WAV

Waveform Audio File Format
Developer:	Microsoft, IBM
Header:	RIFF
Content:	PCM
Instruments:	Intrinsic
Target Output
Released:	1991-08-??
First Game:	?
Extensions	*.wav

The Waveform Audio File Format (WAV) is a container format for audio data developed by Microsoft and IBM. Although the format supports pretty much any audio codec, it almost always uses Microsoft's uncompressed pulse code modulation format which supports sampling as low as 8 KHz, 8 bit mono to 48 KHz, 16 bit stereo. The VGMPF will not store the ripped soundtrack of games that use wave because the ratio is 1-to-1 (and because they take up too much space). The OGG recording will sound nearly identical, so the wave format is not needed.

Players

(Category)

• Audacity - Linux, Macintosh, Windows
• Creative Wave - Windows
• Creative WaveStudio - Windows
• Digital Sound System - DOS
• foobar2000 - Windows
• Game Audio Player - Windows
• GoldWave - Windows
• Multi Media Machine - DOS
• Play SND - DOS
• Sound Recorder - Windows
• VLC - Android, FreeBSD, Linux, Macintos, Windows
• Winamp - Android, Macintosh, Windows
• Windows Media Player - Windows
• XMMS - Linux
• XMPlay - Windows

Editors

(Category)

• Audacity - Linux, Macintosh, Windows
• Creative Wave - Windows
• Creative WaveStudio - Windows
• GoldWave - Windows
• Sound Recorder - Windows

Converters

(Category)

WAV to ?

• Audacity - Linux, Macintosh, Windows - AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, AU, FLAC, MP2, MP3, OGG, WMA
• Creative WaveStudio - Windows - RAW, VOC
• Digital Sound System - DOS - MP3
• foobar2000 - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AU, FLAC, OGG, MP3, MusePack, Wave64, WavPack
• GoldWave - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AIFFC, AU, IFF, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, M4A, MP3, RAW, VOC, VOX, WMA, XAC
• Play SND - DOS - RAW, SND (Tandy), VOC
• Sound Recorder - Windows - WMA
• VLC - Android, FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh, Windows - FLAC, M4A, MP3, OGG

? to WAV

• AUD to WAV - DOS - AUD
• Audacity - Linux, Macintosh, Windows - AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, AU, FLAC, MP2, MP3, OGG, WMA
• Creative WaveStudio - Windows - RAW, VOC
• Digital Orchestrator Pro - Windows - MIDI
• Digital Sound System - DOS - CD, MIDI, MP1, MP2, MP3, VOC
• FamiTracker - Windows 32 - FTM
• foobar2000 - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AU, FLAC, OGG, MP3, MusePack, Wave64, WavPack
• Game Audio Player - Windows 32 - BLBSFX
• GoldWave - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AIFFC, AU, IFF, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, M4A, MP3, RAW, VOC, VOX, WMA, XAC
• jPSXdec - Java - GRN, RTF, RTR, XA, XAS
• libdmusic - Linux, Windows 32, Windows 64 - DLS, SGT
• ModPlug Player - WIndows 32 - IT, MOD, S3M, XM
• Play SND - DOS - AIFF, AU, IFF, RAW, SND (Tandy), VOC
• SID to WAV - Windows - SID
• Sound Club - Windows 32 - MOD, S3M, SN, SN2
• VLC - Android, FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh, Windows - FLAC, M4A, MP3, OGG

Games

(Category)

Released	Title	Sample
1996-11-30	Diablo (W32)
1997-03-06	Magic: The Gathering (W32)
1997-11-19	Lords of Magic (W32)
1997-11-24	Hellfire (W32)
2001-11-19	Return to Castle Wolfenstein (W32)
2001-??-??	Analog Devices Sound Demo (W32)
2002-08-11	Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. (W32)
2003-10-29	Call of Duty (W32)

How to Obtain

WAV files usually have to be manually extracted from game files, a process that is different for pretty much every game that uses them. If the game stores a WAV file in an uncompressed file, Game Audio Player can extract it, though it won't retain the file name.

Technical

All WAV files use a RIFF tree structure, and the identifier is WAVE.

RIFF Tree Structure

File Root
│
└─ RIFF:WAVE     - RIFF Wave header
   ├─ fmt        - Wave format chunk
   └─ data       - Waveform data chunk

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV - Wikipedia.
• media.io - Online converter.