The folks at IK Multimedia are taking a short step into the Android market. Their new iRig Recorder for Android is designed as a simple and easy to use voice recorder that is compatible with their existing line of iRig products, like my favorite the iRig Mic Cast. The iRig Recorder offers the basic record and stop functions, as well as an optimize volume filter for free. For an additional $5 you can add the suite of filters and a wave form editor. The latter allows you to cut and crop sections of the audio and the filters including a basic noise filter, voice filters and speed filters.
The iRig Mic Cast is a little device that fits in any bag and gives a good mic for podcasts, round-table interviews, or just recording personal notes or ideas. It is smaller and lighter than the Samson Go Mic that I usually use with my laptop and significantly cheaper. The box claims crystal clear recordings with no background noise. While it did perform a lot better than the built in mic, and my headphone mic, it did pick up the refrigerator 20 feet away and the hum of the AC when it kicked in. The cleanup filter in the recording software did a reasonable job of eliminating them, but for my purposes though of recording interviews and notes at conferences the background noise is less of a concern.
Also available are the iRig Mic which is a nice sturdy hand-held mic. IK touts it as good for the singer on the move, but my tune carrying capabilities are insufficient to actually test it. Tests in a quiet room with a single sound source were good, but like any sensitive mic it will pick up background noise.
iRig Recorder also works with the iRig Pre. The Pre uses a 9V battery and is capable of providing the 48V phantom power that some condenser mics require.
You can read more about iRig Recorder and the microphones at IK Multimedia or purchase the mics on Amazon.
iRig Recorder is available for free on iOS and Android at their respective stores and the filters can be bought through an in-app purchase of $4.99.
I hope that as Android starts to support low latency audio that IK Multimedia will bring more of their apps over to the Android world. I would really like to see a version of AmpliTube or iRig Stomp that works on the large screen of my Galaxy Note.
