Waveform Image Generator
Turn a track into a waveform picture you can actually use.
or paste one from your clipboard
How to use it
- Drop an audio file onto the page. The waveform is drawn from the decoded samples, not from a preview image, so the shape is the real shape of the recording.
- Pick a size. The presets cover the shapes people actually need (a wide banner, a square post, a full video frame) and you can type any dimensions you like instead.
- Choose bars, filled or line, then set the two colours. Turn on the transparent background if the image is going to sit on top of something else.
- The preview updates as you change things and is the exact image you get. When it looks right, click Download PNG.
What a waveform image is showing you
A waveform picture is not the audio drawn small. There are far more samples in a recording than there are pixels across an image, a three-minute stereo track holds roughly sixteen million of them, so every column has to summarise thousands of samples at once.
The summary used here is the pair of extremes: for each column, the lowest and highest sample value in that slice. Drawing between them means a single sharp transient still produces a visible spike instead of being averaged into the surrounding quiet, which is why these images look the way they do. It also means the picture shows amplitude and nothing else. You can read where the loud parts are, where the silences fall and roughly how compressed the material is. You cannot read pitch, key, instruments or words, however much a waveform in a film implies otherwise.
One consequence surprises people: a heavily limited modern master looks like a solid brick, and a dynamic recording looks lively and varied. That is a real difference in the audio, not a rendering artefact, and it is the quickest visual check on how squashed a file is.
Choosing a size that survives the platform
Export at the size the image will be displayed, or larger. Scaling a PNG up afterwards softens every edge, and a waveform is nothing but edges. Scaling down is harmless.
The aspect ratio matters more than the pixel count. A waveform in a 1080 × 1080 square is short and wide-shouldered, which reads as bold; the same audio at 1600 × 400 becomes a thin ribbon, which reads as decorative. Neither is better, but they are different pictures, so choose the shape before you fuss over the colours. If the image is going into a video, match the video's frame size exactly and let the editor place it. That avoids a resample step that would blur the bars.
Bars, filled and line
Bars leave a gap between columns, which sacrifices detail for legibility. At small sizes this is the only style that stays readable, because a solid shape at 200 pixels tall collapses into a smear. It is also the style people recognise as "audio", since every editor and podcast player uses it.
Filled draws one continuous shape through every peak, upper and lower. It keeps more detail and looks better the larger it gets, which makes it the right choice for print, for large banners and for anything where the texture of the waveform is the point.
Line traces the upper envelope only, with a stroke that scales with the image height. It is by far the lightest visually, so it works over a photograph or a video frame where a filled shape would dominate. With a transparent background it is the closest thing here to an overlay graphic.