UPDATE: After some great comments, I have optimized the performance of this script and made some brief commentary available here. I have also updated any source code links below to the new github project page.
I don’t quite know what gave me the desire to ever generate audio (specifically MP3) waveforms with PHP — it’s not something I’ll likely ever use — but after doing some research and coming up a bit short I decided to make it happen.
Waveform generated using Dancing With Paris' "(Boardwalk)" MP3.
A few days of Googling, I did come up with a couple solutions but none seemed to really produce the results I wanted. All I was looking to generate was a simple waveform like that in Cubase or other recording software. I don’t need axis labels or left/right audio splits, just a simple mono waveform from an MP3. I also didn’t want to go through hundreds of audio files and convert them into WAV files just to do this — if I was going to do this as an experiment, I wanted it on the fly. I did come across some interesting links though: