wiremix + audiod - a console PipeWire mixer and Bluetooth audio hub

This package builds wiremix, a fast terminal (TUI) mixer for PipeWire, packaged to pair with audiod. Together they give you a complete, keyboard-driven audio and Bluetooth control surface that runs entirely in a virtual terminal - no X, no Wayland, no desktop required.

Boot to a console, log in on tty2, and you have: PipeWire running, Bluetooth speakers and phones connected, several sources mixed together and sent to every output at once, and a live mixer with volume sliders and peak meters - all from text.

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Table of contents

1. What the combination gives you
2. How wiremix and audiod fit together
3. What wiremix is
4. Requirements
5. Building the package
6. Installing
7. First-time setup: the config file
8. Using it on a tty - step by step
9. Worked example: a party box on tty2
10. Keybindings
11. Command-line options
12. Credits & license

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What the combination gives you

audiod and wiremix have separate, complementary jobs. audiod runs and manages the per-user PipeWire stack (and adds a Bluetooth "hub" layer); wiremix is the mixer you drive it with. Put together on a console, you get:

• A working PipeWire session in a bare tty. audiod brings up pipewire, wireplumber, and pipewire-pulse in the right order for your console login, so audio is ready the moment you have a shell - no desktop needed. wiremix connects straight to it.

• One-command Bluetooth, from the terminal. With audiod's hub layer you scan a numbered list and connect a speaker or phone by number (audioctl hub scan), pair a phone with a PIN in a bounded window (audioctl hub pair), and drive a connected phone's playback over AVRCP (audioctl hub play|pause|next|prev) - no MAC-typing, no GUI.

• Sound everywhere at once. audiod's combine sink (audioctl hub combine) sums any number of sources and mirrors the result to every output - internal speakers, every HDMI port, and multiple Bluetooth speakers simultaneously.

• A live mixer for all of it. wiremix shows every sink, source, and stream with a volume slider, mute, default-device marker, and a peak meter, so you can balance the whole room - push a far Bluetooth speaker past 100%, trim an HDMI, mute what you want silent - and see audio flowing to each output.

The net effect is a console-native PipeWire + Bluetooth audio manager: speakers, phones, a multi-output mix, and a full mixer, all controlled with the keyboard from a text login.

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How wiremix and audiod fit together

        ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
        │  audiod  (elogind-driven session manager)     │
        │  • starts & supervises pipewire / wireplumber │
        │    / pipewire-pulse for your login            │
        │  • hub layer via audioctl:                    │
        │      - Bluetooth: scan, pair, connect, media  │
        │      - combine sink: sound to every output    │
        │      - network audio                          │
        └───────────────────────┬──────────────────────┘
                                │ a running PipeWire instance,
                                │ present even on a bare tty
                                ▼
        ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
        │  wiremix  (your TUI mixer)                     │
        │  • connects to that PipeWire instance         │
        │  • sinks / sources / streams, with sliders    │
        │  • set volume, mute, default, route; peaks    │
        └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

audiod provides and manages the audio stack; wiremix is how you see and adjust it. audiod also creates the things wiremix then displays - the combine sink appears in wiremix as a selectable default output, each connected Bluetooth speaker as its own output with its own slider, and each phone or app streaming in as a playback stream.

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What wiremix is

wiremix is a small, fast TUI mixer for PipeWire, written in Rust and inspired by ncpamixer. It speaks to PipeWire directly through libpipewire, so it needs no graphical session. Its tabs are:

• Playback - apps currently producing sound (browser, mpv, a phone over Bluetooth).
• Recording - apps capturing audio.
• Output - sinks: speakers, HDMI, Bluetooth speakers, and virtual sinks such as audiod's hub_combined.
• Input - sources: microphones, line-in, Bluetooth mic.
• Configuration - device profiles.

Each row has a volume slider, mute toggle, a default marker, and an optional peak meter.

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Requirements

• Slackware-current (built and tested on Slackware64-current, x86_64).
• audiod - https://forge.slackware.nl/rizitis/audiod. Recommended companion: it manages the PipeWire stack for your session and provides the audioctl hub Bluetooth/combine commands used throughout this guide.
• PipeWire - pipewire, wireplumber, pipewire-pulse.
• bluez with bluetoothd running and a powered adapter, for the Bluetooth features (driven via audioctl hub).
• Build-time: rust and cargo (with cargo auditable), pkg-config, and the PipeWire headers. The SlackBuild builds fully offline from a vendored crate tarball.

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Building the package

The SlackBuild expects, in its own directory:

• wiremix-$VERSION.tar.gz - the wiremix source tarball.
• $VERSION-vendor.tar.gz - the pre-vendored crates (for an offline build).
• cargo-config.toml - points cargo at the vendored sources.
• wiremix.SlackBuild, slack-desc, doinst.sh, audiod-wiremix.toml.

