What is a .AY file?
AY files hold chiptune music for the AY sound chip of the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad.
- Did you know
- The AY-3-8910 chip gave 1980s home computers and arcades their bleepy soundtracks.
- The AY-3-8910 was a three-voice programmable sound generator designed by General Instrument and used widely in 1980s computers and arcade machines.
- Although the chip appeared on many platforms, the AY music format only covers Z80-based machines like the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.
- What Analyser reads
- Identify many more audio formats: lossless/hi-res codecs (Monkey’s Audio, WavPack, TAK, True Audio, DSD/SACD, Musepack), pro containers (Core Audio, RF64/BW64, Wave64, Sun AU, Broadcast Wave with timecode), speech/mobile (Speex, AMR-WB, QCP, 3GA, M4R, GSM), MPEG Layer I/II, instrument banks (SoundFont, SFZ, DLS, RIFF MIDI, GigaStudio), ringtones (RTTTL, iMelody, SAP), tracker modules (MOD, XM, IT, S3M, OctaMED, 669, Oktalyzer), chiptunes (NES NSF, SNES SPC, VGM, Game Boy GBS, AY, YM) and Audacity projects.
- Depth of analysis
- .AY is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .AY file
- Drag a .AY file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.