You might laugh at me but I'll just ask it :-):
I've got an iBook that I use very intensively and I wonder what is the best way to record my band sessions onto it. My dad bought me an iMic for my birthday one month ago which I haven't used for recording yet but just for the fact that it output's audio better than the onboard-audiocard in the iBook and it's only about 35 euro's. Appart from this I play with my band every week and we record the songs everytime on tape. This process however is quite timeconsuming because then it has to be transported to the computer to make mp3's of it (which is basically the idea so the entire band can have the songs at home). As the iMic has an input option I wondered if it would be sufficient to provide some reasonable input quality. All the sound in the studio is captured by two mic's which I could convert into one minijack and then into the iMic. To make a long story short: Is the iMic capable of recording that with reasonable quality?

Sorry for the long post.

Regards,
Wilfred Boelhouwer

Wilfred:

I have an iBook dual USB 500 mhz. I bought an iMic to record into it, and couldn't get it to record without adding some clicks every 10 seconds or so. I emailed Griffin and they said that on the iBook I would need to upgrade to OS 9.2.2 (I was using 9.1). I upgraded but continued to have the problem. It apparently is something to do with the iBook's manner of writing to the disk. It's frustrating when the iMic advertising claims success.

Your iBook may be a newer version (mine bought two years ago.) I'd check Griffin's website - I think it was their troubleshooting section - to see if there are any potential compatibility problems.

If so there are other devices out there that are basically the same thing - audio to USB - that might work better.

Carlos

Hey Calden, thank you for your reply. I'm running Os X so I hope that will do as for compatibility. Do know a good (freeware)app for Os X for simple music-recording.

Regards,
Wilfred Boelhouwer

To get the best out the iMic you should look for the 3rd party driver available for it, make a search on imic for eventual hints

The commercial driver for the imic is there

Browse here with the search tool first before buying the driver, it helps for the lattency thru monitoring, I can't tell for your problems.

happy reading

I would not recommend as I have seen too many complaints and seen many users who ended up buying another interface later on because of their dislike for it. If you do get one... look for used one on ebay maybe so you don't waste much $$$.

I wouldn't recommend the iMic for recording either. Judging by other users' reports, you'll only experience repeated pain, frustration and heartache. Spend around £150 or $200/€200 and get a semi-pro dedicated audio recording interface. Loads to choose from. Much happier all round.

As for software, if you can boot into OS 9, try Pro Tools Free or Logic Fun or Cubasis or Metro LE. Do you want multitrack or simple two-track stereo? For $50, my favourite is Sound Studio, a really cool two-track audio editing package, OS X native, very stable. Or Bias Peak LE is OK, too - you can use VST FX with that. But I still prefer Sound Studio.

i use an imic with my powerbook g4 and the Propagamma USB-ASIO driver (www.usb-audio.com) and it works great for me. a lot of people have a pop at the imic because of the audio stuttering, but this is easily solved; make sure the laptop's low-power modes are disabled (energy saver control panel), connect the imic direct to the laptop's usb port, not a hub, and most importantly USE THE MAINS, DONT RELY ON BATTERY ALONE! this is what coused the stuutering audio for me. wilf, what software are you using to record? if it uses asio drivers, get the propagamma driver - its about $50 but its well worth it. better latency than many 'pro' audio interface drivers. i get 7ms - nice!

can't help you with the imic, but spark me is a great little osX freeware app. www.tcelectronic.com/SparkME

Hi

I had the same problem, recording band rehearsals.

Have a Griffin imic, using it with soundstation from www.felttip.com on a powerbook G4 550 (previously on an ibook) - works fine for basic recordings, but not for demo-quality material, as you obviously can't adjust the mix. Mic placement is everything. Soundstation seems solid, shareware and not too expensive.

Now struggling with logic...... Had it a month and still not made a sound!

Good luck!

DrDan

Logic is a beast to master... you might want to consider one or two of the videos they have out to help learn more about it. I had one that I got free with my Logic and it was very helpful as explaining the use of the environment and how to setup midi. If interested... look on Samash.com for the videos.