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.
53 -f --format=FORMAT
55 Sample format
56 Recognized sample formats are: S8 U8 S16_LE S16_BE U16_LE U16_BE
57 S24_LE S24_BE U24_LE U24_BE S32_LE S32_BE U32_LE U32_BE FLOAT_LE
58 FLOAT_BE FLOAT64_LE FLOAT64_BE IEC958_SUBFRAME_LE IEC958_SUB‐
59 FRAME_BE MU_LAW A_LAW IMA_ADPCM MPEG GSM
60 Some of these may not be available on selected hardware
61 There are also two format shortcuts available:
62 -f cd (16 bit little endian, 44100, stereo [-f S16_LE -c2 -r44100]
63 -f dat (16 bit little endian, 48000, stereo) [-f S16_LE -c2 -r48000]
64 If no format is given U8 is used.
65 -r, --rate=#<Hz>
67 Sampling rate in Hertz. The default rate is 8000 Hertz.
68 -d, --duration=#
70 Interrupt after # seconds. A value of zero means infinity. The
71 default is zero, so if this option is omitted then the arecord
72 process will run until it is killed.
73 -s, --sleep-min=#
75 Min ticks to sleep. The default is not to sleep.
76 -M, --mmap
78 Use memory-mapped (mmap) I/O mode for the audio stream. If this
79 option is not set, the read/write I/O mode will be used.
80 -N, --nonblock
82 Open the audio device in non-blocking mode. If the device is
83 busy the program will exit immediately. If this option is not
84 set the program will block until the audio device is available
85 again.
86 -F, --period-time=#
88 Distance between interrupts is # microseconds. If no period
89 time and no period size is given then a quarter of the buffer
90 time is set.
91 -B, --buffer-time=#
93 Buffer duration is # microseconds If no buffer time and no buf‐
94 fer size is given then the maximal allowed buffer time but not
95 more than 500ms is set.
96 --period-size=#
98 Distance between interrupts is # frames If no period size and no
99 period time is given then a quarter of the buffer size is set.
100 --buffer-size=#
102 Buffer duration is # frames If no buffer time and no buffer size
103 is given then the maximal allowed buffer time but not more than
104 500ms is set.
105 -A, --avail-min=#
107 Min available space for wakeup is # microseconds
108 -R, --start-delay=#
110 Delay for automatic PCM start is # microseconds (relative to
111 buffer size if <= 0)
112 -T, --stop-delay=#
114 Delay for automatic PCM stop is # microseconds from xrun
115 -v, --verbose
117 Show PCM structure and setup. This option is accumulative. The
118 VU meter is displayed when this is given twice or three times.
119 -I, --separate-channels
121 One file for each channel
122 Example:
125 aplay -c 1 -t raw -r 22050 -f mu_law foobar
126 will play the raw file "foobar" as a 22050-Hz, mono, 8-bit, Mu-
127 Law .au file.
128 arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav -D copy foobar.wav
131 will record foobar.wav as a 10-second, CD-quality wave file,
132 using the PCM "copy" (which might be defined in the user's
133 .asoundrc file as:
134 pcm.copy {
135 type plug
136 slave {
137 pcm hw
138 }
139 route_policy copy
140 }
141
144 alsamixer(1), amixer(1)
145
148 Note that .aiff files are not currently supported.
149
152 arecord and aplay are by Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz> This document
153 is by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>. Updated for Alsa 0.9 by James
154 Tappin <james@xena.uklinux.net>
155 2 August 2001 APLAY(1)