VOC to WMA Converter

How to Convert VOC to WMA Online

1. Upload Your VOC Files: Drag and drop or click "Add Files" to select one or more .voc files. Old Sound Blaster recordings, DOS-game sound rips, dictation captures, and Creative WaveStudio exports all work. Batch is supported — convert an entire folder of legacy clips in one pass.
2. Pick a Quality Preset: Default is Very High (Recommended). Choose Highest for archival masters, Medium for compact desktop playback, or Low / Very Low / Lowest when squeezing many clips into a small folder. For finer control, switch to Custom Bitrate and pick Constant Bitrate (predictable size) or Variable Bitrate (better quality per byte).
3. Adjust Audio Channel, Sample Rate, and Trim (Optional): Set Audio Channel to Original, Mono (smaller — fine for voice), or Stereo. Set Audio Sample Rate to Original (recommended — most VOCs are 8000, 11025, or 22050 Hz) or pick 8000 / 12000 / 16000 / 24000 / 44100 / 48000 Hz. Use Trim with start time + duration in seconds or HH:MM:SS.sss to cut a single sound effect out of a long capture.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files process in your browser session and download individually or as a ZIP — no sign-up, no watermark.

Why Convert VOC to WMA?

VOC (Creative Voice File) was developed by Creative Labs in the early 1990s to store audio for the Sound Blaster sound-card line. The format is a 26-byte header followed by typed data blocks containing 8-bit unsigned PCM by default, with optional 16-bit signed PCM, Creative ADPCM (4-bit, 2.6-bit, 2-bit), and a-law / u-law variants. WAV (RIFF) eventually displaced it as Windows-native PCM took over. Today VOC files are mostly DOS-era game audio rips, old voice notes from Sound Blaster utilities like VOXKIT and WaveStudio, and material rescued from 3.5" floppies and CD-ROM archives. Converting to WMA — Microsoft's audio codec, first released August 17, 1999 — gives you a small, modern, Windows-native file:

• Open VOC clips on any Windows PC — Windows Media Player and the Movies & TV / Films & TV apps play WMA natively. VOC playback in Windows requires VLC, foobar2000 with a plugin, or Audacity import. WMA opens with one double-click.
• Drastically smaller files — A 60-second 8-bit/22050 Hz mono VOC is roughly 1.3 MB uncompressed. The same audio at 64 kbps WMA is around 480 KB; at 96 kbps WMA, around 720 KB. WMA's perceptual encoder cuts size 2-3× without audible loss for spoken content.
• Email and chat attachment caps — Gmail caps message attachments at 25 MB and Outlook.com at 20 MB; Discord's free tier caps uploads at 10 MB (lowered from 25 MB in late 2024). A long VOC capture can blow through these; the WMA fits comfortably.
• Retro-game audio archival — Many DOS games (Wing Commander, Duke Nukem 3D era) shipped sound effects and voice lines as VOC. Converting your rip set to WMA lets you catalog and play them in any modern audio app or media library.
• Preserve old dictation and voice notes — Late-90s Sound Blaster bundles included voice-recording utilities that wrote VOC. Converting to WMA makes the recordings indexable, taggable in Windows Media Player, and ready to back up to OneDrive or a NAS.
• Hand off to non-technical recipients — A relative or colleague who needs to hear the clip on stock Windows shouldn't have to install VLC. WMA just plays.

VOC vs WMA — Format Comparison

WMA Quality Preset Guide

For most VOC sources — which are typically 8-bit mono speech or game effects — Medium (96 kbps) or High (128 kbps) is plenty. There's nothing in an 8-bit/22050 Hz source for a 256 kbps WMA to preserve.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will converting VOC to WMA lose quality?

For 8-bit PCM VOC sources (the vast majority), the answer is essentially no. An 8-bit/22050 Hz mono VOC has roughly 176 kbps of raw PCM data; encoding to WMA at 96-128 kbps preserves everything your ear can detect from that source. For 16-bit VOCs (later Sound Blaster cards) at 44.1 kHz, pick Very High or Highest preset to stay transparent. WMA is a lossy codec, so you do lose some data, but the loss is below the threshold of audibility for the kinds of recordings VOC files typically contain.

What sample rate should I pick?

Leave Audio Sample Rate set to Original in almost every case. Most VOC files are 8000, 11025, or 22050 Hz; some 16-bit-era files are 44100 Hz. The encoder will match your source. Only pick a fixed rate (44100 Hz is a safe choice) if your target software demands it or if the source rate is one your playback chain doesn't handle well.

Should I use Mono or Stereo output?

Match the source. Most VOC files are mono — picking Stereo only doubles the bitrate without adding any information (the second channel will be a duplicate). If you know your source is stereo (rare; only some 16-bit Sound Blaster captures), pick Stereo. When in doubt, use Original.

What software still opens VOC files?

VLC media player, Audacity (with FFmpeg), SoX, foobar2000 (with the appropriate input plugin), and a handful of legacy Creative Labs utilities can read VOC. Windows Media Player, Apple Music, Spotify, the iOS / Android stock players, most car stereos, and most browsers cannot. That gap is the whole reason to convert: WMA plays natively on Windows, and any platform that runs VLC handles it too.

Should I convert to WMA or to MP3 / WAV / FLAC instead?

WMA is the right pick if your audience is on Windows and you want small files. If you want maximum compatibility across iOS, Android, macOS, web, and car stereos, convert VOC to MP3 instead — MP3 plays everywhere. If you want a lossless archival copy with no codec loss at all, convert VOC to WAV (RIFF PCM) or VOC to FLAC (compressed lossless). VOC → WMA is best when you're targeting Windows desktops and care about file size.

Can I trim or extract a single sound effect from a long VOC?

Yes. Many VOC captures from DOS-era utilities concatenate multiple effects in one file. Use the Trim controls to enter a start time and duration in seconds (12.5) or HH:MM:SS.sss (00:00:12.500). Only the selected segment is encoded.

Why does my VOC sound "low quality" — can the conversion fix it?

The conversion preserves the source; it can't add information that isn't there. Most VOC files are 8-bit mono at 11025 or 22050 Hz, which is intrinsically grainy and band-limited compared to modern 16-bit/44.1 kHz audio. That's the format's native fidelity. The right WMA preset will keep what's there transparently — but it won't restore highs the original Sound Blaster card never captured.

Does the WMA play on Mac, iPhone, or Android?

Not natively. macOS does not include a system WMA decoder; iOS and core Android do not either. VLC plays WMA on all three. If your audience uses non-Windows devices, MP3 is the safer container — see convert VOC to MP3 or WMA to MP3 to re-encode after the fact.

Will the WMA be smaller than the original VOC?

Almost always, yes. An uncompressed 8-bit/22050 Hz mono VOC is roughly 1.3 MB per minute; a Medium-preset WMA of the same audio is around 720 KB per minute — roughly 45% smaller. For 16-bit/44.1 kHz stereo VOCs the savings are larger still (around 80-90% reduction at Very High preset). If you need an even smaller file, use Compress WMA on the output, or extract just the segment you need with Audio Cutter.