Recording - April 2016 - 59

The bottom left and right LED indicators
are your status/input level meters. They
are dark blue for when the unit's connected device is asleep, and turn bright blue
when it wakes up. Green means a nominal recording level, ideally with flickers of
orange at the peak levels, and red means
overload. The top left LED indicates phantom power on (blue) or battery level low
(flashing red), and the top right LED indicates MIDI traffic in (flashing red) or out
(flashing blue). It's very easy to see the
status of the unit in use and you'll be
tracking in minutes after installing it.
The iRig Mic Studio is a lightweight
and portable condenser mic with a 1"
diaphragm and a cardioid polar pattern, in a small metal enclosure that
includes a headphone output minijack,
knobs for mic gain and headphone volume, and a multicolored LED for input
signal level. Like the iRig Pro DUO, the
LED on the iRig Mic Studio uses a fourcolor scheme: blue is too soft, green is a
nominal level, orange is as hot as you
want to go, and red is clipping. The
blue light also indicates a good connection to your computer, and turns dim if
the mic is in standby mode (because the
connected device has gone to sleep).
The mic outputs 24-bit audio to your
computer or iOS/Android device at
either 44.1 or 48 kHz.

It comes with three cables for its USB
Micro-B port: USB-A for Macs or PCs,
Lightning for iOS devices, and OTG for
Android devices. A screw-on mic mount,
a folding tripod stand, and a carrying
pouch complete the package.
The mic itself has a cardioid polar pattern with a fairly narrow pickup and
what sounds like a small lobe at 180º.

Beyond about 10" distance there's effectively no proximity effect. If you want
more boom on a vocal, get in close; the
proximity effect is noticeable at about 6"
and very pronounced when you get closer than 4". I found it well suited to spoken word, singing, and solo instruments.
Recording a full group, you'll want to put

some distance between the mic and the
players so nobody's stuck too far off-axis.
For both of these interfaces (and all
the other interfaces and controllers in the
product line), it's good to remember that
IK Multimedia provides an entire software ecosystem to support them, especially on mobile devices. Each product
comes with a QR code you scan with
your device's camera; it registers the
hardware with your online user account
at IK's website, and allows you to unlock
freebies when you download the various
apps IK offers. The iRig Pro DUO, for
example, unlocks extra sounds in the
SampleTank virtual instrument and extra
effects in AmpliTube for iPhone, and the
iRig Mic Studio unlocks free microphone
models in the Mic Room app.
It doesn't take very long at all to get up
and running with all kinds of cool apps for
guitar recording, vocal processing, keyboards, and more, and while all of the
apps use in-app purchases for much of
their content, you can start on any of them
for free and have a good selection of
options just by registering your hardware.
Whether you need a full-featured interface that will let your iPad do everything
a computer could, or a great-sounding
podcast/vocal mic that slips into a pocket (stand and all), IK Multimedia has you
covered.

http://www.transaudiogroup.com http://www.realtraps.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2016