NEW: iRig Acoustic Stage-$99

so YAY!

I received my iRig Acoustic Stage via FedEx today @ 10:40am.

I have not given it a full test yet, but here are a few first impressions:

- The box/packaging feels much like an Apple product, as such it inspires confidence that the prize inside will be magnificent (like when you get your first ever iOS device)

- Inside is a manual, quickstart guide and registration number, with a link for registering and another to download free software

- open the flap and you are greeted by a nice square-shaped zippered case, sort of a leathery feel, about the length and width of an audio CD jewel case and about 1.5" thick

- opening the beefy (nice) zippers and the case opens and has a large mesh pocket on each side to hold the goodies in place.

- included are:
- putting it all together was easy, but trying to remove the belt clip is going to require me to RTFM. Removing the belt clip is necessary to change the batteries. My first thought was that I hope they sell replacements in case the clip gets broken

- build quality is very good on the preamp. nothing rattles and it does not feel cheap, but due to it being very light (which is a plus in my book) one can mistake this as cheap

- the buttons and switches feel solid and seem to work well

Having said the above, I had only a few minutes to test it on 2 different ukes, 1 guitar and 2 different amps, so this is not a full 'review' but there were 2 things I noticed right away:

1. The mic clip itself needs something to help it stay on the soundhole. On every instrument so far, the gap where it hangs is too wide compared to the thickness of the instruments top at the soundhole, and as such it vibrates and rattles when you play. This is NOT a pleasant sound.

I have some closed-cell craft-foam 'sheets' that I can cut a piece to fit underneath, but a pair of Fender 'MEDIUM' guitar picks should also work. It needs about 2mm of 'stuffing' to hold it so it does not vibrate. Something that wont scratch the surface of your instrument.

Cardboard would likely be too abrasive, unless you covered it with Scotch 'Magic Tape' but might be unsightly if performing with such a thing.

I do not see this as a design flaw, for having a wider gap allows you to customize the fit to your instrument, and if it were too small, then it would just not fit, and likely break if forced.

Later I will share photos of my solution that I had used on the original iRig Acoustic which had the same problem.

2. If you turn off the preamp, before turning off your amplifier, you will hear a very loud hard THUMP as the speaker bottoms out when the preamp goes off. This is disappointing. This can damage a speaker by forcing such violent extrusion of the speaker cone. One needs to avoid causing this as a matter of common sense when using equipment that causes this effect.

I guess I am more used to tube preamp circuits that die gracefully when powered off, as opposed to a capacitor just dumping all of the DC at once. So TURN off or TURN DOWN your amp BEFORE you turn off the preamp.

I am not kidding when I said LOUD. I was 3 ft away from my Kustom Sienna 30 watt acoustic amp and it made me jump in my seat, and the master volume was only at about 4 on the amp.

As to the sound, right now, I can only say that 'it works' in that it makes a sound and is like an ukulele and/or guitar, but I have not played with all the tone settings yet, so I speak to the audio fidelity yet.

I also did not yet test the USB recording function.

Once I give it a full test I will report back, possibly with audio samples.

The one takeaway though, is that it feels solid to hold and use, and the case it comes with will keep it protected during transport, but is likely too big for most uke cases/bags and will need to go into your 'other gear' bag, which you are likely to have anyway.

more later

Just an update...

I did some recording tests on the iPad and discovered the following:

- the volume control has no effect on the signal level going into the USB, likely (and hopefully) this is set for 'unity gain'. and thus your record level is controlled by whatever software you are using

- the input level runs a little hot, and does require you to lower the gain to prevent your meter showing in the red above 0db, however when I open the file in Audacity and select 'Show Clipping' in the ANALYZE menu, there are only a few peaks that are above 0db, despite the metering in Audacity showing it hitting the red zone a bit in that part of the time-line, so there may be some compensation being done by the preamp in the form of hard-limiting or compression, but whatever it is doing, there is no audible distortion

- it sounds a lot like an ukulele, and I did not focus on HOW it sounds because I was more focused on testing the functionality, but later on will do a sound comparo with the iPad's built-in mic, as well as other condenser mics so you can make your own judgments

I also tested to see if it was truly class-compliant USB audio by plugging the USB into my Xubuntu Linux computer and in the sound preferences panel, it is recognized as an audio device and when I play, the meter level moves accordingly, so this is good news for us Linux users that this device works with Linux (even though not 'officially' supported by IKMM). I did not make any recordings under Linux just yet. (I also use a Mac as well, but have not tested it with the Mac yet, but plan to in the coming days)

One thing to note:

When I first tested the USB connection, I got no sound, not on the iPad nor on the computer, so I swapped out the USB cable for another, and then everything worked as expected.

