Convert DLS files online for free
The converter easily converts your DLS file to various formats - free and online. No Media Player or extra software needed.
The converter also works in reverse, so you can convert other Audio formats to DLS with high quality output.
The .dls extension primarily identifies a Downloadable Sounds file, a legacy audio container format developed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association and Microsoft. Unlike standard audio files like MP3 or WAV, a DLS file is not a song you can play; it is a sound bank containing instrument waveforms (samples) and articulation data (envelopes, vibrato) used by MIDI synthesizers (like DirectMusic) to render music. Users often encounter gm.dls in Windows system folders or older game directories. The main frustration users face is that modern media players (like VLC) and Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) rarely support DLS natively. To use these instruments in modern software like MuseScore or FL Studio, you typically need to convert the DLS file to the widely supported SF2 (SoundFont 2) format or extract the raw samples to WAV.
A secondary, less common use (approx. 6%) is for electrical schematics created with SEE Electrical by IGE+XAO. These are proprietary CAD files used to design wiring diagrams. They cannot be opened by standard image viewers; converting them to PDF or DXF is necessary for sharing with clients who lack the specific engineering software.
Use Convert.Guru to open and convert your DLS file.
Users also converted DTS, SF2, PNG, OXPS, MP3, JPG, PDF, STL, MP4, BAK, ABI, XPJ and MXN files.
If you want to convert DLS file to SF2, MXN, BGL, MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WMA, M4A, AIFF or OPUS, you can use Awave Studio or similar software from the "MIDI Instrument Sound Bank" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MIDI, AAC, TTA, AU, WV, DTS, MID, FLAC, RA, MP3, PCM or WAV files to DLS, try Awave Studio or another comparable tool in the "MIDI Instrument Sound Bank" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our DLS converter.