09-29-2020, 08:13 AM
I’ve been trying to understand the relation$p between these various audio files and my observations are as follows...
At the end of each recording session, JK saves the following files:
- wav files containing the audio streams from each of the participants. If a participant was using multiple inputs (say, a guitar and a vocal mic) these will be mixed together in the wav file using the mix settings set by that participant.
- a wav file for each of your own instrumental/vocal tracks.
- a wav file containing a mix of all participants. I think this is mixed the same as your own headphone monitor mix.
Shortly after the session ends (assuming you leave the app running) JK converts your own instrumental/vocal track files from wav to ogg format and deletes the original wav versions.
Next, JK uploads the ogg files of your instruments/vocals to the central server, along with equivalent files from each of the other participants. When this has completed, the server should have a full set of track files for every vocal or instrumental track from all the participants. These files were all recorded locally on the participants’ PCs, and should not suffer from problems like network dropouts.
The central JK server downloads the full set of these files to each participant. All this can take several hours and the app needs to be left running for it all to work successfully. The central server is also supposed to use this full set of track files to produce a high-quality mix of the session, but that function hasn’t worked for me for several months.
If you want to do your own mix, using a DAW, you have the choice of using the wav stream files (one per participant) or the ogg files (one per instrument/vocal). In my own experience, the wav files are not very good: they suffer from network glitches and quite heavy compression across the network; plus they are usually a mix of instrument and vocal which can’t be separated. They do have the advantage that they are synchronised.
If you use the ogg files, they are generally of better quality, despite the ogg compression, because they were recorded locally. Also, with one file per instrument, you have much more freedom in mixing them. The disadvantage is that they are not synchronised.
The way I work is to start by putting all the wav stream files and the ogg track files into Audacity. For each participant, I then slide the ogg files around manually to line them up with the corresponding wav stream files. In this way, I can get the whole lot in synchronism quite easily.I trim the beginnings and ands and then re-save all the tracks. I can then import these adjusted track files into a DAW and do the mixing.
Regards
Steve
At the end of each recording session, JK saves the following files:
- wav files containing the audio streams from each of the participants. If a participant was using multiple inputs (say, a guitar and a vocal mic) these will be mixed together in the wav file using the mix settings set by that participant.
- a wav file for each of your own instrumental/vocal tracks.
- a wav file containing a mix of all participants. I think this is mixed the same as your own headphone monitor mix.
Shortly after the session ends (assuming you leave the app running) JK converts your own instrumental/vocal track files from wav to ogg format and deletes the original wav versions.
Next, JK uploads the ogg files of your instruments/vocals to the central server, along with equivalent files from each of the other participants. When this has completed, the server should have a full set of track files for every vocal or instrumental track from all the participants. These files were all recorded locally on the participants’ PCs, and should not suffer from problems like network dropouts.
The central JK server downloads the full set of these files to each participant. All this can take several hours and the app needs to be left running for it all to work successfully. The central server is also supposed to use this full set of track files to produce a high-quality mix of the session, but that function hasn’t worked for me for several months.
If you want to do your own mix, using a DAW, you have the choice of using the wav stream files (one per participant) or the ogg files (one per instrument/vocal). In my own experience, the wav files are not very good: they suffer from network glitches and quite heavy compression across the network; plus they are usually a mix of instrument and vocal which can’t be separated. They do have the advantage that they are synchronised.
If you use the ogg files, they are generally of better quality, despite the ogg compression, because they were recorded locally. Also, with one file per instrument, you have much more freedom in mixing them. The disadvantage is that they are not synchronised.
The way I work is to start by putting all the wav stream files and the ogg track files into Audacity. For each participant, I then slide the ogg files around manually to line them up with the corresponding wav stream files. In this way, I can get the whole lot in synchronism quite easily.I trim the beginnings and ands and then re-save all the tracks. I can then import these adjusted track files into a DAW and do the mixing.
Regards
Steve