BackgroundI haven't made it to many shows and downsized my rig over the last few years, going from a Sony D-100 and Nak CM300s at my peak down to Sound Pro CMC-4 + battery box + Archos Jukebox recorder (MP3 only). The Archos actually worked pretty well for me in every aspect except the fact that it mastered to MP3 only. For my own use, I found that satisfactory, but there have been a few shows when I was the only taper and wished I had wavs to circulate, and also to do post-processing on without having to decompress and recompress. I'm planning to make it to more shows this summer and figured it would be worth looking into a wav recorder. At the same time, I figured that upgrading my stand and getting a wider selection of caps could have the biggest effect on the sound of my tapes, so I didn't want to spend too much on my recorder. The Microtracker and R-1 seemed too pricey and also had their share of flaw, more than I was willing to accept at their price point. No way am I going back to DAT, hard drive based recording is just so much easier at the show (no tape changes) and transferring onto the computer. The JB3 and iRiver (with Rockbox) looked interesting, but I was worried about the continued availability of support for these discontinued products (especially batteries) and reports of poor line-in performance and HD noise on the JB3. So when I saw Amazon selling the iKey for $110 I thought it was worth a shot, I could always return it.
First impressionsThe iKey is both bigger (volumewise) and lighter (weight) than I expected. 5.43" W x 1.1" D x 3.27" H. Probably small enough to sneak into most shows, but not the ideal stealth rig. In addition to the size, it has red LEDs that flash the whole time you are recording to indicate how much disk space you have used up. They could be covered easily enough though. Although the unit would probably fit in a large pocket, this could be tricky because it has no hold button. Also, the line in (RCA inputs) and the USB port (for attaching an external drive) are on opposite ends of the units, which means cables running out of both ends. With right angle adapters on the RCA end it should still fit in a pocket, RCA side down, but it's not ideal.
The record level adjustment knob is small and recessed into the side of the unit (the same side as the RCA plugs). It seems unlikely to be bumped out of position. The record button, however, is on the top of the unit, in the corner. It seems like it could be easily triggered accidentally if the unit were placed in a pocket, and as mentioned before there is no hold button.
One really appealing feature of this unit was the fact it uses 4xAA batteries. Although I don't anticipate having to change batteries in the field very often (see Battery Life section below), it was a little disappointing that changing the batteries requires removing 4 tiny screws, which could be a hassle in the field. They can be replaced by thumbscrews (included in the package) but the thumbscrews seem like they would be easy to misplace. The batteries are held in place firmly enough that the unit would be perfectly operational with a screw or two missing, and probably even with the battery compartment wide open, but it's hardly elegant. And for festivals, especially those involving camping, the ability to swap an unlimited number of batteries without needing to recharge could sure come in handy.
The unit ships with an AC adapter which will also charge the batteries if installed. The manual warns that plugging in the adapter while the iKey contains non-rechargeable alkalines may cause leakage or explosion.
The unit looks, well, cheap. But as long as it works well I don't care. The package includes the unit, instructions, a registration card, thumbscrews, an AC adaptor, and a 1/8" to stereo RCA cable.
Battery LifeOn my first run with the iKey, I fed it with 4x2500 mAH Duracell NiMH rechargeables. These batteries are a few months old, probably been through 5-10 charge-discharge cycles, with no special treatment. For storage, I attached my 4GB iPod mini. The mini, which receives power from the iKey through its USB port, was about half-charged. Since the iPod receives power through the USB port I din't think the partial charge would be an issue, but as it turns out maybe it was (see below). I imagine using a flash drive would extend battery life a bit while using a larger hard drive would shorten battery life. I recorded in the WAV format, of course. 128, 192, and 256 kbps MP3 options are also available. They might be useful for taping an opening act to evaluate your mic setup etc without using up too much hard drive space, or serve in a pinch if you were running out of disk space heading into an encore. But, MP3 recording is probably not of interest to most tapers so I haven't made it a priority to try them out.
I paused and restarted my recording at the 3 hour mark to avoid possible issues with 2 GB file size limits. Figure on 5-10 seconds between when you stop one recording and are able to restart another. Apparently using a fragmented drive can make the lag even longer. Later I'll see how the unit handles hitting 2 GB.
After about 4 hours the recording seemed to have stopped on its own, although I was swapping around between sources and I may have forgotten to restart the recording and not noticed for a bit. But, I took this opportunity to transfer files off my iPod (it was nearly full anyway) and noticed that the iPod's battery was almost dead - apparently the iKey provides enough juice to run the iPod hard drive but not to simultaneously charge it.
I started recording again after transferring the first set of files off the iPod and sure enough it shortly stopped recording again, and the iPod's battery was near-dead. Still, 4 hrs record time minimum ain't bad. I suspect I could get more record time with a freshly charged iPod, I'll try again later.
Recording LevelsThe iKey does not have true level meters. Instead, it has a single LED that warns for low levels or clipping. If input levels are "too low", the LED lights up solidly. If levels clip, the light blinks. The manual suggests boosting levels until the clipping light blinks, then backing off until it blinks no more than once every 3 seconds. To be conservative, I played back my favorite live recording (on my JVC DVD player > line out > line in on iKey), fast forwarded to a loud passage, and backed off levels to the point the clipping indicator never lit up. The results were surprsingly good, IMO. Typical peaks hit -6 dB with the highest around -3. Here's a picture of the wave form:
http://homepage.mac.com/satterwill/iKeyTest/iKeyLevels.jpgTo calibrate exactly where the low level and clip indicators were triggered, I generated a 1 kHz test tone in Sound Studio and played it back through the headphone out of my G5 and into the line in of the iKey. I adjusted the record level until the low level warning lit up solidly and adjusted levels just high enough to turn the low level warning off. The resulting wav file had peaks of -22 dB. I then boosted the record levels until the clip light blinked regularly, then backed off just until it stopped. Resulting peaks were -1.5 dB, while the section of the recording where the clip indicator was flashing had shaved off tips of the wave form. So, the clip indicator really does mean 0 dB. The recording level knob is not numbered or otherwise marked, so it is hard to establish a hard and fast rule in terms of how far to turn the knob to get say 6 dB of boost or cut.
