What Is a Waveform File?
A waveform file, identifiable by its three-letter extension WAV, is the default audio file format for Windows operating systems. Commonly called “waves”, these files represent one of the earliest methods of recording high-quality audio to a digital format. Despite the rise of audio compression codecs such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, uncompressed waveforms still find use in many audio applications today.
Other People Are Reading
-
Format
-
Waveform files are similar to the Red Book audio format used in CDs. Both formats use the Pulse Code Modulation method of encoding audio data, recording sound as a series of amplitude values over time. The standard method of encoding utilizes two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits of data per sample. Waveform files can also utilize a lower sample rate to reduce file size, or they may include additional channels for use with surround sound systems.
Usage
-
Windows utilizes the wave format for most audio tasks by default. All system sounds are waveform files, as are any files created using the operating system’s built-in sound recorder. Most audio editing software also uses waveforms as a destination for decompressing encoded audio, allowing users to edit or manipulate the file in an uncompressed format before transcoding it or re-encoding at a different bitrate. Some radio broadcasters have adopted wave files as a method for storing audio clips and recordings, allowing them to move from analog tape storage to hard drives.
-
Advantages
-
One advantage of the waveform file format is its portability. Wave files are compatible with different audio editing programs, even those written for Apple and Linux operating systems. In addition, the fact that waveforms can store uncompressed audio makes them suitable for archiving important data, allowing users to edit or encode audio from what amounts to original copies. Audio stored in a different format would suffer fidelity loss when uncompressed due to the lossy codecs involved, and may retain compression artifacts from the original encoding process.
Disadvantages
-
The chief disadvantage of waveform files is their large size. The high sample rate as well as the uncompressed nature of the audio means that wave files can typically reach sizes as large as 10 megabytes per minute of audio. Compression can reduce that ratio somewhat, but the more you compress the file, the more difficult it is to edit or re-encode without losing data. The WAV format also cannot exceed 4 gigabytes in file size, which can be a problem when dealing with extremely high sample rates or very long recorded files.
-
