Record Your Microphone from the Terminal with arecord
Capture 10 seconds of CD-quality audio with a live VU meter to verify your mic works, then play it back with aplay.
Run arecord -f cd -d 10 -vv test-mic.wav to record 10 seconds from the default microphone, then aplay test-mic.wav to hear it.
01Command
Command
$ arecord -f cd -d 10 -vv test-mic.wav02What it does
arecord is the ALSA command-line recorder that ships with virtually every Linux distribution. -f cd requests standard 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo quality, -d 10 stops after ten seconds, and the double -v flag displays an ASCII VU meter so you can see the input level moving while you speak — the quickest way to confirm the mic is picking up sound. If the meter stays silent, check which card is default with arecord -l and select it with -D hw:1,0, or raise the capture level with alsamixer.
03Risk
!Warning: If arecord reports 'Device or resource busy', another application is holding the microphone — close it first; with PipeWire/PulseAudio you may need to record via the default ALSA plugin rather than hw: directly.
04Undo
✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.
05Sources
- aplay(1) — Linux manual pageEvidence: aplay plays back recorded WAV files from the command line using the same ALSA sound device framework.
- arecord(1) — Linux manual pageEvidence: arecord is a command-line sound recorder for ALSA; -f cd selects 16-bit 44100Hz stereo, -d sets seconds, -vv shows a VU meter and peak levels.
Last verified: 2026-09-18 · Category: Media