Audio Waveforms

Railcut displays real amplitude waveforms on audio clips. This makes it easier to find beats, pauses, and sync points without having to play the audio.

Enabling waveforms

Go to → Settings → Cache and turn on Show Waveforms. Waveforms may be toggled off to avoid unnecessary processing on comps where you don’t need them.

A “Generating Audio Waveforms” notification appears while extraction is running. Extraction is fast for most files; a few seconds per clip.

Tip

Waveform data is cached by source file. Once generated, waveforms load instantly on subsequent opens, even across AE sessions.

Supported formats

Audio-only files:

• .wav, .mp3, .aac, .aiff / .aif, .flac, .ogg, .m4a

Video containers (audio track extracted):

• .mp4, .mov, .mxf, .mkv, and most other common video containers with an embedded audio track

What doesn’t get waveforms

These layer types don’t generate waveforms:

• Precomps — audio is rendered internally by AE, not a source file
• Solids, text, shape, adjustment, null, camera, light — no audio source

Cache management

Open → Settings → Cache to manage the waveform cache.

Controls:

• Show Waveforms toggle
• Max waveform cache size — limits total disk space used by the waveform cache. Options: 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB (default), 5 GB, Unlimited. When the limit is reached, older entries are pruned automatically.
• Regenerate for This Comp — re-extracts waveform data for all audio layers in the current comp
• Clear All Waveform Cache — removes all cached waveform data

Clearing the cache only removes Railcut’s waveform data files; it has no effect on your AE project or source footage.

Waveform display

Waveforms scale with the clip as you zoom in or out on the timeline. Zoom in to see individual beats more clearly.