File Overview

This section explains file formats and gives general information about how files are handled by GoldWave. Several features for storing and handling files can be configured using Options | Storage and Options | File Formats.

File Format

Sound files come in a variety of forms. Usually, the form or type of sound can be determined from its filename extension, such as .wav or .mp3. GoldWave supports all the sound types listed in the Supported File Types table, and more depending on installed file format plug-ins. Each file type can have several sub-formats or attributes. The .wav type for example, can hold audio encoded or compressed in dozens of different ways, including PCM, ADPCM, companded, MPEG1 Layer 3, or iTunes compatible M4A.

The table indicates supported features within the file type: cue points (Cues), file information such artist, title, and other metadata (Info), Surround Sound (SrndS), and file sizes larger than 4GB.

Supported File Types
Extension	Comments	Cues	Info	SrndS	>4GB
.aiff .aifc .afc	Apple / Macintosh sound files. Compressed files are not supported. Cue points are supported. File text information is supported in ANSI only. NAME, COPY, ANNO, AUTH, genr, ©url, ©trk, ©day, and ©art are preserved.		ANSI
.ac3	AC3 compressed files. GoldWave does not support these files directly, but it may open them automatically using system decoders. If not, installing the AC3Filter for DirectShow (search Google) may work.
.ape	Monkey's Audio compressed files. Requires the APEFile plug-in.		ANSI ID3v1
.asf .avi	Microsoft audio and/or video files. GoldWave can extract the audio portions of these files, but cannot save or create them. See .wma and .wmv below.		.asf only
.au	Sun or NeXT files, commonly used on web pages and in Java. Supports 8 & 16 bit linear, mu-law and A-law encoded files. No support for file text information.
.flac	FLAC sound files. This is a lossless compressed format. GoldWave supports 8, 16, and 24 bit attributes with low (fast), medium, and high (slow) modes of compression.		UTF8
.iff	Amiga 8SVX files. NAME, COPY, ANNO, AUTH, and CHAN are all preserved. Limited support for file text information.		some
.mat	Matlab files. The data must be normalized (i.e. -1.0 to 1.0) for double precision data. If the "wavedata" variable is two dimensional, the data is assumed to be stereo. GoldWave saves audio data in the "wavedata" variable and the rate in the "samplingrate" variable. A 11025Hz sampling rate is assumed if none is present. No support for file text information.
.mov	QuickTime movie files. GoldWave may use system decoders or QuickTime decoders to extract the audio portion from the file (if present). See the .mp4 and .m4a types for more information. Files cannot be saved in this format.
.mp3	MPEG1 Layer 3 compressed sound files. To read these files, you must have an MPEG decoder installed (usually included with Windows). To save a file in this format, you must have the LAME encoder installed. See the GoldWave website for details. File text information is supported in ID3v2 tags using unicode (UTF-16). The ID3v1 tag is read, but not written.
.m4p	Copy protected/encrypted iTune/MPEG4 sound files. These files cannot be opened in GoldWave. Upgrade them to iTunes Plus to remove the copy protection/encryption. Upgraded files become .m4a files, which can be opened in GoldWave.
.mp4 .m4a .aac	Unencrypted iTune/MPEG4/AAC sound files. GoldWave opens these files through the Media Foundation system decoders and allows saving if the AAC encoder is installed. File information is preserved.		ANSI
.opus	Opus compressed sound files. Gives better quality compression than MP3 and covers a wide range of audio applications. Files are always encoded at 48,000 Hz. Refer to the Opus website for more information. File text information is supported. Opus uses a non-standard channel layout for 4 or 5 channels. See the vorbis channel order (used for Opus) for details.		UTF8	5.1, 7.1
.ogg	Ogg Vorbis compressed sound files. Gives better quality compression than MP3. Refer to the Vorbis website for more information. File text information is supported. See the vorbis channel order for details.		UTF8	5.1, 7.1
.raw	Headerless files containing binary data in 8 bit, 12 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit, 32 bit, single or double precision IEEE, mu-law, or A-law format.
.sds	MIDI instrument sample dump standard format. Loop points are not supported. No support for file text information.
.smp	Sample Vision 16 bit PCM sound files. Markers/Loops are not supported. No support for file text information.
.snd	Raw or NeXT sound files. NeXT files are automatically detected. Opening Raw files displays the File Format window for attributes. No support for file text information.
.txt	An ASCII text file containing a series of Y values (amplitudes) in human readable form. Values range from -1.0 to +1.0 (but may be +/-10.0) for floating point data and -32768 to +32767 for integer data. No support for file text information.
.voc	Sound Blaster files. Supports: 8 bit mono/stereo, 16 bit mono/stereo, mu-law encoded mono/stereo. ADPCM compressed files are not supported since the compression algorithm must be licensed from Creative Labs. No support for file text information.
.vox	Dialogic ADPCM encoded raw files. The File Format window is presented where you can specify the Telephony type and 4 bit VOX ADPCM format. You can use the Options | File Formats command to assign a default format for .vox files. No support for file text information.
.wav	RIFF WAVE 8 to 32 bit PCM mono or stereo, A-law encoded, mu-law encoded, and Microsoft ACM compressed files. MPEG compressed audio is support only if the MPEG decoder is installed. Only files with one data chunk are supported. The chunks fact, LIST INFO, LIST adtl, and cue are detected. All others are ignored. Cue points are supported. File text information is supported in ANSI only.	ANSI	ANSI
.wma	Windows Media Audio files. Supports several different bitrates from low bandwidth to high quality lossless. File text information and cue points are supported.	name only
.wmv	Windows Media Video files. The first audio track is extracted from the video file. File text information and cue points are read. Files cannot be saved in this format.
.wv	WavPack compressed files. GoldWave does not support these directly. Installing the DirectShow Filter from the WavPack website may allow GoldWave to open and convert them.
.xac	Extended Audio Container. Currently used only by GoldWave.	UTF8	UTF8

