AM An audiogram is a short video made from audio: a moving waveform that reacts to the voice, the episode title, and usually captions and a progress bar. Podcasters use them to share a strong 30 to 90 second moment on Instagram, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn and X, where a plain audio file cannot be posted. Shops and coaches use them for voice notes, testimonials and short tips.
This maker does the whole job in your browser. The audio file never leaves your device: it is played into a Web Audio analyser, the frames are drawn on a canvas, and the canvas plus the sound are recorded into a video file on your computer or phone. No account, no watermark and no monthly limit.
How to make an audiogram
- Drop an audio file into the box or click it to choose one. MP3, WAV, M4A and OGG work in current browsers. You can also click Record from microphone, allow access, speak, and press Stop recording. Recording stops on its own at 3 minutes.
- Choose the clip. Type the Start and End in seconds, or play the audio and press Start here at the moment you want. On the waveform strip under the player, click to jump to a point or drag across it to select a range. A clip can be up to 180 seconds.
- Pick a Size: Square 1080 x 1080, Vertical 1080 x 1920 or Landscape 1920 x 1080.
- Set the Background: a two color gradient (diagonal, top to bottom, left to right or radial), a single color, or your own image. Images are cropped to fill the frame, and the Darken image slider (0 to 85%) keeps white text readable.
- Choose a Waveform style (Bars, Line or Circle), its color, the text color, and the waveform size from 50% to 150%.
- Type a Title (up to two lines) and a Subtitle such as the show name. Leave the Progress bar on, and tick Show time left if you want a countdown.
- Optional: add captions, one per line, in the form
0:02 - 0:06 Your text, or paste the text of an SRT file. - Press Play preview to watch the live animation with sound. When it looks right, press Create video. A progress bar shows the recording, and Cancel stops it at any time.
- Watch the result in the player, check the format and file size, and press Download video.
Sizes for each platform
All three sizes render at full 1080p and 30 frames per second. Pick the one that matches where the clip will be posted, so the app does not crop your title or captions.
| Size in this tool | Pixels | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical | 1080 x 1920 (9:16) | Instagram Reels and Stories, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Facebook Reels |
| Square | 1080 x 1080 (1:1) | Instagram and Facebook feed posts, LinkedIn and X posts |
| Landscape | 1920 x 1080 (16:9) | YouTube videos, website embeds, LinkedIn and X when you want a wide player |
Length limits change, so check before you post. As of September 2026, Instagram Reels can be up to 3 minutes long (the limit went up from 90 seconds in January 2025), YouTube Shorts also allow up to 3 minutes, and X allows videos of up to 2 minutes 20 seconds on free accounts. The 3 minute cap in this tool keeps every clip inside those limits. For audience attention, most audiograms work best between 30 and 90 seconds.
In the vertical layout the title sits in the upper part of the frame and the progress bar ends well above the bottom edge, because Reels, Shorts and TikTok place the caption, username and buttons over the lower part of the video.
Styling choices that work
Waveform styles
- Bars: 48 rounded bars (72 in landscape), mirrored from the center. The lowest voice frequencies sit in the middle and higher ones move out to the sides, so speech makes a lively shape that stays centered.
- Line: the actual sound wave as a glowing line, faded at both ends. It looks calm and suits interviews and narration.
- Circle: 96 bars arranged around a ring. It works well on square and vertical videos and leaves room for a logo or face in the background image.
Color and contrast
Keep strong contrast between the waveform, the text and the background. White text on a dark gradient is the safest choice. If you use a photo, raise Darken image to 40 to 60% so the title stays readable on a small phone screen. A waveform in your brand accent color (the default is a warm gold, #F0C46B) pulls the eye to the motion without fighting the title. If you need your exact brand colors, the color picker from image gives you the HEX code from your logo or cover art.
Titles and subtitles
Titles are drawn in bold at about 6% of the frame's shorter side (roughly 63 pixels tall) and wrap onto a second line when they are long. Anything beyond two lines is cut with an ellipsis, so aim for 6 to 10 words. Use the subtitle for the show name, the guest, or "Full episode in bio". Both fields accept up to 90 characters.
Adding captions
Many people watch social video with the sound off, so captions often matter more than the waveform. This tool does not transcribe audio automatically. You type the captions (or paste them), and it shows each one on screen at the right moment in a dark rounded box, up to three lines at a time.
Each caption line needs a start time, an end time and the text:
0:02 - 0:06 Most new sellers price their first product too low.0:06 - 0:11 Start with your real costs, then add the margin you need.
Times can be written as minutes and seconds (0:06 or 0:06.5) or as plain seconds (6.5). They match the audio player on the page, which shows the time in the full file, not in the clip. So if your clip starts at 1:30, the first caption might be 1:31 - 1:35.
The fastest way to time captions is to play the audio, pause where a sentence starts and press Add line at player time. The tool adds a line that starts at that moment and ends 3 seconds later; type the words and adjust the end time. If you already have subtitles from your editing app or a transcription service, paste the SRT file's text into the box. The tool reads the timing lines with --> and ignores the numbers. A note under the box tells you how many captions it read and which lines it could not understand.
Tip: Keep each caption to about 6 to 10 words and 2 to 4 seconds on screen. Short captions are easier to read on a phone than long sentences that fill three lines.
