MyMediaTools

Convert VOC to AIFF — Free Online Tool

Convert VOC audio files — the classic Creative Labs Sound Blaster format used in DOS-era games — to AIFF, Apple's uncompressed professional audio format. This tool transcodes the raw PCM audio from VOC's unsigned 8-bit or signed 16-bit encoding into AIFF's big-endian PCM format, preserving full audio fidelity in a container compatible with macOS, Logic Pro, and professional audio workflows.

FFmpeg Command

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Estimated output:

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How It Works

VOC files store raw PCM audio in little-endian byte order, typically as unsigned 8-bit (pcm_u8) or signed 16-bit little-endian (pcm_s16le) samples — a legacy of the Sound Blaster hardware architecture. AIFF, by contrast, requires big-endian PCM samples (pcm_s16be) as mandated by its Motorola 68k and PowerPC origins. During this conversion, FFmpeg reads the VOC container's chunk-based structure, extracts the raw PCM stream, converts the sample encoding from little-endian to big-endian signed 16-bit format, and wraps the result in an AIFF container with proper Apple IFF headers. No lossy compression is applied at any stage — this is a lossless transcoding of the PCM data with only byte-order and container changes.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) for this online tool, or on your local machine when run from the terminal.
-i input.voc Specifies the input file — a VOC audio file using Creative Labs' Sound Blaster container format, which FFmpeg parses by reading its chunk-based header to determine sample rate, bit depth, and encoding (typically pcm_u8 or pcm_s16le).
-c:a pcm_s16be Sets the output audio codec to signed 16-bit big-endian PCM, which is the standard encoding required by the AIFF container. This step converts VOC's little-endian or unsigned byte ordering into the big-endian format that AIFF — and macOS audio tools — expect.
output.aiff Defines the output filename with the .aiff extension, which causes FFmpeg to write an Audio Interchange File Format container as standardized by Apple, wrapping the pcm_s16be audio stream in a format natively supported by macOS, Logic Pro, and GarageBand.

Common Use Cases

  • Importing sound effects ripped from classic DOS games (Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood) into modern DAWs like Logic Pro or GarageBand that natively support AIFF
  • Archiving vintage Sound Blaster audio samples from 1990s multimedia CD-ROMs into a professionally recognized lossless format for long-term preservation on macOS systems
  • Bringing retro game music or sfx assets into modern game engines or audio tools that accept AIFF but don't recognize the VOC container
  • Converting VOC dialogue or music files extracted from old educational software into AIFF for use in video production or podcast restoration projects
  • Preparing DOS-era audio samples for use in hardware samplers or professional audio hardware that reads AIFF from USB or SD storage
  • Migrating a retro gaming sound library from a Windows-centric workflow (where VOC might be playable) to a macOS-centric studio environment where AIFF is the native uncompressed format

Frequently Asked Questions

No — this conversion is entirely lossless. Both VOC and AIFF store uncompressed PCM audio, and the FFmpeg command simply re-wraps the PCM data in a new container while converting the byte order from little-endian (VOC) to big-endian (AIFF). The only caveat is that if your VOC file uses 8-bit unsigned PCM (pcm_u8), the output will be 16-bit signed big-endian PCM, which is technically a bit-depth upgrade — the audio content is preserved faithfully, though the file size will roughly double compared to the original 8-bit source.
Stream copying (-c:a copy) is not possible here because AIFF does not support the PCM encodings native to VOC files. VOC uses unsigned 8-bit PCM (pcm_u8) or signed little-endian 16-bit PCM (pcm_s16le), neither of which is valid inside an AIFF container. AIFF requires big-endian signed PCM — specifically pcm_s16be at 16-bit depth. FFmpeg must therefore decode the VOC PCM and re-encode it in big-endian format, which is a fast, lossless process rather than a perceptually lossy compression step.
Yes, AIFF supports pcm_s24be, pcm_s32be, pcm_f32be, and pcm_f64be. You can modify the FFmpeg command to use -c:a pcm_s24be for 24-bit output, for example. However, since VOC source files are recorded at 8-bit or 16-bit depth, upsampling to 24-bit or 32-bit adds no real audio information — the dynamic range ceiling is still determined by the original VOC recording. For archival purposes it's fine, but for practical use, pcm_s16be is the most appropriate match for the source material's actual resolution.
Yes. FFmpeg reads the sample rate stored in the VOC file's header chunks and carries it through to the AIFF output unchanged. VOC files from DOS games often use non-standard sample rates like 8000 Hz, 11025 Hz, or 22050 Hz rather than the modern 44100 Hz standard. Your AIFF output will reflect the original sample rate, which is correct behavior — you can resample separately with -ar 44100 in the FFmpeg command if you need standard CD-quality rate for compatibility with specific software.
On macOS or Linux, you can run a shell loop in the terminal: for f in *.voc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.voc}.aiff"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.voc) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aiff". This processes each VOC file in the current directory and outputs a matching AIFF file with the same base name. The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is especially useful when you have a large library of VOC files to convert in bulk.
Yes. AIFF with pcm_s16be encoding is one of the most natively supported formats on macOS and is directly compatible with Finder's QuickLook, the Music app (formerly iTunes), Logic Pro, GarageBand, and virtually all professional Apple-platform audio tools. The only thing to be aware of is that if the source VOC file has an unusual sample rate (like 8000 Hz or 11025 Hz), some consumer applications may play it at an unexpected pitch or speed — this is a property of the original file, not an artifact of the conversion.

Technical Notes

VOC is a chunked container format where audio data is preceded by type-identified blocks describing sample rate, bit depth, and channel count — a structure Creative Labs designed for real-time Sound Blaster playback under DOS. The format's default codec is unsigned 8-bit PCM (pcm_u8), which encodes silence as 128 rather than 0, representing a different zero-crossing convention than the signed PCM formats used in modern audio. When FFmpeg converts this to AIFF's pcm_s16be, it correctly remaps the unsigned 8-bit values to signed 16-bit space. VOC files do not carry metadata such as artist, title, or album tags, so the resulting AIFF file will also have no embedded metadata — you will need to tag it manually in your DAW or audio tool. VOC also lacks support for stereo in its most common 8-bit variant; many DOS game VOC files are mono. FFmpeg will carry the mono channel configuration into the AIFF output faithfully, and most AIFF-compatible applications handle mono AIFF correctly. File size will roughly double compared to an 8-bit mono VOC source, since the output is 16-bit (two bytes per sample vs. one) in a slightly larger container.

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