Supported

Limited support

Unsupported

File Format Window

Use the File Format window to manually specify the format and attributes of the audio in a file that cannot be opened automatically.

Normally GoldWave detects and automatically opens all the supported file types. However, there are several cases where GoldWave may not be able to open a file:

• The file does not contain any header information and there is no file association (see Options | File Formats).
• The file type is recognized, but the file structure is invalid or corrupt.
• The file uses a new compression method or format that GoldWave does not recognize.
• The file type is not supported by GoldWave or any plug-ins.

If any of these conditions occur, GoldWave displays the File Format window (shown below) so that you can specify the type and attributes manually. GoldWave lists all the file format plug-ins that support reading raw audio data. If you are working with PCM or uncompressed binary data (like CD audio), select the Raw type. If you are working with Telephony files, select the Dialogic type. Other types may be listed depending on what plug-ins you have installed.

If this window appears when opening MP3 files or iTunes, then the decoders or plug-ins required to open the files are not installed on the computer. GoldWave cannot open the file properly unless those are installed.

Figure: File Format

File Format Settings
Setting	Description
File	Sets the file type or plug-in to use to open the file.
Attributes	Specifies the structure, range, and layout of the audio data supported by the file type or plug-in. See the Attributes section for details. Common format attributes are listed below. Format Description and Attributes PCM Audio is uncompressed 8, 12, 16, or 32 bit data. A Windows system usually creates 8 bit, unsigned or 16 bit, signed, little endian data. A Macintosh system usually creates 8 bit, signed and 16 bit, signed, big endian data. The signed attribute tells GoldWave how the bits should be interpreted. The endian attribute tells GoldWave the byte ordering of the data. Big endian has the most significant byte first. Little endian has the least significant byte first. Telephony Audio is in a compressed format used in telephone applications. This includes mu-law, A-law, ISDN A-law (inverted A-law), and 4 bit ADPCM VOX Dialogic files. Floating point Audio is binary IEEE floating point single precision (32 bit) or double precision (64 bit) data. The byte ordering is usually little endian. Text Audio is a plain text (ASCII) file containing numbers. The float attribute tells GoldWave that the numbers range from -1.0 to 1.0. The integer attribute tells GoldWave that the numbers range from -32768 to 32767. Encoded Audio is compressed using an encoding algorithm. Such files cannot be opened properly through the File Format window and require a separate plug-in for decoding.
Rate	Sets the sampling rate for the audio data. This value does not affect how the data is translated. If the wrong rate is selected, the sound will either play too slow or too fast. Use Playback Rate to change the rate later. A CD audio recording has a sampling rate of 44100Hz. A Dialogic VOX or telephony file usually has a rate of 6000Hz or 8000Hz.
Data	Displays data at the beginning of the file in hexadecimal and ASCII form. This is useful only if you need to examine the raw contents of the file to identify its format.

If you do not know the format, experiment with trial-and-error. Appendix A has more information about sound attributes. Start with an 8 bit or 16 bit PCM attributes, then try the mu-law or A-law formats. Generally, sounds will be noisy if the format or number of bits is incorrect, in which case you will have to close and reopen the sound using a different format. You can leave the sampling rate unchanged since it affects only the playback speed and can be changed later using Playback Rate.

If the file is saved later, use a different filename and type using Save As so that GoldWave will be able to open the file next time. Or to make GoldWave assume a format for a particular file type extension, use the Undetectable Types tab in Options | File Formats to associate a format with the extension.

File Format Plug-ins

GoldWave supports external file format plug-ins for opening and saving files. These plug-ins are created by other developers by using the GoldWave Plug-in Development Kit to handle file types that GoldWave does not support directly.

GoldWave checks for new plug-ins only during startup, so if a new plug-in is installed, you must restart GoldWave for it to be detected.

Use Options | File Formats to enable and disable plug-ins or to change the order in which they are used.

When you open a file in GoldWave, these steps are followed:

1. If the file type is a CD audio (CDA) track, you are advised to use the CD Reader tool and no further processing occurs.
2. For all other file types, the file is passed to each file format plug-in module until one is able to handle the file. The order is configured under the File Plug-in Precedence tab of the File Format Options window.
3. If none of the plug-ins support the file format, then the Undetectable Types list under the File Format Options window is used to determine if type and attributes have been associated with the file type. If so, the file is open automatically using those attributes.
4. If there are no associations, then the File Format window is displayed so that the attributes can be specified manually. Chances are that compressed files cannot be open and decoded properly unless a new plug-in is installed for that file type.