wavesurfer.js

Interactive navigable audio visualization using Web Audio and Canvas.

See a tutorial and examples on wavesurfer-js.org.

Browser support

wavesurfer.js works only in modern browsers supporting Web Audio.

It will fallback to Audio Element in other browsers (without graphics). You can also try wavesurfer.swf which is a Flash-based fallback.

FAQ

Can the audio start playing before the waveform is drawn?

Yes, if you use the backend: 'MediaElement' option. See here: https://wavesurfer-js.org/example/audio-element/. The audio will start playing as you press play. A thin line will be displayed until the whole audio file is downloaded and decoded to draw the waveform.

Can drawing be done as file loads?

No. Web Audio needs the whole file to decode it in the browser. You can however load pre-decoded waveform data to draw the waveform immediately. See here: https://wavesurfer-js.org/example/audio-element/ (the "Pre-recoded Peaks" section).

Is wavesurfer.js ES6-compatible?

ES6 refactoring is going on in the next branch. In the meanwhile, you can import wavesurfer.js as an ES6 module via WebPack as described here.

API in examples

Choose a container:

<div id="waveform"></div>

Create an instance, passing the container selector and options:

var wavesurfer = WaveSurfer.create({
    container: '#waveform',
    waveColor: 'violet',
    progressColor: 'purple'
});

Subscribe to some events:

wavesurfer.on('ready', function () {
    wavesurfer.play();
});

Load an audio file from a URL:

wavesurfer.load('example/media/demo.wav');

Documentation

See the documentation on all available methods, options and events on the homepage.

Related projects

For a list of projects using wavesurfer.js, check out the projects page.

Development

Install grunt-cli using npm:

npm install -g grunt-cli

Install development dependencies:

npm install

Build a minified version of the library and plugins. This command also checks for code-style mistakes and runs the tests:

grunt

Generated files are placed in the dist directory.

Running tests only:

grunt test

Creating a coverage report:

grunt coverage

The HTML report can be found in coverage/html/index.html.

Editing documentation

The homepage and documentation files are maintained in the gh-pages branch. Contributions to the documentation are especially welcome.

Credits

Initial idea by Alex Khokhulin. Many thanks to the awesome contributors!

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.