Waveform Image from Audio

Pick an audio file and get a shareable waveform PNG — rendered in your browser, nothing is uploaded.

Make a waveform image from any audio file

Upload an audio file and this tool renders its waveform as a PNG image — the classic soundwave graphic used for podcast covers, social banners, audio-post thumbnails and player artwork. Choose the image size, a solid or gradient wave color and an optional background color, or leave the background empty for a transparent PNG that drops onto any design. The render runs entirely in your browser with ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly (its showwavespic filter), so your audio is never uploaded to a server.

Worked example

Make a social banner for a podcast episode: upload the episode mp3, leave Width and Height empty (the default is a banner-shaped 1200×300), set Wave color to #4f46e5 and Background to #0b1220. The result is a 1200×300 PNG named like the original with a -waveform.png suffix — dark card, indigo wave. Add #ec4899 as the Gradient end and the wave fades indigo→pink left to right. For a transparent overlay to place on top of your own artwork, leave Background empty instead: the PNG keeps its alpha channel, so only the wave itself is opaque. A quiet voice memo that renders as a thin line becomes clearly visible with Amplitude scale set to sqrt or log — and Sampling set to peak keeps short hits visible. Or just tap one of the Try presets under the fields.

Options

Width / Height — image size in pixels (16–4096 × 16–2048). Empty fields use the 1200×300 default.
Wave color — hex color: #RGB, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA (the last two digits are alpha, for a translucent wave). Pick it with the swatch or type it. With One lane per channel, a comma-separated list like #4f46e5,#ec4899 colors each channel's lane (up to 8).
Gradient end — a second hex color. When set, the wave is filled with a horizontal left→right gradient from Wave color to this color. Leave empty for a solid wave.
Background — hex color, or empty for a transparent PNG. An alpha hex like #00000080 bakes in a see-through scrim.
One lane per channel — off (default) downmixes to a single clean mono wave; on draws each channel (e.g. stereo left/right) in its own horizontal lane, sharing the image height.
Amplitude scale — lin is the true waveform; sqrt, cbrt and log progressively boost quiet material so it stays visible.
Sampling — average (default) draws the mean level of each pixel column; peak draws the loudest sample instead, a fuller wave that keeps drum hits and other transients visible.

Limits and edge cases

Input files up to 10 MiB; anything ffmpeg can decode works (mp3, wav, flac, m4a/aac, ogg, opus — and most video containers' audio tracks via the CLI).
The output is always a PNG (with an alpha channel when the background is empty). Colors must be hex — named colors like red are rejected with a hint rather than guessed. Short #f00-style hex is expanded for you.
A gradient (Gradient end set) needs a single Wave color, not a comma list — the gradient runs across the whole image, so split-channel lanes all share it.
Very quiet recordings can look like a flat line in lin scale — that's the honest amplitude, not a bug; switch the scale to sqrt or log, or set Sampling to peak.
A silent file renders only the thin center baseline.
One image per run: the whole track is drawn into the width you choose, one peak column per horizontal pixel — longer audio isn't wider, it's just more compressed.

FAQ

How do I get a transparent background?

Leave the Background field empty (the default). The PNG then keeps its alpha channel, so everything except the wave itself is fully transparent — ideal for dropping the waveform onto your own artwork or a colored card in any editor. Set a hex value like #0b1220 only when you want a flat background baked into the image, or an alpha hex like #00000080 for a half-transparent scrim.

Can the wave be a gradient?

Yes — set Gradient end to a second hex color. The wave is then filled with a smooth horizontal gradient that starts at Wave color on the left and ends at Gradient end on the right (try #f97316 → #ec4899 for a sunset look). Everything else — transparent or solid backgrounds, channel lanes, scales — works the same as with a solid color.

Why does my quiet recording show almost no waveform?

The default lin scale draws true amplitude, and quiet audio genuinely has small peaks. Switch Amplitude scale to sqrt — or log for the strongest boost — to make quiet material fill more of the image height without touching the audio itself. Setting Sampling to peak helps too: it draws each column at the loudest sample instead of the average, so short transients stop disappearing.

What size should I pick for social media or a podcast player?

The default 1200×300 works well for wide banners, link previews and audio-post headers. For a square post, try 1080×1080; for a compact player strip, something like 800×160. Any size from 16×16 up to 4096×2048 works — the whole track is always drawn across the full width. The Try presets under the fields cover the common shapes.

Can I show the left and right channels separately?

Yes — tick One lane per channel. A stereo file then renders two stacked waves (left on top, right below) sharing the image height, and a comma-separated Wave color list like #4f46e5,#ec4899 gives each lane its own color. Off, the channels are downmixed to one mono wave, which is usually the cleaner look for artwork.

Can I make bar-style or circular waveforms?

Not with this tool — it draws the classic continuous waveform (ffmpeg's showwavespic), in solid or gradient color. Bar, dotted and radial "sound-wave art" styles need a different renderer and aren't supported here. What you can vary: size, colors (including alpha), gradient, background, per-channel lanes, amplitude scale and peak sampling.

Is my audio uploaded anywhere?

No. The page downloads an ffmpeg WebAssembly build once and then renders the image locally in the browser tab — the audio never leaves your device.

Developer & Automation Access

Run it from the terminal

Same engine as this page, headless — via the gizza CLI:

gizza tool waveform-image 'url=https://example.com/input' 'width=1200' 'height=300' 'color=#4f46e5' 'split_channels=true' 'scale=lin' 'sampling=average'

New to the CLI? Get gizza →

Open it by URL

Pre-fill and auto-run this tool with query parameters — the names match the API/CLI:

https://gizza.ai/tools/waveform-image/?url=https://example.com/input&width=1200&height=300&color=%234f46e5&split_channels=true&scale=lin&sampling=average