mixers

[geosman]

I want to use mixer commands on the command line. I have looked at and tried amixer a bunch because it seems to be the simplest?? to use.
I have tried numerous permutations of amixer set MASTER 100% and amixer set MASTER unmute and it gives me:
amixer: Unable to find simple control 'MASTER',0 etc.
I know I am having trouble finding the control names and also that it seems to say apply the values after the control name but when I enter 100% unmute after MASTER I get the same old confusing responses. Maybe I am misinterpreting as I've been here before with audio and barely escaped alive.
Is there a list which specifies use this for volume and this value for it or this is how to unmute the CD playback? Yes, I have read manpage!! but that is also confusing and seems to lack specificity. Oh well its probably just me but can someone help clarify?

[shuuhen]

Any particular reason for using amixer over alsamixer? I think alsamixer's ncurses-based interface is fairly easy to use. Left/right arrows to select lines, up/down to increase/decrease volume. 'm' mutes/unmutes. Escape should quit. There are other keys to do fancier things, but most of the time I doubt you'll need them.

[geosman]

Yes, the alsamixer is good if you don't need to use it in a shell script. I don't believe it has a command line equivalent other than amixer. As you see I had trouble with amixer, too. It does not seem to function as advertised.