(there is no USB cable in the box, but monoprice has them for cheap [less than $2 for a 10ft], and has never let me down in the past 5 yrs of buying from them - yes >>click here<< and on the page select the length you want - I suggest the 10ft or 15ft so you can be as far away as you need to without feeling 'tied' down)








It seems that I had initially grabbed one of the USB cables for charging one of the USB powerbank batteries that I have, and that cable must not have had all the 5 pins (micro-USB has 5 wires) wired through and only the 'power lines' but not the 'data lines' (since it is only meant for charging)...

So if you are not getting any sound over USB into your computer or Phone/Tablet where you USB cable is attached, just try another cable.

I was relieved that it was just a silly cable, and this can happen to anyone and is NOT the fault of IKMM.

Some time in the next few days I will record and put up the full demo and comparo video, but so far, the device seems to be working as promised.

Stay tuned!

Thank you Booli, your review is very interesting and I look forward to read what you think about the sound.
Just a short consideration.
I think it's interesting to compare the sound of the iRig with the sound of a condenser microphone. I think it holds up pretty well, but of course there's a thousand variables to consider.
However, I think that an even more valuable comparison is between the iRig and the most common ways to amplify an instrument on stage (piezo etc.). Because that's really, I think, where this product seems like a real game changer to me. In other words, to have a "microphonic sound" with the ease of use of a piezo, for example. With the added bonus of portability (from one instrument to another) and low cost. That's really where the iRig shines. To my knowledge, this is what is truly NEW to this mic technology. This is what blew me away about the iRig. The iRig might be useful in the studio as well (and it probabily will be ...) but after all, in the studio, I just use a nice condenser mic and I get what I want. That's on stage where the iRig makes a HUGE difference, as it simply allows to do something that was not possible before.
So, to me, the real test is when I compare the iRig sound with all my piezos (including expensive ones). And that's when I just can't believe what I hear ... in a good way!

Booli said:

Just an update...

I did some recording tests on the iPad and discovered the following:

- the volume control has no effect on the signal level going into the USB, likely (and hopefully) this is set for 'unity gain'. and thus your record level is controlled by whatever software you are using

- the input level runs a little hot, and does require you to lower the gain to prevent your meter showing in the red above 0db, however when I open the file in Audacity and select 'Show Clipping' in the ANALYZE menu, there are only a few peaks that are above 0db, despite the metering in Audacity showing it hitting the red zone a bit in that part of the time-line, so there may be some compensation being done by the preamp in the form of hard-limiting or compression, but whatever it is doing, there is no audible distortion

- it sounds a lot like an ukulele, and I did not focus on HOW it sounds because I was more focused on testing the functionality, but later on will do a sound comparo with the iPad's built-in mic, as well as other condenser mics so you can make your own judgments

I also tested to see if it was truly class-compliant USB audio by plugging the USB into my Xubuntu Linux computer and in the sound preferences panel, it is recognized as an audio device and when I play, the meter level moves accordingly, so this is good news for us Linux users that this device works with Linux (even though not 'officially' supported by IKMM). I did not make any recordings under Linux just yet. (I also use a Mac as well, but have not tested it with the Mac yet, but plan to in the coming days)

One thing to note:

When I first tested the USB connection, I got no sound, not on the iPad nor on the computer, so I swapped out the USB cable for another, and then everything worked as expected.

(there is no USB cable in the box, but monoprice has them for cheap [less than $2 for a 10ft], and has never let me down in the past 5 yrs of buying from them - yes >>click here<< and on the page select the length you want - I suggest the 10ft or 15ft so you can be as far away as you need to without feeling 'tied' down)

It seems that I had initially grabbed one of the USB cables for charging one of the USB powerbank batteries that I have, and that cable must not have had all the 5 pins (micro-USB has 5 wires) wired through and only the 'power lines' but not the 'data lines' (since it is only meant for charging)...

So if you are not getting any sound over USB into your computer or Phone/Tablet where you USB cable is attached, just try another cable.

I was relieved that it was just a silly cable, and this can happen to anyone and is NOT the fault of IKMM.

Some time in the next few days I will record and put up the full demo and comparo video, but so far, the device seems to be working as promised.

Stay tuned!

Click to expand...

Nice review, indeed! Thanks.
The switch off is really an issue and the mic needs to be accommodated. As for size, it is difficult to overcome physical limitations, the buttons and the batteries need space.

