Customer Reviews

Gemini IKEY Plus Portable USB Recording Device

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have purchased a variety of mp3 recording devices, and have found this one to be very satisfactory so far. I am a court reporter, which means I make recordings of official events for a living. So the functioning of this guy is "mission-critical," as it were. It has not let me down so far. It makes high quality mp3 recordings onto usb flash devices, such as a usb flashdrive, and at the 128 mbt setting, which is fine for my purposes, can record for over 8 hours on a 512 megabyte drive.

It records to a variety of mp3 bitrates, starting with the standard for most downloaded mp3's I believe, 128 bit, which is the one I use, as I am recording speech. Also records to uncompressed 16 bit wav files. I have recorded to compact flash cards and usb flash drives, using both the line and mic inputs, and have gotten highly adequate results. The sound is crisp and clear with little more hum or background noise than my computer using a Behringer preamp.

So while this is no Edirol R1, it actually has outperformed the Marantz PMD 660 which I also purchased before, at least as a portable mp3 recorder. At a quarter of the price of the Marantz, I should add. Offhand, this is designed better than the Marantz in a handful of ways. I would say this is perfect for recording your vinyl to mp3, your lectures, all kinds of stuff. Very handy, and very inexpensive too. The only drawback for some is it is only built to record. It does not play back. For that you still need a machine that can play mp3's or wav files, but obviously if you are reading this post you have it at your fingertips literally.


The other person's post complaining of problems with the microphone input etc., claiming the device has no preamp for mic input is not entirely correct. I can use a mic with it, or a stereo mic, but my complaint is different: the mic input, at least for my ikey plus, is not a stereo input. So on using it I found that my recordings were not in stereo. Rather they were 2 identical mono recordings. Something seems wrong here to me. But the preamp does indeed boost the signal for me. Not incredibly strongly, but I have often found that to be the case. You can do as I do now and run a weak line level signal into the RCA jacks and switch the ikey plus to mic input,and get a major boost, if you want. Works pretty good for me. I use a Church Audio mic preamp, and then run the preamped signal into the ikey plus, and set it at mic level, just as I described. I just recorded a 10-hour hearing for two days in a row just now this way.

So I think this one is absolutely great for recording speech. Much more versatile than any of the @#$%@$ you buy from companies like Olympus that record to lousy proprietary formats, or to overly-compressed formats. And they record in stereo, so long as you use the RCA inputs. I think this device would also be very adequate for recording vinyl, but I haven't tried that one. I have successfully recorded about a couple dozen various government functions with it in the past few weeks since I bought it, and it has done very well for me. I just hope it lasts a long time.

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This added months later: It's still going strong, and has worked without fail on dozens upon dozens of hearings, meetings, etc., many of them being longer than 10 hours. I have also taken it out to a nature preserve with a battery powered preamp and recorded birds and frogs; i.e., your typical nature recording.

So aside from the caveats already mentioned I would still endorse this one strongly. I might add to the caveat this small warning: You may lose your file if you shut down immediately after stopping the recording. you need to give it a couple seconds to finish saving after you stop the recording before you shut it off, I suspect because this simple device doesn't contain smart enough circuitry to delay shutdown until saving is complete. (However, it IS smart enough to save before shutting down due to low battery, as I've learned from my outdoor recording sessions.)

That is one of the little features you don't get with a no-frills gadget like this, and I once learned this lesson to my dismay after recording a long committee meeting in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Fortunately, I always make backups.) But after one time, I just leave it on for a few seconds before shutting down, and it's only happened that once. That minor issue, along with the mic preamp issue described above, I have no trouble working with this, and I think it's the greatest, especially for the price.

I've spent a fortune on various products to get my old LPs into digital format so I can use them on my iPod. I'm not very techno-gifted, so tried to stay away from solutions that involved multiple computer-type steps, software programs, etc. (though I've tried a few of those too). I even bought the $400 TEAC GF-350 direct-from-LP-to-CD recorder (horrible quality on the final CD product; see my Amazon review for that unit if you're thinking about it). Anyway, I saw the iKey Plus unit, read reviews (here and elsewhere) and it sounded great. I bought it and I'm now using it, and with only one album under my belt, it seems to be doing exactly what I want. It's easy to use, and it puts high-quality recordings onto your desktop. You just drag them into your iTunes and rename them, and you're good to go. ONE CAVEAT: I may be the only dummy who didn't realize it, but the unit requires an external storage device of some kind to be attached while you are recording, there is no memory storage built into the unit! I thought I had a defective unit until I figured this out...once I bought a thumbdrive and plugged it into the USB port of the device, it records like a dream, and I'm happy as a clam.

