alsamixer

alsamixer is a text-based graphical mixer for the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA). It runs in a terminal and uses ncurses to present a slider-based interface for one or more sound cards. Each control (for example Master, PCM, Headphone, Mic, and Capture) is shown as a horizontal bar that can be adjusted up or down and muted or unmuted.

The program reads and writes ALSA mixer controls exposed by the kernel drivers and does not perform high-level mixing beyond these controls. It supports multiple sound cards and lets the user switch between devices to adjust their respective controls. Settings can be saved and restored with the alsactl utility, enabling persistence across reboots.

alsamixer is commonly used on systems without a full graphical desktop or for quick terminal-based audio tweaking. It is part of the ALSA-utils package and integrates with the rest of the ALSA toolchain. In environments that use PulseAudio or PipeWire, ALSA controls are still visible, but the high-level audio managers may override or manage those settings.

See also: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, ALSA-utils, alsactl, PulseAudio, PipeWire.