Customer Reviews

Blue Microphones Mikey iPod Recording Microphone with Speaker

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

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.

I haven't yet done a bunch of recording with this mic, but wanted to post a review to alert possible buyers of one potential snafu with it. Based on the manufacturer's assurance that it would be compatible, I purchased one to use with my second generation iPod Touch. When I got my first one, I took it out of the package and tried to plug it into my iPod, while the iPod was still in its leather case. The connection was neither physically nor electronically effective. So I took the iPod out of its case and tried again. The connection was both physically and electronically better, but unfortunately, the electronic connection was intermittent. The blue power indicator would turn on and off as the tenuous connection made and was broken. I returned this unit, hoping I had gotten a lemon. I tried my luck with a second one. This one wouldn't power up under any circumstance. I contacted the Blue Microphone company to ask them why this was happening. Following is a paste from their response: "Apple designers made a small change to the connector housing tolerances. The result has been occasional variance in the actual depth of the connector, something in the .5mm range. We designed Mikey using Apple measurements that did not reflect this small possibility of variation in connector location.The result is that Mikey works perfectly with the majority of the new Touch but on some the connector is ever so slightly out of position yielding the result you have described." I asked if it would be relatively safe to file or cut away at the plastic around the connector on the mic, so as to allow deeper connector penetration into the iPod. Their response was: "I do not know if this is a fix. I hesitate to advise on any modifications." I returned my second one. After thinking about it for a while, since I had used other Blue mics and wanted to trust that they had built a quality mic for the iPod, I ordered a third one. Knowing I'd void the warranty, I chiseled away the plastic shoulder around the connector. Now it's stable both physically and electronically. I don't assume responsibility for anyone attempting this procedure, but I'm here to say it worked for me. So if you decide to try the mod, BE CAREFUL, good luck, but don't blame me if it doesn't work for you.

Have used it to record music, both acoustic and electric. Renders clear sound in both situations. Gives a slight reverb effect to vocals, which I like, in lower volume situations.
Its compactness is a plus, but the tiny switch which adjusts the sensitivity is a little hard to get at. You need your nail. The fit into the iPod slot could be tighter and more secure.
Contrary to what I read in a NY Times review, I can't get it to work with my 3G iPhone.
Have used it with the old and the newer Nanos.
With the newer Nano it is too easy to accidentally erase a recording; I've done that at least 5 times and lost precious recordings because the "play" and "delete" options are right under each other and if your finger slips slightly, it's all gone.
Old Nano has a "cancel delete" safeguard.
Sometimes the "voice memo" option would not come up when I attached it to the new Nano, which made it impossible to record, but I think it was the iPod's fault, not the microphone's.
The resulting recordings are WAV files when you open them in iTunes. If you want MP3s you have to convert them, which is very inconvenient.
Price seems high, but if it lasts years, I guess it will be worth the money.

It's really not Blue's fault, but Apple officially disabled the method that the Mikey used to interact with recording programs for the iPhone 4. Long story short, it doesn't work on the new iPhone, with no workarounds.

I got Mikey in order to record loud music (above 100 db SPL). The iPhone mic can capture most music really well under that level, and I liked the fact that Mikey records in stereo.

Here's what I found.

1) Mikey has "some issues" with several iPod 5.5G units. I e-mailed customer support and they said that they had just found about that. They said neither the mic or the iPod were defective, but that they had problems when used together. I get a very loud buzz whenever I connect them.

2) Mikey can't record very loud music. At around 103 dB it starts breaking up. By 105 dB, all you get is distortion, even at its highest setting. I tried Mikey with an iPod 5.5G, an iPhone 3G with FiRe and iProRecorder, and an iPhone 3GS. They all had the same issue. Bass sounds as if woofers were blown in your speakers.

3) Customer support is very weak. After my initial question regarding my problems with buzzing on my iPod 5.5G, I never received any answers regarding the sensitivity issues of the mic.

Bottom line - I wouldn't buy this product again.

This ancient microphone doesn't support my 64 GB iPod touch or my 160 GB iPod classic, but it works perfectly with both of them. Sound quality is the best of all my iPod microphones including the Alesis ProTrack and the Shure SE420MPA. I love this thing, and thanks to all the reviews that claim that it doesn't work with new iPhones and iPods (not true), you can pick it up for about half price. Enjoy!

