After having notched up over 10 million total app downloads on the iOS platform, Italy's IK Multimedia has announced its first move into Android territory with the iRig Recorder app. Essentially turning any Android mobile device into a quality audio-capture device for interviews, music performances, rehearsals, lectures, and the like via its built-in microphone, the free-to-install recording app comes with multiple signal processing effects and file sharing features.
According to IK Multimedia, the basic iRig Recorder Android smartphone and tablet app is available now from Google's Play Store, and is designed to be as easy-to-use as possible. There's no complicated setup, users just need to install, launch and hit record (though an auto record feature is also included, that starts capturing audio as soon as the app is launched). Usefully, the recording time is limited only by the amount of space available on your device.
Recorded files can be saved on the Android device itself (with automatic grouping and geo-tagging), shared over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or exported in CD-quality (16-bit/44.1 kHz) uncompressed WAV format, or as (compressed) OGG files ranging from 64 to 192 kbps. A range of included audio processors automatically optimize levels/tone to help ensure the best recording quality, and the original file is retained when using the in-app editor, just in case you accidentally cut something you shouldn't.
More advanced waveform editing functionality and additional effects processing can be added into the basic package for US$4.99, and the app is also compatible with IK Multimedia's external microphones and hardware – including the iRig MIC handheld microphone, the iRig MIC Cast compact microphone that plugs into the audio jack of the mobile device, and the iRig PRE microphone pre-amp which allows users to plug in professional XLR microphones.
Unfortunately, the launch of other apps from IK Multimedia's music and recording range may be subject to some delay.
"For apps such as AmpliTube, VocaLive and even DJ Rig, an important requirement is a low latency audio signal path," the company's Paul Kaufman told Gizmag. "This is inherent in the design of iOS devices but is currently missing from Android devices. Basically, if you played your guitar through an Android device there would be a fraction of a second delay before you heard the sound back through your headphones or speaker. This would sound like a short echo after each note and would make it extremely off-putting and it would be impossible to play smoothly. We understand that a future update to Android will resolve this issue which will then allow these kinds of apps to work as they should."
The video below walks through many of the iRig Recorder for Android features.
Source: IK Multimedia
...yadda, yadda, yadda.
So, then, if this is by the same company, did my email to them actually help? Of course, I coudn't have been the only one; but still, did such emails from me and however many others actually work?
I'm stunned 'cause iPhone/iPad/iOS-centric aftermarket product vendors tend to just unceremoniously blow-off Android users and their wishes... almost for the pure sport of it... like we were a lower form of life, or something... pretty much the same attitude they've always had toward Windows users, come to think of it. And most of them would so do even if it could be shown that the combined total of all iOS devices were only 10% of the market, with Android the other 90%, because that's how the blindly-loyal and arrogantly-dismissive (of anything other than iOS stuff) iOS-centric tend to be.
Of course, Windows users have long been even less generous for... well... pretty much forever. So six of one is a half dozen of the other, I suppose.
Hmm. Interesting.