APLAY(1)

NAME
arecord, aplay - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA soundcard driver

SYNOPSIS
arecord [flags] [filename]

SYNOPSIS
aplay [flags] [filename [filename]] ...

DESCRIPTION
arecord is a command-line soundfile recorder for the ALSA soundcard driver. It supports several file formats and multiple soundcards with multiple devices.

aplay is much the same, only it plays instead of recording. For supported soundfile formats, the sampling rate, bit depth, and so forth can be automatically determined from the soundfile header.

INVOKING

[arecord | aplay ] [flags] filename

If filename is not specified, the standard output or input is used. The aplay utility accepts multiple filenames.

  Options

--help
    Help: show syntax.

--version
    Print current version.

-l, --list-devices
    List all soundcards and digital audio devices

-L, --list-pcms
    List all PCMs defined

-D, --device=NAME
    Select PCM by name

-q --quiet
    Quiet mode. Suppress messages (not sound :))

-t, --file-type TYPE
    File type (voc, wav, raw or au)

-c, --channels=#
    The number of channels

-f --format=FORMAT
    Sample format
    Recognized sample formats are: S8 U8 S16_LE S16_BE U16_LE U16_BE S24_LE S24_BE U24_LE U24_BE S32_LE S32_BE U32_LE U32_BE FLOAT_LE FLOAT_BE FLOAT64_LE FLOAT64_BE IEC958_SUBFRAME_LE IEC958_SUBFRAME_BE MU_LAW A_LAW IMA_ADPCM MPEG GSM
    Some of these may not be available on selected hardware
    There are also two format shortcuts available:
    -f cd (16 bit little endian, 44100, stereo [-f S16_LE -c2 -r44100]
    -f dat (16 bit little endian, 48000, stereo) [-f S16_LE -c2 -r48000]

-r, --rate=#<Hz>
    Sampling rate in Hertz.

-d, --duration=#
    Interrupt after # seconds

-s, --sleep-min=#
    Min ticks to sleep

-M, --mmap
    Mmap stream

-N, --nonblock
    Nonblocking mode

-F, --period-time=#
    Distance between interrupts is # microseconds

-B, --buffer-time=#
    Buffer duration is # microseconds

-A, --avail-min=#
    Min available space for wakeup is # microseconds

-R, --start-delay=#
    Delay for automatic PCM start is # microseconds (relative to buffer size if <= 0)

-T, --stop-delay=#
    Delay for automatic PCM stop is # microseconds from xrun

-v, --verbose
    Show PCM structure and setup

-I, --separate-channels
    One file for each channel

  Example:
    aplay -c 1 -t raw -r 22050 -f mu_law foobar

        will play the raw file "foobar" as a 22050-Hz, mono, 8-bit, Mu-Law .au file.

        arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav -D copy foobar.wav

        will record foobar.wav as a 10-second, CD-quality wave file, using the PCM "copy" (which might be defined in the user's .asoundrc file as:
        pcm.copy {
          type plug
          slave {
            pcm hw
          }
          route_policy copy
        }

SEE ALSO
alsamixer(1), amixer(1)

BUGS
Note that .aiff files are not currently supported.

AUTHOR
arecord and aplay are by Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz> This document is by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>. Updated for Alsa 0.9 by James Tappin <james@xena.uklinux.net>