Sonic Visualiser is an application for viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files. It is a free software distributed under the GPL-2.0-or-later licence.
Sonic Visualiser was developed at the Queen Mary University of London's Centre for Digital Music in 2007. It was written in C++ with Qt and released under the terms of the GNU GPL.
Sonic Visualiser represents acoustic features of the audio file either as a waveform or as a spectrogram. A spectrogram is a heatmap, where the horizontal axis represents time, the vertical axis represents frequency, and the colors show presence of frequencies. The sharpness and smoothness of the spectrogram can be configured. There are three types of spectrogram:
Generic spectrogram covers the full frequency range and uses linear frequency scale. Melodic-range spectrogram covers the range which usually contains musical detail. Peak-frequency spectrogram performs phase difference calculations and estimates exact frequencies at each peak cell.
What is Sonic Visualiser?
Sonic Visualiser by sonicvisualiser.org is open-source Windows software in the music players category. It ranks 30th by popularity among music players in this catalogue. It is written in C++. Besides Windows, it is available for Unix-like operating system.
Installation and requirements
The publisher provides MSI installers for 64-bit Windows. It can be installed for the current user only, without administrator rights. A silent install is possible with the installer’s documented switches. An MSI package is available for deployment with Group Policy, Intune or Configuration Manager.
Updates and version history
The current version is 5.2.1, released on March 21, 2025. The version history goes back to September 17, 2021: 3 releases, all linked to the official files. That is about 0.9 releases a year. The last update is more than a year old.
Popularity and file types
The Chocolatey package has been downloaded 3,846 times. The source code on GitHub (sonic-visualiser/sonic-visualiser) has 906 stars. Wikipedia has an article about it in 4 of our languages. Similar programs include Spotify, iTunes and FLAC.
Project description on GitHub: “Visualisation, analysis, and annotation of music audio recordings”
Pros / Cons
Pros
- Open source: the code can be inspected and built by anyone
- MSI package for managed deployment
- Documented silent install
- Installs without administrator rights
- Also runs on Unix-like operating system
Cons
- No native ARM64 build
- No update for more than a year
In short: Sonic Visualiser is an open-source music player tool for 64-bit PCs. Updates have slowed down. Administrators can deploy it unattended.
Is Sonic Visualiser safe to download?
- The file is served by github.com, the publisher’s own domain
- The download link uses HTTPS
- A SHA256 hash is published, so you can verify the file:
FB421363DB474DE2161EF5E73D5A5A1F548D2DF0624D811AD0713E76BDAE43B1· Open the VirusTotal report for this hash - The link has not been checked yet
- The source code is public
- ExeAtlas does not host, wrap or modify installers
Related guide: How to check a file’s SHA256 hash on Windows
Recent versions
All 3 versions ›3 versions over 4 years · about 0.9 a year
| Version | Date | Size | Files |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.2.1Latest | March 21, 2025 | — | 64-bit MSI |
| 4.5 | March 31, 2022 | — | 32-bit MSI64-bit MSI |
| 4.4 | September 17, 2021 | — | 32-bit MSI64-bit MSI |
Install from the command line
Silent install ›winget install --id SonicVisualiser.SonicVisualiser -echoco install sonicvisualiser -yscoop install extras/sonic-visualisermsiexec /i sonic-visualiser-5.2.1-win64.msi /qn /norestartmsiexec /x {769687F7-150C-4A38-B39C-2187315D1186} /qn /norestartRelated guide: How to use winget: install and update apps
Also for other systems
brew install --cask sonic-visualiserInformation
- Publisher
- sonicvisualiser.org
- Category
- Music players
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
- Price
- Free
- Source code
- github.com/sonic-visualiser/sonic-visualiser
- Written in
- C++
- Requires
- Windows 11 / 10
- Architecture
- 64-bit
- Installer
- MSI
- Other platforms
- Unix-like operating system
- Version
- 5.2.1
- Released
- March 21, 2025
- Added to the catalogue
- November 3, 2021
- Versions listed
- 3
- Updates / year
- 0.9
- Chocolatey downloads
- 3,846
- GitHub stars
- 906
- GitHub forks
- 88
- Website
- sonicvisualiser.org
- winget ID
- SonicVisualiser.SonicVisualiser
- Chocolatey package
- sonicvisualiser
- Scoop package
- extras/sonic-visualiser
- MSI product code
- {769687F7-150C-4A38-B39C-2187315D1186}
Ratings and reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to rate it.
Alternatives to Sonic Visualiser
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sonic Visualiser free?
Yes. Sonic Visualiser is open-source software under the GPL-2.0 licence.
Is Sonic Visualiser safe to download?
The download comes from github.com, which belongs to the publisher; ExeAtlas does not host or change the file. Compare its SHA256 hash with the one shown here, or open the VirusTotal report for that hash.
How do I install Sonic Visualiser with winget?
Open PowerShell or Windows Terminal and run the winget command shown on this page. winget downloads the official installer and checks its SHA256 hash before running it.
Can Sonic Visualiser be installed silently?
Yes. The silent install page lists the exact command for each installer, including msiexec for the MSI package.
Does Sonic Visualiser run on ARM (Windows on Arm)?
There is no ARM64 build; Windows 11 on Arm can run the 64-bit version through emulation.
Where can I download an older version of Sonic Visualiser?
The versions page lists all 3 versions with links to their official installer files, back to September 17, 2021.
Can I use Sonic Visualiser without administrator rights?
Yes, there is a per-user installer that does not need administrator rights.
What are alternatives to Sonic Visualiser?
Spotify, iTunes, FLAC, Mixxx and Clementine. The alternatives page compares them.
