Audio Waveform too "zoomed in" Version 25.4.1.

Forum|Forum|11 days ago
July 13, 2026
3 replies
32 views

This may be hard to explain. My audio waveforms on the timeline are too high. I’m not talking about the vertical height of the track. I mean the display itself (marked in red) is higher as if the audio is louder than it actually is, and it’s never been like that before. It should be maybe halfway up, not nearly all the way.

I think I accidentally hit some combo of keys that made it happen, but I’m not sure, and don’t know if there’s a setting to look for. To help it make sense, in Audition, you can change the decibel range on the right side, which will make the waveform appear taller or shorter.

So if it’s like this…

And I change the decibel range by scrolling my mouse wheel over it to display just the range I’m working with, the waveform “zooms in”, making it appear louder when it’s not. It’s just showing the audio more closely.

This is what it seems like happened to my audio timeline in Premiere, only it doesn’t have that decibel range thing on the side, just the volume meter, so I have no idea what I could’ve pressed to make it happen or how to undo it. Hopefully, one of you knows. Thanks!

P

PaulMurphy

Community Expert

Click the panel menu on the Timeline (the three horizontal lines next to the sequence name), then untick Logarithmic Waveform Scaling.

Averdahl

Community Expert

@whamalamaboom How does it look if you un-check Rectified Audio Waveforms in the Timeline menu? On the Timeline, click on the “hamburger menu” on the right of the name to bring up the menu.

Personally i have always avoided recitified audio waveforms since it is too inaccurate and imprecise compared to the standard audio waveforms.

whamalamaboomAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for the response! But it’s not that, and I visually prefer rectified.

MarekMularczyk

Community Expert

How loud is your audio? What’s the peak volume level?

Adobe Community ExpertAdobe Certified Professional

whamalamaboomAuthor

Inspiring

It varies depending on the clip. I think the example I showed has a max peak overall at -6db, though there’s a 3db boost on the mixer, which isn’t the issue and is typical for all of these projects with the same source for the same purpose, which I’ve done hundreds of at this point.

The issue is that I hit something and it suddenly made waveforms look more zoomed in as if I increased the loudness, but I didn’t. All of the audio sounds the same and has the same peaks they did before whatever I did. I just can’t figure out what I did and it’s visually throwing me off lol

I didn’t try dumping preferences yet because I was hoping there’s some setting for it that I accidentally triggered the keyboard shortcut for. But I may need to do that.

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