Addendum: It doesn't work with my new iPhone 4 though. Too bad.

Just to follow up on the person who was having trouble with the ipod classic...I am dealing with similar issues. It worked like a charm on my son's ipod nano, but after playing with this for an hour, I still couldn't get it to work on my classic. I finally got it to work after waiting about 10 seconds of dead time, and then hitting pause. Something about hitting the pause button kicked the hard drive on and the blue light finally came on. I emailed the company and they said to simply update my software. Well, according to itunes, as of 8/28/09, version 1.3 is the latest version and Mikey is ain't working. I'll probably keep it and try to cojole it into working each time, but I expected much more for the money. Again...works GREAT on the nano. But if you run it on a 5th generation classic, expect suckage.

I record oral histories for museum and archive collections, and I purchased this microphone because it makes the iPod an extremely versatile product. I didn't want extraneous devices to pack around, and with the Mikey the iPod is small, compact, and is unobtrusive. However, there has been some occasional, but significant frustration.

The Cons:
The dock connector on the microphone is not nearly as good as other iPod accessories. It fits loosely into every iPod I've connected it to. I have a 120 gig iPod Classic and an 3G Touch, and after discovering this, I tried it on several other of my friends' iPods. All the same. Others have commented on this problem as well, and it is a significant problem considering the price paid for this product. This can be a real issue, occasionally during an interview myself or the subject might accidentally bump it (gently), then the connection is disconnected and it quits recording. When that happens, it frequently requires several minutes before it will reconnect and resume recording. It's the same on both iPods. Should one want to adjust the gain setting during an interview, or simply adjust the tilt of the microphone, the same occurs. The gain switch is on the bottom of the microphone, which is inconvenient and somewhat hard to operate, and if adjusted during an interview, is guaranteed to disconnect the microphone from the iPod.

The Pros:
The sound quality is great, portability and size is perfect for my purposes. One can easily carry the iPod / Mikey combo in a shirt pocket. The adjustable gain is very nice to have, though I tend to use it on the most sensitive setting. There is far less static and background distraction recorded with this than other products. I have found the tilt to be useful, and aim it slightly towards my subjects. I am glad the microphone has the light above the gain setting, as it has proven extremely valuable for being able to tell if the unit is still connected and recording to the iPod.

Overall:
When I DO NOT have problems with the poor dock connection, I'm generally satisfied with the product. The resulting audio is very good. It would be ideal if the gain could be adjusted via the iPod and not reliant upon the poorly located switch on the underside microphone.

What I would change:
Make the dock connector better, other 3rd party companies have proven it is not hard to do; improve gain adjustment functionality.

Blue Mikey is a highly useful and high-quality gadget. It seems to be quite sensitive (when set up for high sensitivity) and makes quite high quality music recordings. It does have a few drawbacks... the biggest being that it covers up the headphone jack so you can't plug in headphones while using the device. Also since it uses the USB port, you can't use it while the iPod is attached to an external power source -- though I understand this is being fixed in the upgraded device they are about to release. I've had some occasional problems, such as it not being recognized by the iPod (one occurrence) and the accompanying recording software not going into record mode (a few occurrences), but overall a great investment.

I recently used it to record a meditation session I led and at the highest sensitivity the sound was quite good. The big surprise though is that the standard iPhone voice memo app will record in stereo with this mic, even though it doesn't look like it. Once you transfer the files from the iPhone to your computer you'll find out their are two audio channels. The resulting recordings with the voice memo app are very good and accurate reproductions of being their live.

The voice memo has the advantage over any paid recording app in that it can record in the background. So I can run my meditation timer in the foreground or check my calender while recording.

Note that in iPhone it will ask if you want to go into airplane mode. You don't have to, but you'll definitely want to because the cell phone transmissions will put a lot of speaker buzz noise all over your recordings. Also note that their is a newer version of Mikey coming in spring 2010. It's supposed to better accomodate the iPhone. So probably you'll be seeing this older version going for less soon.