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 -B, --black-background
37 Use the black background color.
38 -g, --no-color
41 Toggle the using of colors.
42
45 The top-left corner of alsamixer shows some basic information: the card
46 name, the mixer chip name, the current view mode and the currently se‐
47 lected mixer item. When the mixer item is switched off, [Off] is dis‐
48 played in its name.
49 Volume bars are located below the basic information area. You can
51 scroll left/right when all controls can't be put in a single screen.
52 The name of each control is shown in the bottom below the volume bars.
53 The currently selected item is drawn in red and/or emphasized.
54 Each mixer control with volume capability shows a box and the current
56 volume filled in that box. The volume percentages are displayed below
57 the volume bar for left and right channels. For a mono control, only
58 one value is shown there.
59 When a mixer control is turned off, M (mute) appears below the volume
61 bar. When it's turned on, O in green appears instead. You can toggle
62 the switch via m key.
63 When a mixer control has capture capability, the capture flag appears
65 below the volume bar, too. When the capture is turned off, ------- is
66 shown. CAPTURE in red appears when the capture switch is turned on.
67 In addition, L and R letters appear in left and right side to indicate
68 that left and the right channels are turned on.
69 Some controls have the enumeration list, and don't show boxes but only
71 texts which indicate the currently active item. You can change the
72 item via up/down keys.
73
76 alsamixer has three view modes: playback, capture and all. In the
77 playback view, only the controls related with playback are shown. Sim‐
78 ilarly, only the controls for capture (recording) are shown in the cap‐
79 ture view. The all view mode shows all controls. The current view
80 mode is displayed in the top-left position together with the mixer
81 name, etc.
82 The default view mode is the playback view. You can change it via -V
84 option.
85 Each view mode can be switched via keyboard commands, too. See the
87 next section.
88
91 alsamixer recognizes the following keyboard commands to control the
92 soundcard. Commands shown here in upper case can also be given in
93 lower case. To be reminded of these keystrokes, hit the h key.
94 General Controls
97 The Left and right arrow keys are used to select the channel (or de‐
98 vice, depending on your preferred terminology). You can also use n
99 ("next") and p ("previous").
100 The Up and Down Arrows control the volume for the currently selected
102 device. You can also use + or - for the same purpose. Both the left and
103 right signals are affected. For independent left and right control, see
104 below.
105 The B or = key adjusts the balance of volumes on left and right chan‐
107 nels.
108 M toggles muting for the current channel (both left and right). If the
110 hardware supports it, you can mute left and right independently by us‐
111 ing , (or <) and . (or >) respectively.
112 SPACE enables recording for the current channel. If any other channels
114 have recording enabled, they will have their recording function dis‐
115 abled first. This only works for valid input channels, of course.
116 L re-draws the screen.
118 View Mode Controls
121 Function keys are used to change view modes. You can switch to the
122 help mode and the proc info mode via F1 and F2 keys, respectively. On
123 terminals that can't use function keys like gnome-terminal, ? and /
124 keys can be used alternatively for help and proc modes.
125 F3, F4 and F5 keys are used to switch to playback, capture and all view
127 mode, respectively. TAB key toggles the current view mode circularly.
128 Quick Volume Changes
131 PageUp increases volume by 5.
132 PageDown decreases volume by 5.
134 End sets volume to 0.
136 You can also control left & right levels for the current channel inde‐
138 pendently, as follows:
139 [Q | W | E ] -- turn UP [ left | both | right ]
141 [Z | X | C ] -- turn DOWN [ left | both | right ]
143 If the currently selected mixer channel is not a stereo channel, then
145 all UP keys will work like W, and all DOWN keys will work like X.
146 The number keys from 0 to 9 are to change the absolute volume quickly.
148 They correspond to 0 to 90% volume.
149 Selecting the Sound Card
152 You can select another sound card by pressing the F6 or S keys. This
153 will show a list of available sound cards to choose from, and an entry
154 to enter the mixer device name by hand.
155 Exiting
158 Quit the program with ALT Q, or by hitting ESC. Please note that you
159 might need to hit ESC twice on some terminals since it's regarded as a
160 prefix key.
161
164 In alsamixer, the volume is mapped to a value that is more natural for
165 a human ear. The mapping is designed so that the position in the in‐
166 terval is proportional to the volume as a human ear would perceive it,
167 i.e. the position is the cubic root of the linear sample multiplication
168 factor. For controls with a small range (24 dB or less), the mapping
169 is linear in the dB values so that each step has the same size vis‐
170 ually.
