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 informa-
       tion: 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 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  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 indicate 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.  Sim-
       ilarly, only the controls for capture (recording) are shown in the cap-
       ture 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 chan-
       nels.

       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 dis-
       abled 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  inde-
       pendently, 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 perceive
       it, i.e. the position is the cubic root of the linear sample  multipli-
       cation  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 hard-
       ware 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)
