Abstract: A system and method for handling audio input/output data translates audio message in a first format from an audio application resident in a virtual machine to an audio voice in a second format which may have no exact match for the original audio message. The invention is used for audio applications which directly write to a particular hardware register of a particular audio card to communicate with an audio card which operates according to completely different principles. The translating program intercepts the audio message written in the first format including a first plurality of audio parameters, compares the audio parameters to those corresponding to a table of audio voices and selects the audio voice which corresponds to a match of the audio parameters in the audio message. If there is no exact match in the table, a variety of techniques are provided to calculate the closest or at least an acceptable audio voice for the original audio message.