Untitled Document

What's Jack?

Jack (the Jack Audio Connection Kit) is a low-latency audio server, written originally for the GNU/Linux operating system, and now with Mac OS X support. It can connect any number of different applications to a single hardware audio device; it also allows applications to send and receive audio to and from each other.

Jack is different from other audio server efforts in that it has been designed from the ground up to be suitable for professional audio work. This means that it focuses on two key areas: synchronous execution of all clients, and low latency operation.

What's Jack OS X?

Jack OS X is an OS X implementation of Jack, and it installs everything necessary to take full advantage of Jack on OS X. This includes:

The infrastructure you need in place to use Jack

The JackRouter is a CoreAudio “user space” driver that allows any OS X CoreAudio application to become a Jack client.

The Jack audio plugins

Both AU and VST “Jack-aware” audio plugins are provided, which can further expand the limitless audio routing possibilities when using Jack.

The JackPilot application

JackPilot offers an easy to use GUI interface that allows you to control the Jack server, and manage the audio connections between applications and/or plugins.

But how do I use it?

Basically, 3 steps:

Start up the JackPilot application, and click one button to start the Jack server.

"Jack-enable" the applications you want to connect - this usually means selecting the JackRouter driver in the Audio preferences menu of your applications, or by using the Jack AU or VST plugins.

"Connect" the applications you want to share audio between in the Connections window of JackPilot.

That's it! There's much more detail to help you in the full documentation, which is included in the download package.