alsamixer is a terminal-based mixer for the ALSA sound system.
It provides an ncurses interface for inspecting and adjusting mixer controls on Linux sound devices, making it a practical tool for changing playback and capture settings directly from the command line.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Supports multiple sound cards and multiple mixer devices.
- Offers playback, capture, and all-controls view modes.
- Lets you adjust volume with keyboard controls, including quick changes and direct percentage steps.
- Supports independent left and right channel volume adjustment on stereo controls.
- Lets you toggle mute and capture state for supported channels.
- Can switch to a different sound card at runtime from within the interface.
- Supports command line options for selecting the card, mixer device, and initial view mode.
- Reads user configuration from
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alsamixer.rcor$HOME/.config/alsamixer.rc. - Supports interface customization including colors, background settings, mouse wheel behaviour, and key bindings.
Website: github.com/alsa-project/alsa-utils
Support:
Developer: ALSA Project
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
alsamixer is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Audio Mixers | |
|---|---|
| wiremix | Simple TUI audio mixer fort Pipewire |
| pamixer | PulseAudio command line mixer |
| pulsemixer | CLI and curses mixer for PulseAudio |
| ncpamixer | ncurses mixer for PulseAudio inspired by pavucontrol |
| PAmix | ncurses/curses PulseAudio mixer written in C |
| pacmixer | PulseAudio tool similar to alsamixer |
| RsMixer | PulseAudio volume mixer |
| alsamixer | Terminal-based mixer for the ALSA sound system |
| pipemixer | TUI volume control software for pipewire |
| JackMiniMix | Simple mixer for the Jack Audio Connection Kit |
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I use this with an alias:
alias am=alsamixer
🙂