In the recent past I've been taping with SP-CMC-4+batt box+Archos Jukebox MP3 recorder (running Rockbox) and have a pretty good sense of where to set levels on the Archos. So, I think it should be easy to use test tones to figure out where to set the iKey to match the settings I preferred on my Archos. For a brand new taper, the lack of resolution on the level meters might pose more of a problem. Then again, new tapers seem tempted to play with the levels TOO MUCH so maybe just setting and forgetting the levels, only adjusting them if the clip indicator flashes too much (or maybe at all, since it's a true 0 dB) or the low level warning comes on during normal musical passages, is the way to go.
A/D ConverterTo test out the A/D converter, I recorded parts of Mike Hall's Schoeps CMC5mk4 ORTF row N center > Lunatec V2 > AD2K+ > DA-P1 recording of Bruce Hornsby 7/1/02, using a CD (burned by Mike) played back in my JVC DVD player (the only piece of equipment I have with a decent line out - normally all my playback is digital out from computer > digital in of receiver). To my ears, using Sennheiser HD414 headphones, the iKey version sounded damn close to the original. In sighted comparisons I wondered if there might have been a slight loss of clarity in the iKey version but I couldn't reliably distinguish the two in a blind test But to compare for yourself, here are brief clips of the original wav and the iKey version (both normalized to -0.2 dB for a fairer comparison):
http://homepage.mac.com/satterwill/iKeyTest/Original.flachttp://homepage.mac.com/satterwill/iKeyTest/iKeyTestWav.flacNote that the faint 60 Hz hum was from the original concert. Here's a comparison of the Fourier spectral analyses (iKey version is the bottom graph, and keep in mind the start and end points of the two samples are not identical). Also remember that this is as much a test of the DVD player's DAC as it is a test of the iKey's ADC:
http://homepage.mac.com/satterwill/iKeyTest/Fourier.jpgThis shows some low bass rolloff from the iKey, which I could believe based on re-listening to the two recordings. But the difference is not obvious, at least to me.
InterfaceThe user interface on the iKey is, to say the least, a bit confusing. It has only two buttons, REC and SEL, which together start and stop recording, select the recording format, and tell the iKey you are done recording and want to remove the USB drive. The only feedback the iKey gives the user is through 6 LEDS. One served as the low level/clip indicator, one serves as a low battery warning, and the remaining 5 indicate the % of hard drive space used up. The only feedback you get to tell you that recording is proceeding is the disk space indicator. There are also specific sequences of flashing lights to tell you the unit is ready to record or ready for the disk to be removed (and you have to stop the recording, then hold down the REC key for 3 seconds to tell the iKey you want to remove the drive). Hopefully the meaning of the different patterns will become clear with time, for now, I'm keeping the manual by my side.
Using most USB storage devices, the iKey simply writes files onto the drive where they can be immediately found and copied onto a computer. On many MP3 player/drive combos, these files will also be available for immediate playback, although not if the player only looks in specific places for files.
According to the IKey manual, the iKey is set up in such a way that it will put recordings into the preferred, invisible directories of the iPod. This makes it harder to get a recording off the iPod onto your computer, but allows immediate playback on the iPod, which could be useful e.g. to monitor your recording of an opening act before the main artist takes the stage. This only works if you have at least one song already on the iPod, put there the usual way using iTunes.
As long as at least one song was already on the iPod, I could retrieve my recordings off of it usng Senuti. Senuti did not work if there were only iKey recorded filed on the iPod, but I could retrieve my recordings following the directions in the manual. The manual contains workable directions for getting music off an iPod using either Mac or Windows OS, but after step 3 I had to select the "iKey" folder, choose "Get Info" from the File menu, and change "Ownership & Permissions:" to "Read & Write". I also had to restart before the invisible files stopped appearing in the Finder. Because the iPod shuffle handles files differently from the full-sized iPods, I do not think immediate playback on a Shuffle is possible. I'm not sure why I couldn't play the files back on my iPod - it may be an issue of updated firmware on the iPod which I'm sure Apple has no plans to fix. Or maybe the low battery in the iPod kept the iKey from properly updating it when done recording.
OverallMy main use of the iKey would be to record Bruce Hornsby concerts (ie, open-taping) with AT853 mics and a Sound Professionals battery box. I think it will serve that purpose just fine, although I want to test the ADC a little more thoroughly. For someone who already owns a suitable USB storage device, is using mics hot enough to go line-in, and doesn't need ultra-stealthability, the iKey warrants consideration as a budget recording device. If I didn't already own an iPod, or planned to upgrade my preamp/A-D setup, or needed to stealth, I'd probably go for the iRiver instead (and hope I didn't have problems with the discontinued product or need to replace the battery within a few years) or save up and wait for the R-09.
I hope this was useful to somebody. I'm planning to test how the iKey handles the 2 GB file limit soon. If there's anything else people would like me to test, let me know.
Topic: Gemini iKey - first look (Read 3102 times)