Sharing & Files
Status: draft. Concrete reference content + structural placeholders; flesh out the prose + screenshots when ready.
Purpose
A single place to understand every file VL Studio reads and writes — songs, setlists, presets, full backups, AI Skills — what each format is for, when to reach for which one, and how to find deeper documentation per format.
VL Studio difference — there is no on-device interchange
The VL3X has essentially no way to share or back up your work. The only "import" is the FAT32 USB stick used to bring in MP3 or WAV backing tracks, and the only "export" is the same USB stick used for Direct to USB Recording. There's no preset export, no song export, no settings backup, no way to send a tuned preset to a bandmate.
VL Studio adds a full interchange layer on top of the device. Every kind of work you do — presets, songs, setlists, the whole library, even your custom AI Skills — is a file you can save, restore, hand off, or post.
File formats at a glance
| Format | Extension | Contains | When to reach for it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Song | .jsong | One song's cue timeline | Share a single song; archive one piece without the whole library |
| Setlist | .setlist.jsong | One setlist's running order | Archive a gig's running order; send a setlist to a bandmate |
| Preset | .preset.jsong | One preset's full parameter set | Hand off a tuned sound; collect presets from multiple authors |
| Full backup | .vl3x-backup.json.gz | Everything — presets, songs, setlists, chats, prefs, AI config | Migrate to a new machine; archive a working configuration |
| AI Skill | .md | One AI Skill's frontmatter + body | Share domain knowledge with the AI; curate a skill set for a genre |
Each format has its own page with the full spec, round-trip behaviour, and known limitations — follow the links in the table.
How to choose
| If you want to... | Use |
|---|---|
| Share a single tuned preset with a bandmate | Preset (.preset.jsong) |
| Hand someone your entire library | Full backup |
| Share the cue timeline for one song | Song (.jsong) |
| Archive the running order for a specific gig | Setlist (.setlist.jsong) (export-only at present) |
| Move everything to a new machine | Full backup |
| Share your custom AI domain knowledge | AI Skill (.md) |
| Round-trip songs with their preset references intact | Full backup — .jsong doesn't preserve preset linkage on import yet |
Format identifiers
If you want to inspect a file or you're writing tooling that reads these formats, each one is identified by its top-level format field:
| File extension | format value | version |
|---|---|---|
.jsong | "jsong" | 2 (v1 also imports) |
.setlist.jsong | "jsong-setlist" | 2 |
.preset.jsong | "jsong-preset" | 2 |
.vl3x-backup.json.gz | "vl3-backup-v2" | (gzipped JSON) |
AI Skill .md | (no JSON header — YAML frontmatter) | — |
What's not currently a separate export
Some things live only inside a full backup, not as a standalone file:
- Chat sessions — your AI conversation history is in the backup but isn't exportable per-session.
- Custom system prompts — overrides to the per-task AI system prompts are in
ai_config.json(and therefore in backups) but aren't shared as standalone files. - Voice command settings — Whisper model selection lives in preferences (and therefore backups).
If a per-item export for any of these would be useful for your workflow, file a feature request.
See also
- Songs — authoring the cue timelines exported as
.jsong. - Setlists — assembling the running orders exported as
.setlist.jsong. - Library — per-preset push, pull, and export.
- Settings — full-backup creation, restore, and the AI Skills editor.
- AI Chat — the AI Skills system that loads the
.mdfiles described here.