I recently purchased an iKEY Plus MP3 recorder for a project that requires portable stereo MP3 recording with live monitoring. I thought I had found the most inexpensive solution. The standard digital voice recorders do not allow monitoring, and the Zoom H-2 and H-4 are more expensive (as are other more professional devices).

The problem that I found was that this device cannot record true 2-channel input. All recordings have 2 channels of data, but each channel contains the exact same signal---an average of the two input signals. This is the case through the attached stereo mic, my own stereo mic, or through the RCA input jacks.

This mono-only capability is not stated in the user's manual, nor on the web site, nor in the descriptions here on Amazon. In fact, because of the inclusion of a stereo mic and dual RCA jacks, one wonders whether the creators of this product were purposely trying to mislead the public. I was told by a representative of the manufacturer that the box has been changed, presumably to reflect the device's actual capabilities. My box says nothing about "mono"-only.

If you only want mono audio, and you need live monitoring, then this device is your best bet. The sound quality is improved by using a better microphone. I use the audio-technica ATR35s, which is inexpensive and has a nice long cable. My voice recordings, even at 128 kbps, sound just like me.

If you want true stereo, or want to convert LP collections to MP3, look elsewhere.

Just plug in a gig stick of usb memory and plug the Gemini iKey Plus into a couple of monitor channels from your mixer and you have a very inexpensive way to get clean, digital, stereo recordings of your worship services. Take the gig stick to a computer and use an audio editing program (like the free Audacity) if you want to edit before you put a sermon on the web or podcast. Of course there are a number of other recording tasks you can accomplish with the iKey Plus. Just be sure to get the Plus model. You'll definitely want the LED level metering and other features that are missing from the standard version. I'd give this product five stars but it's not volunteer-proof. We've lost a couple of recordings by not following the shut-down procedure before pulling the memory stick out. Otherwise a fantastic product - 4.5 stars!

this product is dope. the analog to digital conversion is really clean. The product is truly one-of-a-kind. Buy one before the RIAA decides this is a threat to their industry.

I have been using a sims voice recorder for about 6 years now to record our live music-And when its time for us to go on I dont have a lot of time to make my setup-The sims was easy and fast as well-but I found that the sims software had some glicks to it-With the ikey theres no software to mess with-And its just as fast to set up-When were done I disconect it the way the manuel said-bring it home and plug the flash drive in the computer and it comes up as a hard drive-I can have a 2 hour session in the computer in about 30 seconds-5 minutes later I can have it on a cd-Thanks for reading my review-ed in chatsworth ga

This recorder is very touchy. I would not recommend this is you have one shot at getting your recording. Corrupt files, no recording, and lack of online support. An overall disaster for your average user.

I lost mine in a fire & couldn't wait to scrape up enough cash to get another one.

It's a bit expensive, but you won't find anything quite like it, as versatile, & useful... excellent quality recordings.

For those having problems, read the instructions carefully.

Also, although very rare, a very few thumb drives, cards, & card readers may be a problem with this recorder. If you have problems try to reformat the memory device on your PC & try again. If that don't work, just get a different card or thumb drive. Do not keep trying & forcing the problematic memory device to work if it won't.

Plug in the memory device before powering up the recorder. Do not remove the device until the power on the recorder is off.

When finished recording, wait about a minute before powering down. The recorder may still be writing data onto the card for a short time after you've finished recording.

I just got this little jewel this week and I've got to say that it has not disappointed me in the least. I needed this for portability, ease of use, and good audio quality. I got it on all three counts. It's very light, easy to use and the sound quality really impressed me. I did a little mic input and some line level input and recorded at all sample rates on mp3 and wav format and it did very well indeed. I have no phonograph to play with or I'd have done it too. I'll use this almost exclusively for recording seminars, workshops, and breakout sessions. It sure beats what I had been carrying around for several years now. With an audio editor (like Audacity) editing the files is a breeze. I intentionally let this record for over 1 1/2 hrs to see how it would do with a large files. It recorded just fine on to the 4gb flash I used and the led VU levels were just about right... Not too much, and not too little. I recorded some music on it to see how it compared to the CD it came from. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference on the better sampling rates. The only thing I might be a little critical about is that the headphone output is a little higher than the recording level. I mean, when you monitor your recording with headphones, it seems a little loud. Then again, it could be my headphones.
Anyway, I like what I have in this little recorder. It certainly does what I wanted and exceeded my expectations for sound quality. High end recording? No... don't be silly. But for the price, I'd sure give this little bugger a six star rating if I could!!!

This is a very convenient little recorder. I used it to record my sermons at church. Unfortunately it only worked for a little more than a year then suddenly quit. That's approximately only 52 uses, give or take a couple. I certainly think this should have lasted longer than that.