MP4 or WebM: what your browser produces
The video is recorded with MediaRecorder, the recording feature built into every current browser. The browser decides which file formats it can write, and the tool picks the best one it offers, in this order: MP4 with H.264 video, any other MP4, then WebM. Before you export, the line above the Create video button tells you which format your browser will save, and after export the result panel shows the format and the exact codecs.
| Browser | What you usually get | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome and Edge 126 or newer | MP4 | Post it. If an app rejects it, run the one-line ffmpeg fix below. |
| Safari on Mac, iPhone and iPad | MP4 | Post it. |
| Firefox | Usually WebM (VP8 or VP9 video, Opus audio) | YouTube accepts WebM. For Instagram or X, convert to MP4 first. |
| Older Chrome or Edge | WebM | Update the browser, or convert to MP4. |
Chrome added MP4 recording to MediaRecorder in version 126 (June 2024). Browsers write a streaming style of MP4, sometimes called fragmented MP4, and a few desktop players show no running time or cannot seek in it. Social apps normally accept it. If one does not, or if the result panel shows a codec other than H.264 (for example VP9 inside MP4), convert it with the free HandBrake app using a Fast 1080p30 preset, or with ffmpeg:
- Fix a browser MP4 without re-encoding:
ffmpeg -i clip.mp4 -c copy -movflags +faststart fixed.mp4 - Convert WebM (or VP9 MP4) to H.264 MP4:
ffmpeg -i clip.webm -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -movflags +faststart clip.mp4
The result panel prints the ffmpeg command with your file name filled in, so you can copy it straight into a terminal.
Worked examples
A 45 second podcast clip for Instagram Reels
Upload the full 52 minute episode as an MP3. Play to the answer you want, press Start here at 18:12, and set the end to 18:57. Choose Vertical, a navy to gold diagonal gradient, Bars in white, the episode question as the title and the show name as subtitle. Paste six captions from your transcript. Export takes about 45 seconds. Post the MP4 as a Reel and pin a comment with the full episode link.
A product voice note for a Shopify blog
Record a 30 second explanation of how to care for a linen shirt with Record from microphone. Choose Landscape, upload a product photo as the background with Darken image at 55%, and use the Line waveform. Upload the video to YouTube and embed it on the blog post with our YouTube embed code generator.
A testimonial for a LinkedIn post
Take a 25 second clip from a customer call (with their permission), choose Square, a solid dark background and the Circle waveform, and use the customer's first line as the title and their company as the subtitle.
No recording yet? Use text to speech
For a quick draft, turn a script into audio with our text to speech tool, then make an audiogram from that file.
How the tool works
Your audio file is opened by the browser and played through the Web Audio API. An analyser node measures the sound about 60 times per second. The frequency data drives the Bars and Circle styles, and the raw sound wave drives the Line style. Each frame is drawn on a canvas at full video size with your background, text, captions and progress bar. The canvas is captured at 30 frames per second, the audio is taken from the same Web Audio chain, and MediaRecorder combines both into one file at a target bitrate of 6 megabits per second for square video and 8 for vertical and landscape. Simple animations with flat backgrounds usually come out smaller than that.
Because the audio has to actually play to be analysed, export runs in real time: a 60 second clip takes about 60 seconds. By default the sound is muted while exporting, so you can keep working with other audio; tick Play the sound while exporting if you want to hear it. The strip under the player shows a waveform overview for files up to 80 MB and 30 minutes long; for longer files it shows a plain line, and everything else works the same.
Troubleshooting
"Your browser could not play this file"
The tool can only use audio your browser can play. OGG files do not play in older versions of Safari, and some M4A files use codecs a browser cannot read. Convert the file to MP3 or WAV in your editing app and try again.
The video freezes or jumps in places
Browsers slow down animations in background tabs. Keep the audiogram tab open and visible until the export finishes, and avoid switching apps on a phone. The status line warns you if the tab was hidden while recording.
The Create video button is grayed out
Check the line under the clip times: the end must be after the start and the clip must be 180 seconds or shorter. If the line above the button says your browser cannot record video, use a current version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
The microphone does not start
Your browser is blocking microphone access for this site. Click the lock or site settings icon next to the address, allow the microphone, and reload the page. On a phone, also check the browser's microphone permission in the phone settings.
A caption does not appear
The note under the caption box lists lines it could not read. Each line must start with two times separated by a dash, then a space and the text. Also check that the times fall inside your clip, using the times shown in the audio player.
The platform rejects the file
Look at the format in the result panel. If it says WebM, or MP4 with a codec other than H.264, convert it with HandBrake or the ffmpeg command shown under the video.
Limits to know about
- Clips are limited to 3 minutes, and export runs in real time.
- Captions are typed or pasted by you; there is no automatic transcription.
- The output format depends on your browser, as explained above. The tool never converts formats itself.
- There is one text style. For custom fonts, logos placed at exact positions or animated text, use a full video editor after exporting.
- Very long recordings use a lot of memory on phones. Trim the file on a computer first if a phone struggles.
If audiograms are part of a YouTube plan for your podcast or brand, AM Jarvis YouTube Studio helps you research topics from real YouTube searches and write the titles, descriptions and tags that go with each upload. For a single video, the free YouTube title generator is a quick start.