I noticed mic too sensitive to feedback, piezos are way more effective. I think you cannot have a loud monitor on stage. This is a question of taste, I love a good piezo sound, too!

braguesa said:

Nice review, indeed! Thanks.
The switch off is really an issue and the mic needs to be accommodated. As for size, it is difficult to overcome physical limitations, the buttons and the batteries need space.

Click to expand...

Glad you liked the write-up so far, but this was not intended as a full review, but as more of a 'first look' and I think that something of a full review can be had from combining the forthcoming, smaller iterative parts.

I just dont have the contiguous block of time to do it all at once, so it will have to be done in pieces and spread out further...

Also the thump sound when you power-off can be remedied if you use a volume pedal or an A/B/Y switcher, or even a 'killswitch' mute pedal but I think that even if the first pedal in your chain is a noise gate, the thump is still likely to trip the threshold and you will still hear it

braguesa said:

I noticed mic too sensitive to feedback, piezos are way more effective. I think you cannot have a loud monitor on stage. This is a question of taste, I love a good piezo sound, too!

Click to expand...

Reading in the PDF manual which you can get from the page linked above by IKMM, it says that the feedback cancellation can be active on and remember up to 10 different frequencies at a time in order to cancel the offending feedback.

In the little I played with it, and before reading the manual without a full understanding of how it worked, I can tell you that the feedback cancellation DOES in fact work and work very well, but you need to read the full instructions to get the most out of it.

Booli said:

Reading in the PDF manual which you can get from the page linked above by IKMM, it says that the feedback cancellation can be active on and remember up to 10 different frequencies at a time in order to cancel the offending feedback.

In the little I played with it, and before reading the manual without a full understanding of how it worked, I can tell you that the feedback cancellation DOES in fact work and work very well, but you need to read the full instructions to get the most out of it.

Click to expand...

Anti-feedback works, I tried it, but anti-feedback has tone consequences, it attenuates the freqs who are causing it!
Phase button is a much better option most of the times and this one is a welcome option.

braguesa said:

Anti-feedback works, I tried it, but anti-feedback has tone consequences, it attenuates the freqs who are causing it!
Phase button is a much better option most of the times and this one is a welcome option.

Click to expand...

If you change your position to the speaker, and have it in FRONT of you pointing AWAY, you will reduce or eliminate feedback. Feedback is made stronger if you are facing the front of the speaker or speaker is behind you.

Also, if you are too close to the speaker you will have feedback. 6 ft (or 2m) away is a good starting minimum distance.

Booli said:

If you change your position to the speaker, and have it in FRONT of you pointing AWAY, you will reduce or eliminate feedback. Feedback is made stronger if you are facing the front of the speaker or speaker is behind you.

Also, if you are too close to the speaker you will have feedback. 6 ft (or 2m) away is a good starting minimum distance.

Click to expand...

I know what feedback is, believe me.
This mic is omnidirectional and good to a studio or low gain session, when you're on a live situation with lots os audio pressure, it's another world!

braguesa said:

I know what feedback is, believe me. 
This mic is omnidirectional and good to a studio or low gain session, when you're on a live situation with lots os audio pressure, it's another world!

Click to expand...

With 35+ yrs experience as an audio engineer, both in the studio and live situations including running FOH (Front Of House), as well as being in many bands during this time, I can tell you that there are numerous ways to mitigate feedback, but it is up to you whether or not to use these methods.

MANY groups in the folk music world use a SINGLE omnidirectional phantom-powered condenser mic on stage in high gain stage environments, and the trick is the mic placement vs. the speaker or amplifier.

You need to understand how sound waves travel and interact with each other, otherwise you will always be drowned in a sea of feedback. It is a matter of physics and acoustics. Wikipedia can help you to learn a lot.

Booli said:

With 35+ yrs experience as an audio engineer, both in the studio and live situations including running FOH (Front Of House), as well as being in many bands during this time, I can tell you that there are numerous ways to mitigate feedback, but it is up to you whether or not to use these methods.

MANY groups in the folk music world use a SINGLE omnidirectional phantom-powered condenser mic on stage in high gain stage environments, and the trick is the mic placement vs. the speaker or amplifier.

You need to understand how sound waves travel and interact with each other, otherwise you will always be drowned in a sea of feedback. It is a matter of physics and acoustics. Wikipedia can help you to learn a lot.

Click to expand...

