Audio and MIDI files

Audio Files

The following Audio file formats are supported:

  • .WAV files: 16 bit mono or stereo (Pro Plus edition also supports 24 bit, 32 bit and 32 bit floating point files).
  • .GJM files: 16 bit mono using lossless compression.
  • .GJS files: 16 bit stereo using lossless compression.
  • .SAM files: 16 bit mono headerless raw data files.
  • .MP3 files: 16 bit mono or stereo files using lossy compression.
  • .AIF files: 16/24/32 bit mono or stereo (Pro Plus edition only).
  • .LST files: contains references to an audio file and edit files to play. .LST files are application-generated (see Understanding Audio Editing).

WAV files
WAV files can be used with almost any program that supports audio.You need a WAV file to create an audio CD.

GJM and GJS files
GJM (and GJS) files use a compression algorithm that works best if the audio signal doesn't contain loud treble parts. For multitrack recording this is the preferred file type: multitrack recordings have many silent or soft parts so the file size can easily be reduced to about 70% of its original size. As disk access usually is the limiting factor for multitrack performance, using GJM files will result in a higher number of tracks that can be played simultaneously.

Note that sound quality isn't impaired in any way by the compressing action: if you save a .WAV file in .GJM format and then save that file in .WAV format again you get exactly the same file.

MP3 files
MP3 files use a lossy compression algorithm that degrades sound quality. The resulting file size is 3..9% of the original size. This makes MP3 the format of choice if you want to publish your songs on the internet, or if you want to send them via email.

An ACM Codec is needed to encode/decode MP3 files. Its presence can be determined by opening an MP3 file. The Professional/Pro Plus edition will open the file if a codec is present. The Lite edition will show a window indicating whether a codec is present or not.

The quality to be used for new MP3 files can be specified in the Preferences window. The ACM Codec that comes with Windows usually does not support creating high quality files.

Note that MP3 is not the format of choice for multitrack recording: not only does sound quality suffer, the MP3 encoding/decoding process consumes a lot of processing power as well.

AIF files(Pro Plus edition only)
AIF files are usually supported by software that runs on Apple Macintosh computers, so they can be used to exchange data between MultitrackStudio and a Macintosh computer.

MIDI Files

The following MIDI file formats are supported:

  • .MID files: standard MIDI files.
  • .MPT files: MIDI Pattern Track files.

.MID file can be saved as .MPT files and vice versa.

A MIDI file can contain more than one stream ('track' in MIDI terms, but renamed to avoid confusion). MultitrackStudio supports using multiple streams, although we don't recommend it.
MultitrackStudio does not support patch changes in a stream. If a program change or bank change is encountered in a file that is being loaded a new stream will be created. Furthermore MultitrackStudio streams can only send messages to one MIDI channel (it uses the channel the program change is sent to). So if a stream in your file sends messages to more than one MIDI channel (which is bad practice anyway) the file won't load as intended.