Then build:

git clone https://forge.slackware.nl/rizitis/wiremix.git
cd wiremix
bash wiremix.SlackBuild

This runs cargo build --offline --release and produces a package in /tmp:

/tmp/wiremix-0.11.0-x86_64-2_FRG.txz

The package installs:

• /usr/bin/wiremix - the mixer binary.
• /usr/share/wiremix/wiremix.toml - the stock config (not tuned for audiod).
• /usr/doc/wiremix-0.11.0/ - upstream README, licenses, this SlackBuild, and wiremix.toml (tuned for audiod).

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Installing

installpkg /tmp/wiremix-0.11.0-x86_64-2_FRG.txz

On install you'll see a reminder to copy the config into your home directory (next section).

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First-time setup: the config file

wiremix reads its config from ~/.config/wiremix/wiremix.toml. The package ships a ready-made one - copy it into place for your user:

mkdir -p ~/.config/wiremix
cp /usr/doc/wiremix-0.11.0/wiremix.toml ~/.config/wiremix/wiremix.toml

That config is tuned for the audiod hub and a console:

• starts on the output tab (you balance speakers, not per-app streams);
• enables peak meters so you can see audio reach every output;
• raises the volume ceiling and turns the guard off, so a distant Bluetooth speaker can be pushed past 100% to fill a room;
• uses a lighter 30 fps and keyboard-only input, ideal for a bare tty.

You can edit it freely; anything you don't set uses wiremix's built-in defaults.

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Using it on a tty - step by step

Everything here is done as your normal user on a console (for example tty2, with no X running). Switch to a free VT with Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in.

1. Confirm the audio stack is up (audiod manages this):

audioctl status
#   pipewire       : running
#   wireplumber    : running
#   pipewire-pulse : running

2. Confirm you hold the hub (needed for Bluetooth and combine):

audioctl hub status
#   HUB_MODE : yes
#   you      : member (allowed); OWNER (holds card+BT)

3. Connect a Bluetooth speaker or phone - from the terminal:

audioctl hub scan
# Scanning for 8s...
# Found devices:
#    1) HONOR 400 Pro   [CC:62:...]  (paired)
#    2) BT Speaker      [41:42:...]  (paired)
#    3) AKAI ABTS-21H   [F5:E2:...]  (new)
# Connect which number (Enter to cancel)? 3

Pick a number to connect. Choosing an already-connected device offers to disconnect it. For a brand-new speaker, put it in pairing mode (blinking) first. To pair a phone with a PIN, open a pairing window instead:

audioctl hub pair            # box is discoverable for ~120s; confirm on the phone

4. Mirror sound to every output:

audioctl hub combine         # creates hub_combined and makes it the default sink

5. Open the mixer:

wiremix

You land on the output tab. You'll see hub_combined (marked default) together with the internal speaker, the HDMI outputs, and any Bluetooth speakers

• each with its own slider and a live peak meter. Play something (a browser, or a phone streaming over Bluetooth) and watch every output's meter move together.

6. Balance the room: move between outputs with the arrow keys, adjust each one's volume independently, mute what you want, and press d on hub_combined if you ever need to re-assert it as the default. Press q to quit.

7. Control a connected phone without touching it:

audioctl hub play            # or: pause | next | prev  (AVRCP to the phone)

That's the whole loop - stack, Bluetooth, combine, mixer - done from a text login.

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Worked example: a party box on tty2

A real session on an HP OMEN 16 running Slackware64-current, logged in on a bare tty2 with no graphical environment at all:

• audiod started the full PipeWire stack at console-login time.
• audioctl hub combine created hub_combined, set as the default sink.
• A phone over Bluetooth and a local browser both played into it; the combine sink summed the two.
• The mix went to the internal Speaker, three HDMI outputs, and a Bluetooth speaker at the same time.
• wiremix showed it all live: hub_combined (party mix → all speakers) marked default, each output with its own slider (Speaker 77%, BT Speaker 71%, HDMI 100%…), every peak meter moving in unison.

A text login on a second virtual terminal, running a multi-source, multi-room audio session with a live mixer - driven entirely from the keyboard.

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Keybindings

Inside wiremix (keyboard-first, ideal for a tty):

↑ / k        move up                 ← / h    volume down
↓ / j        move down               → / l    volume up
Tab          next tab                m        mute / unmute
Shift+Tab    previous tab            d        set as default device
=            set exact volume        c        route a stream to another sink
0–9          quick volume (5 = 50%)  q / Esc  quit

On the output tab with the audiod hub, the two you'll use most are d (make hub_combined the default) and the arrow keys (balance each speaker independently).

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Command-line options

Override the config per run:

wiremix -v output              # start on a specific tab
wiremix -T output playback     # which tabs are shown, and their order
wiremix -p auto                # peak meters: off | mono | auto
wiremix -m 200                 # max volume percent
wiremix --no-mouse             # keyboard-only (good on a tty)
wiremix -r pipewire-0          # choose the PipeWire remote (default socket)
wiremix -h                     # full help

Please read wiremix for complete configs and commands.

Credits & license

• wiremix is by Thomas Sowell - https://github.com/tsowell/wiremix. Upstream copyright and its dual MIT / Apache-2.0 license apply to the program itself (see LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE in the docs directory).

Built for Slackware-current. Audio, Bluetooth, and a full mixer - in a bare terminal.