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Arzi
07-07-2015, 11:15 AM
Hi all,

Since I'm new to playing in a band I'm also a beginner in recording a band.

Anyway, as we wanna improve our performance we have to be able to listen to our selves playing from another perspective. So, we thought about buying a cheap recorder like Zoom for about 100-150€. Then I got to thinking - how about finding out if I could use my phone as a recorder with an external microphone? Our singer has a few mics to choose from and my Sony Z3 has the ability to record also in stereo (although Sony's only stereo mic for the use costs about 100€ - ouch). Mono is more than plenty for the purpose for the time being. Will need the proper adapters of course.

So - do you more experienced people have any tips and think if the idea would work? Thanks.

Arzi

kimball492
07-07-2015, 10:36 PM
This interface works with Android but it is made for guitars . I think you could plug your mics into a mixer then send to Aux in on the irig ua interface . There are problems with android devices having bad latency issues .What that means is the time you play a note on the guitar , the android device processes it then puts the sound out there's a delay. They are trying to over come this with a DSP chip that is built into the irig ua interface rather than using the DSP chip on the Android device. I have put link below might be worth sending ik multimedia an email asking about recording via mics. Not having used Android software or interfaces before
I'd check thoroughly with ik ref compatibility also ask them about recommended compatible recording software. Search for a member here called fatmunkey he has a Zoom R16 he loves to pieces might be just the thing your looking for.

Fatmunkey wrote Proud R16 owner here, and would happily buy another one. It's best use is as a demo machine, a couple guitars and a drum mic and then a vocal mic and you can get pretty good full band demos going on. The killer feature is that you can then pull out your SD card, throw it into a computer, and you've got all your tracks ready to go into Reaper or Protools.

I've only used a couple of the built in effects but they sound good, if a little hard to use as the interface requires you to RTFM.

AND you can use it as a control surface for mixing, but really it comes into its own as a quick n dirty multitrack recorder.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigua/
http://android.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/10-powerful-audio-recording-apps/
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/R16

Arzi
07-07-2015, 11:27 PM
Hi kimball

Thanks for the info. I know about latency issues with android and were not recording a demo at this point - or in the near future even. At this point it's for the purpose of knowing if our timing is right or if our singer stays in tune etc. For we haven't heard ourselves live and we do not have our whole band going thru PA. The acoustics is also from stone age in our training facilities - more like a garage so baby steps at this point. We tried recording with just the phone's mic once with poor results. Therefore the idea of using external mic and just improving the quality of a recording so that we could hear every instrument better and work on from there.

No too much money spending for now because we have to move our gear to another location in the end of august. Demo team comes and they start building condo's on the lot. So just recording live garage playing...

Arzi

kimball492
08-07-2015, 08:24 PM
Hi Arzi ,the most important thing is you have fun with ya buddies jamming and playing.