Audio waveform image
Draw the whole of a recording as one picture.
A waveform is the shape of the sound over time, and it is more useful than it looks: it makes a podcast thumbnail, it sits behind a title on a cover, and it shows at a glance where in a two-hour recording anybody actually said anything. Choose the size and the colour, and draw the channels together or one above the other.
How to use it
- Add the audio file.
- Set the size and pick a colour.
- Press Draw the waveform and download the PNG.
Why use this tool
Completely private
Everything runs inside your browser. Your files and text are never sent to a server.
Free, with no limits
No sign-up, no watermarks and no cap on how many times you can use it.
Instant results
There is no upload or queue to wait for, so results appear as fast as your device can work.
Works on any device
Runs in any modern browser on phone, tablet or desktop. Nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
- What size should I make it?
- Wider than you need and then scale it down, because a waveform scaled up goes soft. 1600 by 400 covers most uses; go to 3000 wide if it is going across a full page.
- Does the image have a transparent background?
- No, the background is black. To place it over something else, use the multiply or screen blend mode in whatever you are laying it out in.
- What does drawing the channels separately do?
- It puts the left channel above the right instead of drawing them over one another. On a stereo recording that shows which side sound came from. On a mono file it makes no difference.
- Why does my waveform look like one solid block?
- Because the recording is loud and evenly levelled throughout, which is normal for music that has been mastered. Quiet passages and speech produce the more recognisable shape.