iRig Mic Field

The iRig Mic Field, from the ever innovative IK Multimedia, is a slim square mic that fits on your iPhone, iPad or iPod with Lightning connector, and gives you high quality digital stereo recordings - 24-bit, 44.1 - 48 kHz A/D conversion. It’s lightweight and comes in a handy soft case too. The mic rotates 90 degrees for accurate stereo recording in any position, portrait or landscape, and features two high-quality cardioid electret condenser capsules.

It has a 115 dB maximum SPL rating and a built in low-noise, high-definition preamp.

Our first test was in a proper field on Dartmoor with some country sounds. There is a gain control on the side of the mic, LED, and a socket for headphones. The LED changes colour from blue to green and red to help you get the audio input level right.

We recorded some video of a river using the iRig mic and then repeated the recording with the built in iPhone mic - the difference was incredible. From the Mic Field we had bright, clear, stereo sound. The mic works with all the inbuilt iOS apps like Voice Memo, Camera and iMovie.

This video clip was made with the iRig Mic Field.

It’s not just for video-making - the Mic Field works with all kinds of audio recording apps from iRig Recorder to GarageBand. There’s a free version of iRig Recorder that’s very intuitive and easy-to-use and it’s great being able to see the waveform as you record.

We recorded the sound of a small Dartmoor stream into the iRig Recorder, and the quality was excellent.

So it works well on pastoral and delicate sounds, how about music? We recorded a clip of one of the Kitmonsters team practising guitar.

The sound was easily comparable to a recording from larger, more expensive, standalone devices.

Exporting audio files

The way to export your audio will of course depend on what you are recording into.

If you buy or upgrade to the paid version of iRig Recorder - £5.99 for the package of all features - you get editing and sound enhancement processors, as well as WAV export via wifi. You can optimize volume and tone, clean up, brighten, smooth, and even speed up or slow down.

If you choose wifi WAV export, the tracks appear on a web page for download.

The iRig Mic Field is a great thing to carry around if you’re interested in any kind of audio, whether you are a musician, sound artist, sample-hunter, journalist or music fan.