NEW: iRig Acoustic Stage-$99

Sounds great brother! I plan to try on my other ukes besides the Fluke when I get time and will also share other samples.

What is that song you are playing?

Hey, thanks. I'm playing a truly poor imitation of Corey Fujimoto's arrangement of Chet Atkins' "Smokey Mountain Lullaby":
https://youtu.be/2ToldjXqN08

The sheet music is here:
http://www.theukulelereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/transcribed_corey_smokey.pdf

It's one of my absolute favorite instrumentals for the ukulele. Just wish I could play it better!
 
Wow.
This sounds very, very, VERY natural.
The timbre, the dynamics, the transients ... it all sounds really, really good.
I have a really hard time to imagine someone being able to tell that this is NOT a good quality condenser mic well positioned in front of the uke.
 
Well this would be a first. I have 4 other USB audio interfaces, 2 USB mics, and 2 other FireWire audio interfaces and all running at either 48kHz or 96kHz natively, and not yet had any evidence of such a problem.

When I make future recordings, I will see if this issue is persistent, and/or evident on Linux and my iPad.

Thanks for the suggestion as to the cause of the clicking sound.

Booli, something came to my mind related to your recording clicks, have you ever had electrical interference like someone turns on a lamp and...?
:)
 
Booli, something came to my mind related to your recording clicks, have you ever had electrical interference like someone turns on a lamp and...?
:)
Thanks for the suggestion. Since my 'computer room' and 'music room' are one and the same, I have server-grade power conditioning and battery-backup UPS units on every outlet in the room (which are on 3 different MAINS power circuit-breaker circuits), and the server rack that holds most of the equipment also has power distribution that further smooths out the electricity to pure-sine wave.

All of these also have EMI/RFI filtering built-in.

In the past I once had a problem with cheap CFL fluorescent light bulb, which as being cheap had poor shielding, and it took me ages to pinpoint the cause via process-of-elimination, and I have those clip-on ferrite filters on both ends of almost every single (of more than 100 different) cables for all of power, audio, and data.

So I am no stranger to the problems you are mentioning, and sometimes still get interference (sometimes ground loop hum), but I have not tested recording with the new iRig via USB yet on another device...

I will report back once I can, and I will also be going through all the wiring in the next week so hopefully will find any gremlins if they exist.

The only way really to do more, is to wallpaper the room with chicken-wire and make a Faraday Cage. but I will be moving soon, so that might have to be in the next home.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Since my 'computer room' and 'music room' are one and the same, I have server-grade power conditioning and battery-backup UPS units on every outlet in the room (which are on 3 different MAINS power circuit-breaker circuits), and the server rack that holds most of the equipment also has power distribution that further smooths out the electricity to pure-sine wave.

All of these also have EMI/RFI filtering built-in.

In the past I once had a problem with cheap CFL fluorescent light bulb, which as being cheap had poor shielding, and it took me ages to pinpoint the cause via process-of-elimination, and I have those clip-on ferrite filters on both ends of almost every single (of more than 100 different) cables for all of power, audio, and data.

So I am no stranger to the problems you are mentioning, and sometimes still get interference (sometimes ground loop hum), but I have not tested recording with the new iRig via USB yet on another device...

I will report back once I can, and I will also be going through all the wiring in the next week so hopefully will find any gremlins if they exist.

The only way really to do more, is to wallpaper the room with chicken-wire and make a Faraday Cage. but I will be moving soon, so that might have to be in the next home.

Thanks for your help, I began having this kind of interference since a few weeks ago...
 
Thanks for your help, I began having this kind of interference since a few weeks ago...

Fluorescent as well as LED bulbs can put out EMI and/or RFI, especially if of the cheaper kind and not made well with proper capacitors, and proper shielding to prevent 'leaks' which can manifest in audio gear.

In many cases, for me, the source of 'noise' is usually in the lighting, and you wont see it in daylight, but then at night when the lights are on it's all bzzz and hum at the fundamental 50/60 hz frequency and also sometimes harmonic frequencies like 100/120 hz, 200/240 hz etc...

Also, if using a piezo with a twisted-wire pair, instead of a shielded wire like a mini-coax, the piezo itself acts like an antenna and will pick up RF like a radio and inject that 'noise' into your audio.

CAT5 ethernet cable is not good for audio use LOL - (don't ask me how I know)
 
Fluorescent as well as LED bulbs can put out EMI and/or RFI, especially if of the cheaper kind and not made well with proper capacitors, and proper shielding to prevent 'leaks' which can manifest in audio gear.

In many cases, for me, the source of 'noise' is usually in the lighting, and you wont see it in daylight, but then at night when the lights are on it's all bzzz and hum at the fundamental 50/60 hz frequency and also sometimes harmonic frequencies like 100/120 hz, 200/240 hz etc...

