How to generate a sine wave with ffmpeg?

Question

I would like to generate an audio file with a sine (sinusoid) wave with FFmpeg. I know there is a sine filter but that's as far as it goes.

I tried:

fmpeg -filter "sine=48:1:5" -c:a pcms16le test

to create 5 seconds of audio at 48kHz in PCM S16LE format, but I got the following error message:

Output file #0 does not contain any stream

and the test file is empty.

You can also play a sine without creating a file with ffplay: stackoverflow.com/questions/5109038/linux-sinus-audio-generator/… — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Commented Aug 22, 2019 at 14:03

Rajib · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-04 14:05:42Z

34

To generate a 1000 Hz signal for 5 seconds duration use this:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=1000:duration=5" test.wav

You can add -c:a pcm_s16le:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=1000:duration=5" -c:a pcm_s16le test.wav

To also set the sampling rate to 48 KHz:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=1000:sample_rate=48000:duration=5" -c:a pcm_s16le test.wav

answered Mar 4, 2014 at 13:50

Rajib

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4

You can also set the amplitude by adding for example: -af "volume=-18dB" (for -18dBFS).
– mivk
Commented Dec 29, 2017 at 15:16

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2024-09-11 14:19:42Z

14

If you wanted to do this in stereo, you would do the following:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=1000:duration=5" -ac 2 output.wav

You could also use -filter_complex with amerge:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=1000:duration=5" -filter_complex "[0:a][0:a]amerge=inputs=2[aout]" -map "[aout]" output.wav

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 16, 2017 at 20:35

ocdude

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2 Answers 2