What is a multitrack audio file?

[T.W. Day]

I've been messing with Sonobus and recording with a group of friends spread across about 3,000 miles of the country, from Santa Fe to Columbus, GA through a couple of spots in Minnesota (where I am). We're Jamkazam ex-patriots and did a lot of multitrack recording on JK. Three of us are multi-channel system users and two are stereo/mono only. THis last session, one of the multi-channel guy's data came across as a 7-channel multitrack audio file. I have no idea what format that is and most stereo editors treat it simply as an interlaced stereo track, losing quite a bit of data.

Logic X split the data into 7 individual tracks, automatically. ProTools 11 imported the file as a 7-track single file. Any information on this file format would be greatly appreciated.

[T.W. Day]

This was an interesting education. I've worked in audio, off and on, for 50+ years, and didn't know a WAV file had the capability to contain more than two tracks. Likewise, a friend who is a Logic Pro instructor and has even more experience in digital recording than me was equally unaware of that fact. Now we know. It's interesting how the two DAWs handle a multitrack WAV and I'll probably experiment with other programs to see if there is anything resembling a standard. I'm not impressed with how Logic manages a 4-or-smaller file, displaying it as a surround track in the mixer channel but being unable to display anything other than two tracks in the Track Editor.