171 Only for controls without dB information, a linear mapping of the hard‐
173 ware volume register values is used (this is the same algorithm as used
174 in the old alsamixer).
175
178 Configuration is read from the following files:
179 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alsamixer.rc
181 $HOME/.config/alsamixer.rc
183
186 Comments start with '#'.
187 color element foreground background [attribute...]
190 Valid values for foreground and background are: red, green, yel‐
192 low, blue, magenta, cyan, white, black, none / default.
193 Valid values for attribute are: bold, normal, reverse, under‐
195 line, dim, italic, blink.
196 See section THEME ELEMENTS for a list of elements.
198 set option value
201 mouse_wheel_step <N>
203 Set the mouse wheel step to <N>
205 mouse_wheel_focuses_control 0|1
207 If enabled (1), mixer controls can be changed by hovering over
209 them and scrolling the mouse wheel.
210 background color
212 Set the default background color
214 bind key_definition command
217 A key_definition may be:
219 - a single character
220 - a combination with control: C-a
221 - a combination with alt: M-a
222 - a special keyname: Enter, Escape, PageUp, PageDown, Left,
223 Down, Right, Up, Home, End, Backspace, F1 .. F12
224 See section COMMANDS for a list of commands.
226 COMMANDS
229 textbox_close
230 Close textbox
231 textbox_up / textbox_down
234 Scroll text up/down by one line
235 textbox_left / textbox_right
238 Scroll text left/right by one column
239 textbox_page_up / textbox_page_down
242 Scroll text up/down one page
243 textbox_page_left / textbox_page_right
246 Scroll text left/right one page
247 textbox_top / textbox_bottom
250 Go to top/bottom position of text
251 mixer_balance_volumes
254 Balance both channels
255 mixer_close
258 Close alsamixer application
259 mixer_help
262 Show help
263 mixer_mode_playback
266 Show playback controls
267 mixer_mode_capture
270 Show capture controls
271 mixer_mode_all
274 Show playback and capture controls
275 mixer_mode_toggle
278 Toggle between playback/capture/all controls
279 mixer_refresh
282 Refresh screen
283 mixer_previous / mixer_next
286 Select previous/next mixer control
287 mixer_control_focus_<N>
290 Focus control number <N>.
291 mixer_control_set_<N>[_left|_right]
294 Change volume of current control to <N> percent.
295 mixer_control_up_<N>[_left|_right]
298 Increase volume of current control by <N> percent.
299 mixer_control_down_<N>[_left|_right]
302 Decrease volume of current control by <N> percent.
303 mixer_toggle_mute[_left|_right]
306 Toggle mute state of both/left/right channels
307 mixer_toggle_capture[_left|_right]
310 Toggle capture state of both/left/right channels
311 mixer_select_card
314 Show window for selecting sound card
315 mixer_system_information
318 Show system information
319 THEME ELEMENTS
323 mixer_frame Color of the box around the mixer
324 mixer_text Color of text at the top of the mixer
327 mixer_active Color of AlsaMixer heading
330 ctl_frame Color of the frame around the mixer controls
333 ctl_mute Color indicating the mute state (MM)
336 ctl_nomute Color indicating the unmute state (00)
339 ctl_capture Color of CAPTURE text
342 ctl_nocapture Colof of disabled capture label
345 ctl_label Color of label underneath mixer controls
348 ctl_label_focus Color of label underneath focused mixer control
351 ctl_mark_focus Color of <> marks beside focused mixer label
354 ctl_bar_lo Color of lower volume bar
357 ctl_bar_mi Color of middle volume bar
360 ctl_bar_hi Color of top volume bar
363 ctl_inactive Color for inactive control
366 ctl_label_inactive Color for inactive label
369 errormsg Color used for error message
372 infomsg Color used for information message
375 textbox Color used for textbox (user input)
378 textfield Color used for textbox
381 menu Color used for menu
384 menu_selected Color used for selected entry in menu
387
390 amixer(1), aplay(1), arecord(1)
391
394 alsamixer has been written by Tim Janik and been further improved by
395 Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz> and Clemens Ladisch
396 <clemens@ladisch.de>.
397 This manual page was provided by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>.
399 22 May 2009 ALSAMIXER(1)