IRCAM File
What are IRCAM files and how to open them
Are you having problems opening an IRCAM file or are you simply curious about its contents? We're here to explain the properties of these files and provide you with software that can open or handle your IRCAM files.
What is an IRCAM file?
An .IRCAM file is a Berkeley/IRCAM/CARL Audio file.
The Berkeley/IRCAM/CARL Audio File stores uncompressed digital audio in a format known as the Berkeley-IRCAM-CARL Sound Format (often called BICSF or "IRCAM soundfile"). It was devised in the 1980s by combining work from IRCAM (Paris), CARL (Computer Audio Research Lab, UC San Diego), and research efforts at Berkeley under UNIX. These files are used in academic and experimental musicrelated software to save precise PCM audio sample data.
Files of this format are created by programs that support BICSF or the "IRCAM soundfile" format (for instance, via the Audio File Library interface), and can be read by utilities such as FFmpeg, SoX, or other audio-processing tools. They allow detailed control over attributes like sample rate, bit depth (8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit integer or float, double precision), channel count, and normalization. These files are often identified with the extension .sf but .ircam may also appear.
The format's header is 1024 bytes long and begins with an identifier code that varies by endian-ness and origin (e.g. "VAX code" or "Sun code"). The header includes exact values for sampling frequency (a float), number of interleaved channels (integer), sample data type (integer code), and then space for comments and optional metadata in chunks such as SF_COMMENT, SF_MAXAMP, and SF_END.
How to open IRCAM files
We have identified one IRCAM opener that is compatible with this specific type of IRCAM file.
Programs that open Berkeley/IRCAM/CARL Audio files
 | Bitberry File Opener | Verified |
Last updated: August 7, 2026
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