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 default).

       -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 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/or emphasized.

       Each mixer control with volume capability shows a box and the current volume filled in that box.	 The volume percent‐
       ages  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.  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 alterna‐
       tively 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 cur‐
       rent 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 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).

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)