# Forensic Telephony WAVE Decoder

> A Java decoder for RIFF/WAVE telephony audio that expands PCM and G.711 A-law/μ-law into PCM16 working copies while preserving the forensic distinction between evidence and derived analysis data.

- Author: Muhammet Ali Köker
- Language: en
- Canonical: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java
- Translation: https://alikoker.com.tr/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java
- Published: 2020-09-15T12:00:00+03:00
- Modified: 2026-08-27T10:36:29+03:00
- Verified: 2026-08-27T10:36:29+03:00
- Type: project

Telephony audio often fails at the point where a filename is mistaken for a codec description. This Java implementation reads RIFF/WAVE structures itself and turns supported PCM, G.711 A-law and G.711 μ-law payloads into explicit PCM16 working copies. The parser handles the container instead of delegating the critical interpretation step to whatever Java Sound conversion provider happens to be installed.

The repository also draws a hard line around the phrase “GSM WAV.” G.711 and GSM 06.10 are different codecs; GSM 06.10 decoding is intentionally outside this release. Optional channel reduction and a small deterministic integer linear interpolator are available for workflows such as preparing 8 kHz telephone audio for a 16 kHz analysis stage. It is not presented as a general-purpose high-fidelity resampling library.

In forensic use, the converted PCM is a derived artefact. The original acquisition, its cryptographic hash and its metadata remain authoritative; the PCM copy exists to make listening, ASR or later DSP practical. [Forensic File Carver](/en/forensic-file-carver-csharp) addresses a different stage: locating and delimiting files in raw binary sources.

Further discussion: [Decoding GSM WAV Files with Java](/en/decoding-gsm-wav-files-with-java)  
Source repository: [GitHub](https://github.com/alikoker/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java)  
Archived release: [Zenodo](https://zenodo.org/records/22117436)  
DOI: [DOI](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22117436)

## Cite This Work

Köker, M. A. (2020). Forensic Telephony WAVE Decoder. alikoker.com.tr. https://alikoker.com.tr/en/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java

- BibTeX: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java.bib
- RIS: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java.ris
- CSL-JSON: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/forensic-telephony-wave-decoder-java.csl.json