338 ctl_nocapture Colof of disabled capture label
341 ctl_label Color of label underneath mixer controls
344 ctl_label_focus Color of label underneath focused mixer control
347 ctl_mark_focus Color of <> marks beside focused mixer label
350 ctl_bar_lo Color of lower volume bar
353 ctl_bar_mi Color of middle volume bar
356 ctl_bar_hi Color of top volume bar
359 ctl_inactive Color for inactive control
362 ctl_label_inactive Color for inactive label
365 errormsg Color used for error message
368 infomsg Color used for information message
371 textbox Color used for textbox (user input)
374 textfield Color used for textbox
377 menu Color used for menu
380 menu_selected Color used for selected entry in menu
383
386 amixer(1), aplay(1), arecord(1)
387
390 alsamixer has been written by Tim Janik and been further improved by
391 Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz> and Clemens Ladisch
392 <clemens@ladisch.de>.
393 This manual page was provided by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>.
395 22 May 2009 ALSAMIXER(1)