alsamixer.1 (6642B)
1 .TH ALSAMIXER 1 "22 May 2009" 2 .SH NAME 3 alsamixer \- soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver, with ncurses interface 4 .SH SYNOPSIS 5 6 \fBalsamixer\fP [\fIoptions\fP] 7 8 .SH DESCRIPTION 9 \fBalsamixer\fP is an ncurses mixer program for use with the ALSA 10 soundcard drivers. It supports multiple soundcards with multiple devices. 11 12 .SH OPTIONS 13 14 .TP 15 \fI\-h, \-\-help\fP 16 Help: show available flags. 17 18 .TP 19 \fI\-c, \-\-card\fP <card number or identification> 20 Select the soundcard to use, if you have more than one. Cards are 21 numbered from 0 (the default). 22 23 .TP 24 \fI\-D, \-\-device\fP <device identification> 25 Select the mixer device to control. 26 27 .TP 28 \fI\-V, \-\-view\fP <mode> 29 Select the starting view mode, either \fIplayback\fP, \fIcapture\fP or \fIall\fP. 30 31 .TP 32 \fI\-g, \-\-no\-color\fP 33 Toggle the using of colors. 34 35 .SH MIXER VIEWS 36 37 The top-left corner of \fBalsamixer\fP is the are to show some basic 38 information: the card name, the mixer chip name, the current view 39 mode and the currently selected mixer item. 40 When the mixer item is switched off, \fI[Off]\fP is displayed in its 41 name. 42 43 Volume bars are located below the basic information area. You can 44 scroll left/right when all controls can't be put in a single screen. 45 The name of each control is shown in the bottom below the volume bars. 46 The currently selected item is drawn in red and/of emphasized. 47 48 Each mixer control with volume capability shows a box and the current 49 volume filled in that box. The volume percentages are displayed below 50 the volume bar for left and right channels. For a mono control, only 51 one value is shown there. 52 53 When a mixer control is turned off, \fIM\fP (mute) appears below the 54 volume bar. When it's turned on, \fIO\fP in green appears instead. 55 You can toggle the switch via \fIm\fP key. 56 57 When a mixer control has capture capability, the capture flag appears 58 below the volume bar, too. When the capture is turned off, 59 \-\-\-\-\-\-\- is shown. \fICAPTURE\fP in red appears when the 60 capture switch is turned on. In addition, \fIL\fP and \fIR\fP letters 61 appear in left and right side to indicate that left and the right 62 channels are turned on. 63 64 Some controls have the enumeration list, and don't show boxes but only 65 texts which indicate the currently active item. You can change the 66 item via up/down keys. 67 68 .SH VIEW MODES 69 \fBalsamixer\fP has three view modes: playback, capture and all. 70 In the playback view, only the controls related with playback are shown. 71 Similarly, only the controls for capture (recording) are shown in the capture 72 view. The all view mode shows all controls. The current view mode is displayed 73 in the top-left position together with the mixer name, etc. 74 75 The default view mode is the playback view. You can change it via 76 \fI-V\fP option. 77 78 Each view mode can be switched via keyboard commands, too. 79 See the next section. 80 81 .SH KEYBOARD COMMANDS 82 \fBalsamixer\fP recognizes the following keyboard commands to control the soundcard. 83 Commands shown here in upper case can also be given in lower case. 84 To be reminded of these keystrokes, hit the \fIh\fP key. 85 86 .SS 87 General Controls 88 89 The \fILeft\fP and \fIright arrow\fP keys are used to select the 90 channel (or device, depending on your preferred terminology). You can 91 also use \fIn\fP ("next") and \fIp\fP ("previous"). 92 93 The \fIUp\fP and \fIDown Arrows\fP control the volume for the 94 currently selected device. You can also use \fI+\fP or \fI\-\fP for the 95 same purpose. Both the left and right signals are affected. For 96 independent left and right control, see below. 97 98 The \fIB\fP or \fI=\fP key adjusts the balance of volumes on left and 99 right channels. 100 101 \fIM\fP toggles muting for the current channel (both left and right). 102 If the hardware supports it, you can 103 mute left and right independently by using \fI,\fP (or \fI<\fP) and 104 \fI.\fP (or \fI>\fP) respectively. 105 106 \fISPACE\fP enables recording for the current channel. If any other 107 channels have recording enabled, they will have their recording function 108 disabled first. This only works for valid input channels, of course. 109 110 \fIL\fP re-draws the screen. 111 112 .SS 113 View Mode Controls 114 Function keys are used to change view modes. 115 You can switch to the help mode and the proc info mode via \fIF1\fP and 116 \fIF2\fP keys, respectively. 117 On terminals that can't use function keys like gnome\-terminal, \fI?\fP and 118 \fI/\fP keys can be used alternatively for help and proc modes. 119 120 \fIF3\fP, \fIF4\fP and \fIF5\fP keys are used to switch to playback, capture 121 and all view mode, respectively. \fITAB\fP key toggles the 122 current view mode circularly. 123 124 .SS 125 Quick Volume Changes 126 127 \fIPageUp\fP increases volume by 5. 128 129 \fIPageDown\fP decreases volume by 5. 130 131 \fIEnd\fP sets volume to 0. 132 133 You can also control left & right levels for the current channel 134 independently, as follows: 135 136 [\fIQ\fP | \fIW\fP | \fIE\fP ] -- turn UP [ left | both | right ] 137 138 [\fIZ\fP | \fIX\fP | \fIC\fP ] -- turn DOWN [ left | both | right ] 139 140 If the currently selected mixer channel is not a stereo channel, then 141 all UP keys will work like \fIW\fP, and all DOWN keys will work like \fIX\fP. 142 143 The number keys from \fI0\fP to \fI9\fP are to change the absolute volume 144 quickly. They correspond to 0 to 90% volume. 145 146 .SS 147 Selecting the Sound Card 148 149 You can select another sound card by pressing the \fIF6\fP or \fIS\fP keys. 150 This will show a list of available sound cards to choose from, 151 and an entry to enter the mixer device name by hand. 152 153 .SS 154 Exiting 155 156 Quit the program with \fIALT Q\fP, or by hitting \fIESC\fP. 157 Please note that you might need to hit \fIESC\fP twice on some terminals 158 since it's regarded as a prefix key. 159 160 .SH VOLUME MAPPING 161 In \fBalsamixer\fP, the volume is mapped to a value that is more natural 162 for a human ear. The mapping is designed so that the position in the 163 interval is proportional to the volume as a human ear would perceive 164 it, i.e. the position is the cubic root of the linear sample 165 multiplication factor. For controls with a small range (24 dB or 166 less), the mapping is linear in the dB values so that each step has 167 the same size visually. 168 169 Only for controls without dB information, a linear mapping of the 170 hardware volume register values is used (this is the same algorithm as 171 used in the old \fBalsamixer\fP). 172 173 .SH SEE ALSO 174 \fB 175 amixer(1), 176 aplay(1), 177 arecord(1) 178 \fP 179 180 .SH BUGS 181 Some terminal emulators (e.g. \fBnxterm\fP) may not 182 work quite right with ncurses, but that's their own damn 183 fault. Plain old \fBxterm\fP seems to be fine. 184 185 .SH AUTHOR 186 .B alsamixer 187 has been written by Tim Janik and 188 been further improved by Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz> 189 and Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de>. 190 191 This manual page was provided by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>.