Waveform generator

Make a waveform image in three steps

1. Choose an audio or video file, or load the short original sample song.
2. Pick a style (centered bars, bars from the bottom, an editor-style outline or a smooth envelope), a size, bar width and gap, and your colors or a gradient.
3. Download the waveform as a PNG or an SVG.

How the waveform is drawn

The tool decodes the audio in your browser, mixes the channels together and divides the whole recording into as many equal slices as there are bars (or two pixels each for the outline styles). For every slice it finds the loudest sample, which becomes the height of that bar. With "scale the loudest peak to full height" on, the tallest bar always reaches the edge, so quiet recordings still fill the picture; turn it off to keep the true level, where a recording that never gets loud stays small. The outline style keeps the upper and lower halves of the wave separate, the way audio editors show it, and the smooth style averages neighbouring slices into a soft shape.

Ideas for a waveform image

Podcasters put the waveform of an episode on cover art or a YouTube thumbnail. Musicians print the waveform of a song on a poster, a T-shirt or a vinyl insert. A sound wave of a voice message, a first word or a wedding vow makes a personal print or a laser-engraved gift, and the SVG is the file a print shop or engraving service will ask for. Designers use a thin waveform as a divider or header on a website. For a moving version, the audio visualizer turns the same sound into a video.

Sizes and quality

Pick a preset (a 1920 × 400 banner, a 1280 × 720 thumbnail, a 1080 × 1080 square post, a 1080 × 1920 story or a 3000 × 1000 print) or type any size up to 8000 pixels on each side. Bar width and gap are in pixels of the final image, so a bigger image with the same settings shows more bars and more detail. The SVG uses one rectangle per bar or one path for the outline styles, so a long recording at 1-pixel bars makes a large file; wider bars keep it small.

Private by design

The audio is read and drawn on your device. It is never uploaded, and the image is made in this browser tab, so a personal voice message stays personal.