I've no such experience, but I've seen guys with lots of problems with the omnidirectional pattern, I prefer cardiod or even hypercardioid ones. Has a player, mainly classical guitar, we study for achieving the cleanest sound possible, with minimum fretting noise and so. Piezos with good eq and processing can help you getting that sound, mics have some disadvantages like background noise, feedback and moving limitations. Piezos on the other hand, has the "quack" effect that you can get around it with some processing like fishman aura spectrum DI, Acoustic Magicstomp, bodillizer vst, etc.
Miking acoustic on a pop-rock band is a nightmare, you has a technician know that better than me, that fader always under control.
With piezo it's easyer to apply aux effects to your sound too, with any effects pedal.
Its just a question of pros n cons. Live I go always piezo.

braguesa said:

I've no such experience, but I've seen guys with lots of problems with the omnidirectional pattern, I prefer cardiod or even hypercardioid ones. Has a player, mainly classical guitar, we study for achieving the cleanest sound possible, with minimum fretting noise and so. Piezos with good eq and processing can help you getting that sound, mics have some disadvantages like background noise, feedback and moving limitations. Piezos on the other hand, has the "quack" effect that you can get around it with some processing like fishman aura spectrum DI, Acoustic Magicstomp, bodillizer vst, etc.
Miking acoustic on a pop-rock band is a nightmare, you has a technician know that better than me, that fader always under control.
With piezo it's easyer to apply aux effects to your sound too, with any effects pedal.
Its just a question of pros n cons. Live I go always piezo.

Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you said, and especially about cardioid and hypercardioid being preferred for live situations.

Also the 'quack' of piezo is caused by what is known as an 'impedance mismatch' which I have seen discussed extensively here on UU in the past in some 285 threads, many of which I have explained this in painfully granular details, both from a players perspective as well as a sound engineer perspective.

As you mentioned these preamps (fishman aura spectrum DI, Acoustic Magicstomp) and others like the LR Baggs Para-DI and Venue-DI and the Behringer ADI-21, they all fix the impedance mismatch which fixes the quack, and are necessary if you are using ANY kind of ceramic piezo or PZT or PVDF film piezo pickup.

Full details of how and why this works are beyond the scope of this thread, but I encourage you to search and read those threads as per this link: click here or this link: click here

Hope this helps.

Booli said:

I agree with most of what you said, and especially about cardioid and hypercardioid being preferred for live situations.

Also the 'quack' of piezo is caused by what is known as an 'impedance mismatch' which I have seen discussed extensively here on UU in the past in some 285 threads, many of which I have explained this in painfully granular details, both from a players perspective as well as a sound engineer perspective.

As you mentioned these preamps (fishman aura spectrum DI, Acoustic Magicstomp) and others like the LR Baggs Para-DI and Venue-DI and the Behringer ADI-21, they all fix the impedance mismatch which fixes the quack, and are necessary if you are using ANY kind of ceramic piezo or PZT or PVDF film piezo pickup.

Full details of how and why this works are beyond the scope of this thread, but I encourage you to search and read those threads as per this link: click here or this link: click here

Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Impedance is a passive piezo pickup issue, indeed, but active circuits resolve that. The processors I said go a step further processing the signal giving a more "airy" sound effect. For passive piezo pickups a very high input impedance is needed on preamps, or you lose top and button freq range. Flor pedals usually have a 1 Mohm impedance that is good for magnetic pickups bur not for piezos. Normally it is a 10 Mohm input preamp impedance for good results.

braguesa said:

Impedance is a passive piezo pickup issue, indeed, but active circuits resolve that. The processors I said go a step further processing the signal giving a more "airy" sound effect. For passive piezo pickups a very high input impedance is needed on preamps, or you lose top and button freq range. Flor pedals usually have a 1 Mohm impedance that is good for magnetic pickups bur not for piezos. Normally it is a 10 Mohm input preamp impedance for good results.

Click to expand...

Yes, exactly this information is discussed in the threads I linked above.

Thanks for such a perfect summary of the info. We are on the same page brother. :rock:

Booli said:

Yes, exactly this information is discussed in the threads I linked above.

Thanks for such a perfect summary of the info. We are on the same page brother. :rock:

Click to expand...

You know, the shortest path between two points is a straight line, so summarizing is a good approach...
Just joking, I like audio hardware/software related stuff and it's not a so linear thing to achieve good results.
The only thing iRig Acoustic Stage makes me sad of is that it cannot be used on my portuguese cavaquinho as the string action is very, very low! Maybe I'll try some "tuning" for it.

braguesa said:

You know, the shortest path between two points is a straight line, so summarizing is a good approach...
Just joking, I like audio hardware/software related stuff and it's not a so linear thing to achieve good results.
The only thing iRig Acoustic Stage makes me sad of is that it cannot be used on my portuguese cavaquinho as the string action is very, very low! Maybe I'll try some "tuning" for it.

