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.wav

WAV test tones

Uncompressed test audio written sample by sample: pick the signal, sample rate, bit depth and channels, down to WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE for 24-bit and 5.1.

Open the .wav generator

Or start from a preset

What is a WAV file?

Short answer

A WAV file is a RIFF container with a fmt chunk that describes the audio (format, channels, sample rate, bit depth) and a data chunk with the raw samples. PCM WAV is uncompressed, so its size follows directly from the settings.

Players and parsers stumble on 24-bit and float audio, the WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE header that more than two channels need, an odd-sized metadata chunk with its pad byte, or a header that claims more data than the file holds.

Anatomy of a WAV file

  • RIFF … WAVEContainer header and total size
  • fmt Format tag, channels, rate, block align, bits
  • factSample count, required for float audio
  • LIST INFOOptional title and software tags
  • dataInterleaved little-endian samples

What you can generate

  • Sine 440 Hz or 1 kHz, square, white noise, log sweep 20 Hz–20 kHz, silence
  • 8, 22.05, 44.1, 48 or 96 kHz
  • 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit float
  • Mono, stereo or 5.1 with WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE and a channel mask
  • LIST/INFO metadata with an odd-length string and pad byte
  • Broken on purpose: RIFF size too large, truncated mid-sample

How to make one

  1. Open the WAV generator, or start from a preset above.
  2. Set the size and switch on the edge cases you need; the preview and size estimate follow every change.
  3. Generate, then download. The file is made in your browser, and the same preset and seed always give you the same file.

Questions

The signal peaks at half of full scale, about -6 dBFS, so it will not clip and is not too loud on speakers.

Yes. WAV is uncompressed: the size shown in step 2 is the exact file size.

For more than two channels or more than 16 bits per sample, as Microsoft's rules ask, with the speaker positions in a channel mask.

Related formats