Topic: Recording to my iPod - great little digi recorder

[gravity]

I understand a port of Rockbox is working on some of the iPods so I imagine that some gain adjustments will be available in the future, but right now I use my preamp to adjust gain. The mics and preamp are inexpensive Church Audio stuff I got on ebay. The pre-amp is his model ST-9000 and the mics are some little cardioid capsules.

[CHURCH-AUDIO]

Cool mod you should sell the adaptor on ebay :_) make some $$$ with that. So do you see a display on the ipod for signal level? how do you switch into record mod all the jazz tell us more. Also its nice to know your using my mics and preamp. I hope you like them. The recording sample sounded a bit dull was this converted to mp3 or is that done inside the ipod?

Chris Church

I understand a port of Rockbox is working on some of the iPods so I imagine that some gain adjustments will be available in the future, but right now I use my preamp to adjust gain. The mics and preamp are inexpensive Church Audio stuff I got on ebay. The pre-amp is his model ST-9000 and the mics are some little cardioid capsules.

[Howell]

I was actually just about to do this.  What kind of cable do you have soldered to the adapter?  I already run linux on my ipod and last night i was contemplating tearing apart my fire wire dock connector, but since you need it to do the software updates from OSX I didn't want to ruin it.  Did you order dock connectors or just use one from some cheap adapter?

[gravity]

Don't try to alter a dock connector that you arleady have. All you need is a 1/8" stereo patch cord and male dock connector end that you can order online at the link below. The guy takes paypal and they are only $2.50 a piece, so order several as it's easy to screw them up. They ship from Europe (Sweden, I think) but I got mine in about a week.

You're only soldering to 3 pins (Line-in left, line-in right, and ground)  but the dock connector has 30 pins, so I would snip off the pins you are not using that are adjacent to the ones you do need to use. I also cut a strip of playing card and slipped it under the pin I was soldering to so that I could isolate just that one.


http://home.swipnet.se/ridax/connector.htm

There's nothing on the iPod that displays signal level, but I'm hoping that it is coming in the future. Audacity has realtime level meters and I'm hoping someone can port that feature to the iPod. The iPod writes directly to .wav, and I converted that track to mp3 in Audacity.

To record, you simply boot your iPod to ipodlinux (you can choose the boot os at startup by holding a key combination). Once it boots, you just scroll down to "Extras" > "Recordings", select line-in, set your sampling rate and click start.

[Howell]

Sweet, just placed an order for some dock connectors.

You said you have already used this to tape a show, how long did the recording run.  The one review of somebody who made a line in on the ipodlinux.org forums that I read said they ran into problems when the recording time got over about an hour?  Did you see any problems with this at all, or did you even have a single file that went that long?

BTW, the battery is easy to replace.  I just did mine a week ago and it takes < 10 minutes.  I got a battery from ipodbatterydepot.com for 16 bucks, it's 850mAh and comes with two little plastic tools to help get the case apart.  You have to be a little rough with it than you would think to get it open but once you get it the case pops right off.

[gravity]

I did the battery in mine too and it was easy. I only have a 650mah in mine and I get about 2-hours out of it, but the key is to keep the ipod off right up until you want to use it. Booting back and forth from regular mode to linux is a real power sucker, so try not to do it more than once before recording.

I just got a 2nd iPod I scored on ebay for $58, and already have the 850mah battery on it's way. I got mine from a Hong Kong supplier for about $12. The little plastic tools are OK, but I have some small wood working chisels that I find to be a little sturdier for popping the case open.

And now that I have 2, I can just swap them out when the juice starts to run low. You can set the battery meter to display a # that counts down as the battery drains so you can estimate when it's gonna crap out.

[rdflash]

Can you do the mod with 4th generation Ipods??

I found this.

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ipod-Linux-on-a-4th-Generation-Photo-or-Nano-Ipod

[sunrisemusic]

Sweet! Has anyone done any recording with the video iPod, it already has 16 bit 44.1k included, though you'd need a preamp.  I'm curious, cos I haven't heard any reports about it's audio recording yet.

[rdflash]

Sweet! Has anyone done any recording with the video iPod, it already has 16 bit 44.1k included, though you'd need a preamp.  I'm curious, cos I haven't heard any reports about it's audio recording yet.

Video Ipods are 5th generation I believe, which means it cannot be used for this purpose yet.

[TheTweezer]

Can you do the mod with 4th generation Ipods??

I found this.

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ipod-Linux-on-a-4th-Generation-Photo-or-Nano-Ipod

ipodlinux works with g4/photo, but this ipod doens't support line-in only mic-in

Tweezer

[rdflash]

Can you do the mod with 4th generation Ipods??

I found this.

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ipod-Linux-on-a-4th-Generation-Photo-or-Nano-Ipod

ipodlinux works with g4/photo, but this ipod doens't support line-in only mic-in

Tweezer

How do you know this?

j/w

[Howell]

3 - Only recording via microphone works on these models, no line in.

http://ipodlinux.org/Project_Status

[rdflash]

thanks

+ T

[TheTweezer]

it would be interesting if this is just a problem of the latest ilinux release or if this is really a hardware "problem". anyone read some more informations about it?

Tweezer

[Howell]

it would be interesting if this is just a problem of the latest ilinux release or if this is really a hardware "problem". anyone read some more informations about it?

Tweezer

Are you referring to why they can't record on 4th gen and above? It's a difference in hardware between the models.  The capability might be there but nobody has figured it out.  The people from that project are just doing what they can by reverse engineering, they aren't getting any help from apple with hardware specifics.