Price: $47.00
What It’s Good For: Recording interviews, musical performances and vocal recordings on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
Who It’s Good For: Professional or semi-professional musicians or vocalists. It’s also good for reporters, students and anyone else who needs a way to capture interviews, lectures or other live events.
Limitations: The microphone itself is fairly large and even with its included carrying pouch, isn’t as portable as it could be — this makes it less than ideal for students or reporters who want to record interviews for transcription. Although users can download free versions of recording apps from IK Multimedia, these apps offer limited functionality and the paid versions can be expensive.
Bottom Line: The recording quality of the microphone is quite good and the sensitivity settings work as promised. For the musician or reporter on the go, this is a great add-on to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
A Look at the iRig Mic
IK Multimedia bills its iRig Mic as “the first handheld, quality condenser microphone for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.” We’re not sure if it’s the first — we’ve seen other microphones for the iPhone in the past, but it is certainly one of the better units available.The iRig Mic plugs into an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch using the headphone jack. The connector includes a headphone pass-through plug, which is essential so that users can monitor the recording input from the device.
The microphone will work with virtually any third-party recording program for iOS as well as Apple’s Voice Memos application. IK Multimedia has its own collection of recording apps, including iRig Recorder [iTunes link], VocaLive [iTunes link] and the AmpliTube series [iTunes link]. These are solid applications in their own right and are designed to work well with the iRig Mic.
Our only real complaint is that users must buy these applications in addition to the iRig Mic itself. Free versions do exist, but are feature-limited. iRig Recorder, a basic, but robust, recording app that includes the ability to apply audio effects, upload directly to various file servers, social networks and SoundCloud, is $4.99. VocaLive and Amplitube are $19.99 each. We understand that it’s difficult, if not impossible, for IK Multimedia to bundle full versions of apps with its microphone, but the cost of these apps needs to be taken into consideration of the total package.
As for the microphone itself, it’s not small. It’s a full-size condenser microphone, which is good or bad, depending on your purpose. For a student who just wants to record a lecture or for a reporter who wants to do interviews for transcription purposes, something like Blue’s Mikey might be a better choice.
What we do like about the iRig Mic — and what makes it worth its size and additional application cost — is that the sensitivity settings are surprisingly robust. We’ve included three sound samples (uploaded directly from the iRig Recorder application to SoundCloud uncompressed) recorded at the Mashable HQ in New York City.
The low intensity setting captures everything in our office — perfect for a lecture or speech. The medium intensity setting is ideal for podcasting, interviews and other vocal work and is probably most ideal for most circumstances. When selecting the high intensity sound source, the background noise is almost nil and the microphone picks up loud and exceptionally close instruments quite well.
At the end of the day, this is still a lower-end condenser microphone, so users expecting the performance from a dynamic or more professional condenser setup are going to be disappointed. However, for those who want a way to record interviews, lectures or vocal tracks on an iOS device for instant mixing, editing and uploading, the iRig Mic is a great choice.
iRig Microphone Tests by Christina Warren
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