Click to expand...

Why not? Hack and Mod AWAY! That's what I do to make things work lots of the time.

There's the hacker credo: "If you cannot OPEN it, you do not OWN it."

ETA: sometimes, like in worst-case-scenario, the use of a HAMMER is required LOL

Interesting conversation, guys.
I just want to add my 2 cents, which does NOT come from a technical perspective at all.
Sound is a matter of taste of course.
But, to me, the ugliness of the piezo sound does not only come from the quack. It comes from the "plasticy" tone, the "artificial" timbre, the "lifeless" body of it. All guitars sound almost the same, with piezo. You "lose" the guitar, its uniqueness. I really NEVER heard a piezo sound that I liked. It can be more or less bad but, to me, no matter how you process it, there's no way to get that "wood" feel and the "air" that you get with a microphone. The only tool that comes closer to me is the Fishman Aura, which I own. It's a vast improvement over piezo, but it requires a good fitting "image" (as Fishman calls it) of your guitar / instrument. I have several guitars and ukes, and I can only use the Aura with good results with just 1 guitar, because I found a fitting "image" for it. So, Aura is quite good, the piezo sound is actually replaced by something closer to a real acoustic sound, but it's far from ideal and not versatile (unless you wanna spend a LOT of money and send all your instruments to Fishman in order to create an "image" for each of them).
I've tried the BodyRez recently. It's very effective, in a way. And I was tempted to buy it. But even the BodyRez does not get rid of the "piezo" signature sound. It just makes it more tolerable, so to speak, but nothing to do with a good acoustic sound, in my opinion.
That's why I am so excited by the iRig. It is quite different from anything else I've tried, including the Aura. It seems to perform a little better with certain instruments, but in a much more consistent (and simple) way than the Aura.
But, as I said, it's really a matter of taste. I remember listening to Eric Clapton using for a live show an acoustic guitar sound that, to me, was just horrifying - as plastic and fake as it could get. And that was Clapton!!! So, I'm probably totally wrong

Jomasino said:

Interesting conversation, guys.
I just want to add my 2 cents, which does NOT come from a technical perspective at all.
Sound is a matter of taste of course.
But, to me, the ugliness of the piezo sound does not only come from the quack. It comes from the "plasticy" tone, the "artificial" timbre, the "lifeless" body of it. All guitars sound almost the same, with piezo. You "lose" the guitar, its uniqueness. I really NEVER heard a piezo sound that I liked. It can be more or less bad but, to me, no matter how you process it, there's no way to get that "wood" feel and the "air" that you get with a microphone. The only tool that comes closer to me is the Fishman Aura, which I own. It's a vast improvement over piezo, but it requires a good fitting "image" (as Fishman calls it) of your guitar / instrument. I have several guitars and ukes, and I can only use the Aura with good results with just 1 guitar, because I found a fitting "image" for it. So, Aura is quite good, the piezo sound is actually replaced by something closer to a real acoustic sound, but it's far from ideal and not versatile (unless you wanna spend a LOT of money and send all your instruments to Fishman in order to create an "image" for each of them).
I've tried the BodyRez recently. It's very effective, in a way. And I was tempted to buy it. But even the BodyRez does not get rid of the "piezo" signature sound. It just makes it more tolerable, so to speak, but nothing to do with a good acoustic sound, in my opinion.
That's why I am so excited by the iRig. It is quite different from anything else I've tried, including the Aura. It seems to perform a little better with certain instruments, but in a much more consistent (and simple) way than the Aura.
But, as I said, it's really a matter of taste. I remember listening to Eric Clapton using for a live show an acoustic guitar sound that, to me, was just horrifying - as plastic and fake as it could get. And that was Clapton!!! So, I'm probably totally wrong

Click to expand...

It's all relative, you can have a good acousitc tone, as a good electro one. Playing with a piezo requires a different playing approach, it has different attack and dynamics. Pop/rock players prefer the middle freq taste of piezos as it cuts through the mix, but when alone, that sound is anything but ear candy!
I confess that sometimes it pleases me more a plastic sound, it just works better.
It should be known that contact and undersadlle piezos are two different sounds, the first has more body ressonance and less "ducky" plastic sound. Clapton is not so acoustic, neither Bryan May, Bryan Adams... Their acoustic tone seems like plug'n'play.

braguesa said:

The only thing iRig Acoustic Stage makes me sad of is that it cannot be used on my portuguese cavaquinho as the string action is very, very low! Maybe I'll try some "tuning" for it.

Click to expand...

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.