Also, if using a piezo with a twisted-wire pair, instead of a shielded wire like a mini-coax, the piezo itself acts like an antenna and will pick up RF like a radio and inject that 'noise' into your audio.

CAT5 ethernet cable is not good for audio use LOL - (don't ask me how I know)

Waw, you're the man, thanks again.
 
:wtf: I would'nt even have tried - but at least now you know! :smileybounce:

Yea, solid (not stranded) 28 AWG twisted-pair wires might be ok for data transmission, but the solid wire is not good for the constant flexing when used for audio (like as a guitar cable), and will break, eventually. Stranded wire is better as it will withstand flexing without losing continuity. Guitar cables are a stranded wire core with a braided 'shield' that also acts as a ground wire.

Also, for anything longer than about 1ft, wire of such a thin gauge actually will DEGRADE an audio signal due to the inherent resistance of the wire, that's why most speaker wire is no thinner than 18AWG and often recommended to be 16AWG or even 14AWG.

If you recall Ohm's Law, the simplified version is like with water pipes, a fatter pipe lets more water flow, as in a fatter wire lets more electrons flow, more electrons = more SIGNAL and less 'noise', and also for a thicker shield or ground wire to help reject interference.
 
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The clip part of the iRig Acoustic can easily and (fairly) non-destructively be removed from the microphone, which makes it easier place elsewhere. I improved the sound of mine by making a mount that clips to the upper soundhole brace.

I wonder how you mounted this, I'd like to try on my cavaquinho.
 
I wonder how you mounted this, I'd like to try on my cavaquinho.

Sorry, I hadn't seen your post. My prototype was just the pickup temporarily glued to a clothes peg. I sanded a bit off the end of the peg to get a better grip on the brace. Now that I know I'm happy with the sound I'll 3d print a more permanent solution. I'm experimenting with other MEMS microphones first though - there's one in iPhone earbuds (I've had good results with one of these and heavy distortion from another) and one in the cable for Beats wireless headphones (not yet tested).
 
I have had this for a couple of days, I bought it to record straight into my Mac - thought it was working fine but now I am getting static. Or interference, or something. It starts only when there is a sound to record, it builds up for a few seconds then disappears for 20-30 seconds, then comes back again. It is driving me nuts. What am I doing wrong?! I have tried recording into iMovie, into GarageBand and using a simple free webcam app - same problem. The weird thing is that if i set it to metal strings it doesn't happen at all! I have tried resetting the calibration (not that I had calibrated it anyway). HELP!
 
I was testing my set and made this little demo with two different pickups:
https://youtu.be/WE9VEW34jvw
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yaq-UcApKs


If I am understanding this correct first test was between a under saddle pick up and the old original iRig acoustic, is that correct

The second test has the new iRig Acoustic stage. First sound bite is set on steel string and second sound bite is set on nylon.

If I have this correct the new iRig acoustic Stage is SOOOOO much better sounding than the old iRig acoustic, which I do own. Please ease my mind and confirm my statements above. If this is the case I want one even worse than before.
 
If I am understanding this correct first test was between a under saddle pick up and the old original iRig acoustic, is that correct

The second test has the new iRig Acoustic stage. First sound bite is set on steel string and second sound bite is set on nylon.

If I have this correct the new iRig acoustic Stage is SOOOOO much better sounding than the old iRig acoustic, which I do own. Please ease my mind and confirm my statements above. If this is the case I want one even worse than before.

Yes, that's correct.
 
If I am understanding this correct first test was between a under saddle pick up and the old original iRig acoustic, is that correct

The second test has the new iRig Acoustic stage. First sound bite is set on steel string and second sound bite is set on nylon.

If I have this correct the new iRig acoustic Stage is SOOOOO much better sounding than the old iRig acoustic, which I do own. Please ease my mind and confirm my statements above. If this is the case I want one even worse than before.

Also, the original iRig Acoustic seems to have some distortion in the recording here, which I've also experienced myself and found difficult to tame within a single recording that has both strumming parts (loud) and finterstyle parts (softer) since this mic runs pretty hot. The new iRig Acoustic Stage did not have this problem at all in my very limited testing.

Yes, you can set your recording level lower, and then use compression and normalization in software after the fact to mitigate these issues, but 99% of the time the rule of 'garbage in = garbage out' applies, especially with audio recording/amplification, and mics/pickups.

My recording methods are to get as clean of a natural recording as possible and not have to 'fix it in post' since that can lead to a huge time investment to tweak the sound, and the results are often sub-optimal.

Having said the above - these recordings shared by brother braguesa are very good to show the difference of the old iRig Acoustic vs. the newer and much improved version with the included preamp/USB interface.

Thanks to brother braguesa for creating and sharing these audio demos. Many folks will benefit from hearing them. :)

I have not had time to make any recordings yet myself, but plan to, in the near future...
 
Can find an outlet for the Acoustic Stage...suggestions? Heard it was now available but I've tried Amazon and B&H. ?????
 
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