IK Multimedia has just set an industry bar almost insurmountably high in convenient on-the-go audio engineering: the patent-pending iRig Acoustic, the world’s first acoustic-optimized guitar microphone pickup engineering to install and record live in seconds to any Android or iOS device’s companion AmpliTube Acoustic app.
There is now absolutely nowhere a frat boy who can play every Ed Sheeran mating call while performing a keg stand can’t lay down a bitchin’ demo in stunningly pure sound.
OK, bagging on the latter-day Dave Matthews aside, this is an almost obscenely brilliant anywhere-anytime tool for guerilla recording with finely tuned polish.
The iRig Acoustic downsizes the highest standard of MicroElectrical-Mechanical System (MEMS) omnidirectional microphone technology into a seemingly impossibly small enclosure to unintrusively fix a high-end condenser studio microphone to the undisputed prime location for acoustic guitar sound reproduction: just inside the sound hole and right in front of the strings for full, accurate frequency range, full overtones, complex harmonic textures, and perfect tonal character.
The resulting recording milks detailed and focused sound from an optimal output that perfects a complete acoustic portrait of the guitar’s signature sound that no piezo-electric pickups or magnetics can match just from the strings or top of the body.
All of this, from a microphone equal in nearly every dimension to a standard guitar pick. Plugging a standard 1/8″ TRRS cable into the iRig Acoustic’s female stereo output jack lets you monitor your sound privately through headphones while practicing or playing to a live audience or orchestrate a rich stereo acoustic performance by lining out to either a powered speaker or mixer. All the while, the iRig Acoustic keeps your freedom of motion around the stage or studio completely free without dousing your studio-caliber sound in feedback. Best of all, the device’s soft non-marring rubber will never leave a scratch or mark when taken on or off an instrument and suits any stringed instrument built with a circular sound-hole, from a ukelele to steel-string acoustincs, nylon-string classicals or any other non-electric guitar.
Finally, AmpliTube Acoustic is the perfect freet studio technician that goes wherever you and an Android or iOS device does. The app measures and optimizes your instrument’s frequency response to zero in on the sonic “sweet spot” of tonal clarity, projection and characteristics. Basically, it does everything from a smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop that a cost-prohibitive and perfectly perfectly positioned studio condenser would, but with your complete independence of movement and control.
You’ll never use a more faithful emulator of a tube amp and two solid state amps with their own built-in stompbox effects. At any time, you can even trigger a “Feed Kill” feedback eliminator in the throes of a live performance, along with graphic and parametric EQ, an acoustic compressor, a 12-string emulator and “bass maker” octave pedal. Want to transmogrify your six-string’s sound into something else entirely? Engage the “body modeler” to magically snap to any style a song may call for at any time.
Ultimately, you can lay it all down with a 4-track looper, 8-track recorder/DAW, UltraTuner and speed trainer for a supremely well-rounded, mobile acoustic studio setup.
