Convert WEBA to VOC — Free Online Tool
Convert WEBA audio files (WebM containers with Opus or Vorbis encoding) to VOC format, the classic Creative Labs Sound Blaster audio format used in DOS-era games and multimedia software. This tool decodes the compressed WEBA audio stream and re-encodes it as raw 8-bit unsigned PCM, producing an authentic VOC file fully compatible with retro gaming environments and DOS applications.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
Drop your WEBA file here
or click to browse
Free — no uploads, no signups. Your files never leave your browser.
Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
WEBA files store audio as compressed Opus or Vorbis streams inside a WebM container — a modern, lossy codec designed for efficient web streaming. Converting to VOC requires full decoding of that compressed audio stream, followed by re-encoding as raw uncompressed PCM audio. The default output uses 8-bit unsigned PCM (pcm_u8), which is the native format of the Creative Labs Sound Blaster card. Because VOC is a lossless PCM format, the conversion captures an accurate digital representation of the decoded audio, but the original lossy compression artifacts from the WEBA source are preserved in the decoded signal — the VOC itself introduces no further quality loss. The resulting file will typically be significantly larger than the source WEBA, since raw PCM has no compression.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg media processing tool. In this browser-based tool, FFmpeg runs as a WebAssembly (wasm) binary entirely within your browser — no file data leaves your machine. |
-i input.weba
|
Specifies the input WEBA file. FFmpeg reads the WebM container, identifies whether the audio stream is Opus or Vorbis encoded, and prepares it for decoding into raw PCM samples. |
-c:a pcm_u8
|
Selects the pcm_u8 encoder for the audio output stream, producing 8-bit unsigned PCM — the native bit depth of the original Creative Labs Sound Blaster hardware and the default codec for VOC files. |
output.voc
|
Defines the output filename with the .voc extension, which causes FFmpeg to use the VOC muxer and write a properly structured Creative Labs VOC file containing the decoded, re-encoded PCM audio data. |
Common Use Cases
- Preparing modern web-sourced audio for use as sound effects in DOS game mods or romhacks that require VOC files for the Sound Blaster driver
- Importing audio into legacy multimedia authoring tools from the early 1990s (such as Multimedia Toolbook or older versions of Authorware) that only accept VOC input
- Supplying replacement sound assets for classic id Software titles like Doom, Quake, or Commander Keen, which load Sound Blaster audio in VOC format
- Archiving or researching early PC multimedia audio pipelines by converting contemporary web audio into the exact PCM format used by 1990s sound hardware
- Creating authentic retro sound assets from modern Opus-encoded sources for use in DOSBox environments or vintage hardware emulators that consume VOC files directly
- Testing Sound Blaster emulation layers in software by generating VOC files from known audio sources for comparison against reference output
Frequently Asked Questions
The conversion will not degrade quality beyond what already exists in the WEBA source. WEBA uses lossy Opus or Vorbis compression, so any artifacts introduced during that original encoding are already baked into the audio signal. The VOC output uses uncompressed 8-bit unsigned PCM, which captures the decoded audio exactly — no additional lossy step is applied. However, 8-bit PCM has an inherently limited dynamic range (roughly 48 dB), so audio that was encoded at high quality in WEBA may sound noticeably noisier or shallower once stored at pcm_u8 bit depth.
WEBA files use Opus or Vorbis compression, which can reduce file size by 90% or more compared to uncompressed audio. VOC stores raw PCM samples with no compression at all — every sample is written as a literal byte value. A one-minute stereo audio clip at 44.1 kHz in 8-bit PCM will occupy roughly 5 MB, whereas the equivalent WEBA file might be under 1 MB. This size increase is an inherent property of the lossless, uncompressed VOC format.
Yes — the VOC format supports 16-bit signed little-endian PCM (pcm_s16le) in addition to 8-bit unsigned PCM. To use it, change the FFmpeg command to: ffmpeg -i input.weba -c:a pcm_s16le output.voc. This doubles the file size compared to 8-bit output but provides 96 dB of dynamic range instead of 48 dB, which is a significant quality improvement for music or complex sound effects. Note that some very old DOS applications and Sound Blaster drivers only support 8-bit VOC files, so check your target software's compatibility before switching codecs.
No. The VOC format has virtually no support for embedded metadata tags. Creative Labs designed VOC as a simple, low-overhead audio container focused on raw sample data and basic playback parameters like sample rate and bit depth. Any ID3-style tags or Vorbis comment metadata present in the WEBA file will be silently discarded during conversion. If preserving metadata is important, document it separately before converting.
On Linux or macOS, you can use a shell loop: for f in *.weba; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_u8 "${f%.weba}.voc"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.weba) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_u8 "%~nf.voc". Each WEBA file in the current directory will be decoded and written to a corresponding VOC file. Processing time is fast since VOC output requires no complex encoding — it is essentially a PCM dump of the decoded audio stream.
FFmpeg will carry the sample rate from the decoded WEBA audio into the VOC output by default, which is commonly 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz for Opus-encoded WEBA files. Many original Sound Blaster cards and DOS game engines were designed for lower sample rates such as 8000 Hz, 11025 Hz, or 22050 Hz. If your target application rejects the file or plays it at the wrong pitch, add -ar 22050 (or another supported rate) to the FFmpeg command before the output filename to force a specific sample rate via resampling.
Technical Notes
The VOC format was introduced by Creative Labs in the early 1990s as the native audio format for the Sound Blaster ISA card family. It uses a simple block-based structure containing a fixed header, sample rate, bit depth, and raw PCM data blocks. FFmpeg's VOC muxer supports pcm_u8 and pcm_s16le codecs; stereo audio is technically supported by some VOC variants but many DOS applications only handle mono. If your target application is strictly DOS-era software, consider adding -ac 1 to the command to downmix to mono and -ar 22050 to match the sample rates most commonly used by Sound Blaster drivers of that era. The WEBA input may contain either Opus or Vorbis audio — FFmpeg auto-detects and decodes either transparently, so no changes to the command are needed based on which codec is inside the WEBA container. One important limitation: because the WEBA source is lossy and the VOC output is 8-bit PCM by default, the final audio quality is constrained by both the original Opus/Vorbis encoding quality and the narrow dynamic range of 8-bit PCM. For archival or professional use cases, consider whether the original audio can be sourced in a lossless format before converting to VOC.