Creative Voice , filename extension .voc, is an audio format for digital audio data developed in the 1990s Sound Blaster sound cards from Creative Technology.
Construction
Original 8-bit format
The file format 123 consists of a 26-byte header and a series of subsequent data blocks containing the audio information. The byte order is little-endian.
VOC header| Offset (hex) | Length (in bytes) | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | 19 | ASCII stringCreative Voice File |
| 0x13 | 1 | 0x1A (EOF) |
| 0x14 | 2 | Starting byte of first data block (usually 0x1A00 for a little-endian value of 26) |
| 0x16 | 2 | [Version] (major, minor), hexadecimal, e.g. 0x010a, version 1.10 |
| 0x18 | 2 | Validation: ~version + 0x1234, hexadecimal, truncated to 16 bits, e.g. 0x1129 |
The header is followed by data blocks. Each data block begins with a type byte describing the contents of the data, followed by 3 bytes for the size of the data. For two of the 9 defined types, the subsequent size of the data is missing, so the block ultimately consists of only a single byte – these are 0x00 terminator, and 0x07 repeat end.
If a size is specified, the first 4 bytes will be followed by a block of the content resulting from the specified type with the specified size.
VOC data block| Type (hex) | Type description | Size (3 bytes) | Info | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | Terminator | – | – | ||||||||||||
| 0x01 | Sound data | 2 + size of the data | Audio content
| ||||||||||||
| 0x02 | Sound continue | Size of the data | additional audio data in the same format as the previous block | ||||||||||||
| 0x03 | Silence | 3 | Silence
| ||||||||||||
| 0x04 | Marker | 2 | Marker number (2 bytes): remains in an intermediate memory during playback and can be jumped on again. | ||||||||||||
| 0x05 | ASCII string | Length of the string | Null-terminated string | ||||||||||||
| 0x06 | Repeat | 2 | Number of repetitions (2-byte integer) 0x0000to 0xFFFE1-65,535 repetitions, 0xFFFFfor infinite | ||||||||||||
| 0x07 | End repeat | – | – | ||||||||||||
| 0x08 | Extended | 4 | – | ||||||||||||
The file optionally ends with the terminator block (data block of type 0x00).
Use
Creative Voice files were used in various DOS games when they could use sound blaster cards for audio output, such as Eye of the Beholder.4
The spread of the file format disappeared noticeably with the advent of RIFF WAVE, which was already supported in Windows. However, the Creative Voice file format required the installation of additional player programs included with the Sound Blaster Card drivers. With the advent of AC'97, WAVE, file extension .WAV, finally prevailed.
References
Greg. "Greg figures out most of the .VOC Format". Archived from the original on 2015-10-28. Retrieved 2018-06-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20151028075631/http://www.textfiles.com/programming/FORMATS/vocform.pro ↩
John. "John chimes in with further analysis of the .VOC Format". Archived from the original on 2015-10-28. Retrieved 2018-06-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20151028075631/http://www.textfiles.com/programming/FORMATS/vocform2.pro ↩
Bagwell, Chris (1998-11-14). "Audio File Formats FAQ". pp. Chapter 11: File Formats. Retrieved 2018-06-01. Documentation (FAQ) for the SoX audio editor http://sox.sourceforge.net/AudioFormats-11.html#ss11.5 ↩
movAX13h. "Dr. Riptide Dissected" (README file). GitHub. https://github.com/movAX13h/DrRiptideDissected ↩