Manual: alsamixer
ALSAMIXER(1) General Commands Manual ALSAMIXER(1)
NAME
alsamixer - soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver, with ncurses interface
SYNOPSIS
alsamixer [options]
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
Select the soundcard to use, if you have more than one. Cards are numbered from 0 (the de‐
fault).
-D, --device
Select the mixer device to control.
-V, --view
Select the starting view mode, either playback, capture or all.
-B, --black-background
Use the black background color.
-g, --no-color
Toggle the using of colors.
MIXER VIEWS
The top-left corner of alsamixer shows 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 con‐
trols 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/or 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 con‐
trol, 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 cur‐
rently 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.
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.
VOLUME MAPPING
In alsamixer, the volume is mapped to a value that is more natural for a human ear. The mapping is
designed so that the position in the interval is proportional to the volume as a human ear would per‐
ceive it, i.e. the position is the cubic root of the linear sample multiplication factor. For con‐
trols with a small range (24 dB or less), the mapping is linear in the dB values so that each step
has the same size visually.
Only for controls without dB information, a linear mapping of the hardware volume register values is
used (this is the same algorithm as used in the old alsamixer).
FILES
Configuration is read from the following files:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alsamixer.rc
$HOME/.config/alsamixer.rc
CONFIGURATION
Comments start with '#'.
color element foreground background [attribute...]
Valid values for foreground and background are: red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan,
white, black, none / default.
Valid values for attribute are: bold, normal, reverse, underline, dim, italic, blink.
See section THEME ELEMENTS for a list of elements.
set option value
mouse_wheel_step
Set the mouse wheel step to
mouse_wheel_focuses_control 0|1
If enabled (1), mixer controls can be changed by hovering over them and scrolling the mouse
wheel.
background color
Set the default background color
bind key_definition command
A key_definition may be:
- a single character
- a combination with control: C-a
- a combination with alt: M-a
- a special keyname: Enter, Escape, PageUp, PageDown, Left, Down, Right, Up, Home, End,
Backspace, F1 .. F12
See section COMMANDS for a list of commands.
COMMANDS
textbox_close
Close textbox
textbox_up / textbox_down
Scroll text up/down by one line
textbox_left / textbox_right
Scroll text left/right by one column
textbox_page_up / textbox_page_down
Scroll text up/down one page
textbox_page_left / textbox_page_right
Scroll text left/right one page
textbox_top / textbox_bottom
Go to top/bottom position of text
mixer_balance_volumes
Balance both channels
mixer_close
Close alsamixer application
mixer_help
Show help
mixer_mode_playback
Show playback controls
mixer_mode_capture
Show capture controls
mixer_mode_all
Show playback and capture controls
mixer_mode_toggle
Toggle between playback/capture/all controls
mixer_refresh
Refresh screen
mixer_previous / mixer_next
Select previous/next mixer control
mixer_control_focus_
Focus control number .
mixer_control_set_[_left|_right]
Change volume of current control to percent.
mixer_control_up_[_left|_right]
Increase volume of current control by percent.
mixer_control_down_[_left|_right]
Decrease volume of current control by percent.
mixer_toggle_mute[_left|_right]
Toggle mute state of both/left/right channels
mixer_toggle_capture[_left|_right]
Toggle capture state of both/left/right channels
mixer_select_card
Show window for selecting sound card
mixer_system_information
Show system information
THEME ELEMENTS
mixer_frame Color of the box around the mixer
mixer_text Color of text at the top of the mixer
mixer_active Color of AlsaMixer heading
ctl_frame Color of the frame around the mixer controls
ctl_mute Color indicating the mute state (MM)
ctl_nomute Color indicating the unmute state (00)
ctl_capture Color of CAPTURE text
ctl_nocapture Colof of disabled capture label
ctl_label Color of label underneath mixer controls
ctl_label_focus Color of label underneath focused mixer control
ctl_mark_focus Color of <> marks beside focused mixer label
ctl_bar_lo Color of lower volume bar
ctl_bar_mi Color of middle volume bar
ctl_bar_hi Color of top volume bar
ctl_inactive Color for inactive control
ctl_label_inactive Color for inactive label
errormsg Color used for error message
infomsg Color used for information message
textbox Color used for textbox (user input)
textfield Color used for textbox
menu Color used for menu
menu_selected Color used for selected entry in menu
SEE ALSO
amixer(1), aplay(1), arecord(1)
AUTHOR
alsamixer has been written by Tim Janik and been further improved by Jaroslav Kysela
and Clemens Ladisch .
This manual page was provided by Paul Winkler .
22 May 2009 ALSAMIXER(1)