I was at the point when I wanted to master a recording made with Ardour so I connected the master_outputs from Ardour to the audio mastering interface JAMin. When I had achieved the desired sound I wanted to export it to be the final master. With sound quality in mind I thought… I don’t want to process it further by recording the output then exporting and so on. To keep the quality i wanted to just grab the output from JAMin and record it and get a stereo track. In my mind I recalled Ardour splitting the stereo track into mono files L and R. I started to look if there was some program working as a taperecorder. I thought about Audacity but it won’t offer any inputs with JACK. Finally I decided to route the signal back to Ardour and record it. And as I recalled, when looking in the project/sound folder the recorded stereo track where split. Well no other choice than making an export of the track. I “soloed” the track and made the export. But what about the sound quality, how does all this processing affect it? I brought the issue to IRC. Look at the conversation and your thoughts will be brought into clarity.

Here’s the chatlog from the conversation I had at:

#ardour at irc.freenode.net

<neitcho> I use ardour and passing the signal to Jamin then back to ardour to record it on a stereo track. This track would be my final master. When I go to the project folder and browsing the soundfiles the track are splitted into two files L and R. Is there any way to set it to bee one stereofile instead?

<PipeManMusic> neitcho: Why not export them as a Stereo wav?

<neitcho> than I have to export the maser track and process it once again.

<PipeManMusic> No you can select specific tracks to export.
<PipeManMusic> It’s selectablel in the export dialog.

<neitcho> but is’nt export processing the track?

<PipeManMusic> Whay do you mean by processing?
<PipeManMusic> You would just have to turn off any plugins.

<neitcho> i mean play back and record

<PipeManMusic> Another option would be to use a command line utility to combine the two tracks. or import those into a new project and export them from there.

<neitcho> doing that that severat times I’m not sure about the sound quality

<nick_m> neitcho, with the master fader & track fader @ unity gain (shift-click) there is no processing on export. so once you have recorded, export the session. another way would be to connect jamin as an insert on the master buss.
<nick_m> neitcho, ..and the expor if everything sounds good

<PipeManMusic> There is no loss in quality unless you are transcoding the track.

<neitcho> thanks