ROL Converter

Extract text from AdLib music files (ROL)


Drop or upload your .ROL file
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How to extract text from your ROL file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your ROL file.
  2. You’ll see a preview, if available.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert ROL to another file type

To convert ROL music files to another format, you need AdLib Visual Composer or other Audio software.

Convert a file to ROL

To convert other file formats to the "FM Synthesis Music File" file type, you need software like AdLib Visual Composer or a similar tool.


About ROL files

The .ROL file format is primarily used for two distinct purposes: as an AdLib Music file developed by AdLib Inc. for the MS-DOS era, and as a Piano Roll data file utilized by PianoDisc for automated acoustic player pianos. The major disadvantage of the .ROL format is its severe obsolescence and hardware dependency. AdLib files do not contain digital audio waveforms like modern music files; instead, they hold FM synthesis instructions meant specifically for the Yamaha OPL2 sound chip. This makes them entirely unsupported by modern web browsers, smartphones, or standard media players without using emulators like DOSBox or plugins like AdPlug. Furthermore, PianoDisc files are tightly locked into an expensive, proprietary hardware ecosystem. Users typically need to convert .ROL files to modern formats like MP3, WAV, or MID to listen to the music on contemporary devices. Converting to WAV or MP3 captures the exact audio playback but loses the underlying note data, whereas converting to standard MID preserves the notation but may alter the instrument sounds. Because this is a closed, proprietary, and highly specialized format, standard online audio converters fail completely. Often, only the original legacy software or hardware can properly read or export the data. Just drag and drop your file to convert.guru to identify the format, view its internal structure, and convert it when possible. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.

Use Convert.Guru to open and convert your ROL file.

Users also converted SA2, A2M, AIFF and RON files.


FAQ

If you want to convert ROL file to RON, MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WMA, M4A, AIFF, OPUS, ALAC or APE, you can use AdLib Visual Composer or similar software from the "FM Synthesis Audio Data" 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 ROL, try AdLib Visual Composer or another comparable tool in the "FM Synthesis Audio Data" category.



The ROL Converter Story

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 ROL converter.