I personally really like the Blue Mikey speaker, as its small and compact, and features pair of condenser microphone capsules with 16 bit / 44.1kHz analog to digital conversion, housed in a shock mount and grille. It has a 1/8” connection for line inputs and a USB connection, which charges your iPad/iPhone when in use and maintains the battery level during long recordings.

That’s a pretty good feature for most people really. Right?

A cloth carrying bag, user guide manual and a ¼” to 1/8” guitar jack adaptor is also included. Mikey has a swivel hinge with seven positions and a 230-degree rotation- good for positioning to your sound source. Even standing it to mount onto a surface area perhaps. I mean, it’s no camera tripod in terms of sturdiness, but it’s flexible and adaptable by having 230-degree rotation. So work with it, and you’ll find it works with you!

Mikey connects to the iPhone or iPad via Lightning connector on the bottom of the device. A simple 3-position switch gives you three gain settings to choose from when setting up a recording.

This is very convenient, as Mikey’s automatic gain control means you don’t have to do much adjusting within the recording app you’ve chosen to use. The loud setting is low gain, for recording loud sources (100-130 db range), the middle setting is the default auto setting, and the third setting allows you to capture quiet and intimate sound sources (45-60 db range). Mikey lets you know when the recording level is too hot, with three flashing red lights indicating overload. Try not to ever overload any small speakers, as the bass/drivers are usually not able to handle a large amount of sound pushed out and can usually break easily from pushing the red limits. Just like a DJ pushing that red line on the mixer, it’s a no go.