Thursday, October 6, 2011

Blue Microphones Mikey iPod Recording Microphone with Speaker Review

Blue Microphones Mikey iPod Recording Microphone with Speaker
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Sorry that's cheesy, I know but...I purchased Mikey from a local music retail store and I think I might be falling in love. I used it with my old iPod Nano and found a few uses for it, but now that I carry my iPhone with me everywhere I go I figured I would try it with that. That's where things get real interesting.
There are a whole bunch of great recording apps on the App Store (I'm currently using iProRecorder)that assume you're using the iPhone's built-in mic. But - when you plug in the Mikey, those apps go from rudimentary voice recorder to 'record anything you want, awesomely.'Here are some places I used it:
Setting 3 (loud): Recorded a rock concert (No Doubt). Made a two hour recording with the Mikey and iPhone in my shirt pocket and was amazed. Handled the peaks of the concert perfectly, and ended up with a bootleg that I was actually excited to listen to - sounded natural, like I was there. Played it back on my tunedock at home and my girlfriend thought it was an 'in concert' CD. Girlfriend impressed by my gadget = 5 stars!
Setting 2 (normal): I've been recording meetings, phone calls, and interviews at work. The stereo separation is a great feature for this - gives recorded interviews much better presence and a very natural L/R/L/R flow. Sounds eerily natural, too. The clarity is great - I can understand conversations much much better than those recorded with the built-in mic. I even compressed a recorded meeting on the iPhone, emailed it to an assistant from the phone, and had her transcribe it as well. Sweet. People ask me what it is all the time and they're always pretty wowed - gadget makes me popular = 5 stars!
Setting 1 (sensitive): The manual says this is good for quiet lectures or other quiet sounds - I find it's kinda fun for eavesdropping or just "hearing what you can hear." I haven't played much with it yet but it is very sensitive, and it did do a good job of picking up a conversation on the other end of the room - it also picks up air conditioners and lights too. Amazingly, no noise! I think Blue is just showing off how clean and sensitive the mics are. If I was a student I could see this would be super useful, though.
The Mikey product itself is a very cool concept. It's compact, the exact same width as my iPod/iPhone (so it looks natural when connected) the angle/detent feature is pretty darn slick and it allows you to pose the device/combo in any way you'd like without any extra parts to carry around. It's clear that a lot of thought went into the design. It feels pretty substantial - a lot of it is metal and the plastic has a heavy feel to it. It's also pretty cool that you can hold it up to the light and see some of the guts in between the grills, including the massive stereo microphones inside.
One of the reviewers said it felt cheap or creaky - not sure if maybe he dropped his but mine feels very solid and doesn't creak, certainly moreso than any of my other iPhone accessories. That reviewer also said he was getting weird effects between the stereo capsules. With mine, I've noticed that if I get too close to the Mikey, (less than 3-4") it can get a bit weird, but I get a great tone when I'm about a foot away anyways - I think this is what it was 'tuned' for. It's actually fun to experiment and see what this thing can do - if I was a musician I think I'd go nuts for it.
The good: Sound quality, design, versatility of the 3-position gain switch, stereo capabilities, ease of use
The not so good: Little expensive (though this company does make $1000+ microphones!), little too easy to unplug from the iPod/iPhone (not sure if this is Apple or Blue issue), does capture wind noise a little too well, would really love a carrying case of some kind.
In short, this thing makes great audio recording fun! Pick one up and have a good time discovering all the ways you can incorporate it into your life. Hope that's helpful.


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With positional/directional design and stereo capability, you can record your rehearsals or gigs. Other features include a mono confidence speaker, variable gain control, overload protection, recording status light and up to 1.5 hours continuous recording. It's never been easier to record your world. Meet Mikey, Blue's new iPod recording device that makes recording lectures, voice notes, live music, interviews and more - Mikey can capture it all with audio quality unheard of in a hand-held device. But hey, you'd expect that from a company with years of experience designing and engineering award-winning studio mics! Mikey features Blue's superior quality stereo condenser capsules, 3-position user selectable gain settings, and built-in speaker for playback. You can fine-tune Mikey to record everything from the barest audible sound to extremely loud sources without losing audio fidelity. Mikey's unique user-positionable head swivels 180 to provide maximum flexibility and usability, allowing you to position Mikey towards sound sources in various directions. Record up to 1.5 hours continuously Compatible with iPod nano 2G, 3G & 4G; iPod classic; iPod 5G & most cases

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