WAV files
WAV files are based on the RIFF format which is made up of chunks of data with an id
, size
and binary data for each. The format is very extensible, and has been in use for over 30 years, leading to a very wide variety of chunks which could be in a file. Applications are expected to ignore chunks they don't use and preserve them when editing files (in practice, many applications only preserve chunks they use).
WAV file structure
TODO: overview and some visualizations
normalization in this book
TODO: note about normalizing field names
other summary documents
- Audio File Format Specifications by Prof. Peter Kabal
- includes copies of original specs from MS & later specs. Overview of file format, sample WAV files.
- Recording Blogs - Wiki - WAV File Format
grammars and parser configuration files
- Kaitai Struct format specification of RIFF-WAVE and many common chunks
- Hex Fiend (MacOS, open source) includes a WAV parsing template which parses many common chunks