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 <card number or identification>
              Select the soundcard to use, if you have more than one. Cards are numbered  from  0
              (the default).

       -D, --device <device identification>
              Select the mixer device to control.

       -V, --view <mode>
              Select the starting view mode, either playback, capture or all.

       -g, --no-color
              Toggle the using of colors.

MIXER VIEWS
       The top-left corner of alsamixer is the are to show 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 controls 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/of empha‐
       sized.

       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 control, 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  indi‐
       cate the currently 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 key‐
       strokes, 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  inde‐
       pendent 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  en‐
       abled,  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,  respec‐
       tively.  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 fol‐
       lows:

       [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 perceive it, i.e. the position is the cubic root of  the  linear  sample
       multiplication  factor.   For  controls 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).

SEE ALSO
        amixer(1), aplay(1), arecord(1)

BUGS
       Some  terminal  emulators  (e.g. nxterm) may not work quite right with ncurses, but that's
       their own damn fault. Plain old xterm seems to be fine.

AUTHOR
       alsamixer has been written by Tim Janik and  been  further  improved  by  Jaroslav  Kysela
       <perex@perex.cz> and Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de>.

       This manual page was provided by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>.

                                           22 May 2009                               ALSAMIXER(1)

Usage: alsamixer [options]
Useful options:
  -h, --help              this help
  -c, --card=NUMBER       sound card number or id
  -D, --device=NAME       mixer device name
  -V, --view=MODE         starting view mode: playback/capture/all
Debugging options:
  -g, --no-color          toggle using of colors
  -a, --abstraction=NAME  mixer abstraction level: none/basic