The Spider Jam requires mono WAV files at 44.100kHz 16-bits for imported backing tracks. This slightly unusual as stereo is much more common these days but here are quite a few audio conversion utilities available that can produce these files. Some of them, unfortunately, are not very good, especially the free ones.
There is one audio utility that is guaranteed to do a good job , and it is completely free - iTunes. If you own an iPod, you will have it already but if you don't, you can download it ffrom the Apple site.
iTunes can be set-up to convert just about any audio file to a mono WAV with a simple drag and drop interface. Here's how to do it.
Open the Preferences dialog. This is under the Edit menu on Windows and in the iTunes menu on Macs.
In the first, 'General' tab there is a button 'Import Settings'. What we are going to do is ask iTunes to convert imported files to the correct format for the Spider Jam. This is quite different from the settings you would normally use for an iPod so you should set up a separate playlist to store mono WAV files and not get them mixed up with more common formats.
This is the Windows XP version of iTunes. The Mac version looks slightly different but is basically identical.
When you click the 'Import Settings' button, you will get a dialog where you choose Import Using: WAV Encoder. Then you have to choose Custom... in the Setting: menu.
In the WAV Encoder dialog, choose Sample Rate: 44.100kHz, Sample Size: 16-bit, Channels: Mono and click OK.
That's all the settings you need to do.
To import files, simply drag them into the iTunes main window. If you put a CD into you CD drive, iTunes will ask 'Would you like to import the CD
Once in iTunes, you can use 'Get Info', either from the right mouse button or by pressing cmd-i to check the current file format. If you want to convert to WAV, then select the appropriate songs(s), go up to the 'Advanced' menu and choose 'Create WAV version'. This will make a copy of the original file in mono WAV format.
To get them into your Spider Jam, put an SD card, which has been formatted in the Spider Jam, into your card reader and open it in a desktop window. You will see that it contains a folder 'LINE6'. The Spider Jam will only be able to find files that are inside this folder.
Just drag any converted songs in the iTunes library to the LINE6 folder. Eject the SD card properly (you can use a right click of the mouse to 'Eject') and stick it into the back of your Spider Jam. The Spider Jam can be switched on when you insert or eject SD cards, it doesn't seem to mind.
Make sure that you put the dragged file inside the LINE6 folder on the SD card!
Press the DRUMS/SONG button, scroll sideways with the 4-way control to SD, and browse the SD card for the tracks you want to play. Note that the song titles may be truncated to conform to the 8.3 naming convention.
So, there it is. Painless mono WAV conversion.
If you want to convert the other way, back to a computer playable format, just go back into the iTunes settings and put them back to 'Default'. Drag any WAV files you have saved back to the SD card (not JAM format) into iTunes.
The iTunes equaliser has many useful presets or you can make you own custom settings.
iTunes has quite extensive equalisation features which you can get to through View Menu/ Show Equalizer. This will let you optimise your recordings in ways that you can't do on the Spider Jam. Unfortunately it won't magically turn it into stereo.