Top 5 iPod voice recording accessories

Donald Bell, Senior Editor April 9, 2009

There's never been a better time for recording audio directly to your iPod. Just take a look through the iTunes App store and you'll find over a dozen low-cost audio recording apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Even iPod Nano and iPod Classic owners can spend as little as $13 to add a microphone for voice memos, or treat themselves to a pair of Apple's In-Ear headphones, which include an integrated microphone.

While cheap solutions are fine for recording monophonic voice memos, capturing high-quality stereo audio requires a little more money. Fortunately there are some great stereo iPod microphones available now, and most of them can be had for under $100.

Our favorite iPod microphone of the moment is the Blue Microphones Mikey, which delivers phenomenal recording quality for the price ($80). It may be overkill if you just want something to take down your grocery list, but musicians, students, and journalists will appreciate the Mikey's clean, detailed sound.

To take your iPod's recording capabilities to the extreme, products such as the Alesis ProTrack and Belkin GoStudio offer professional XLR mic inputs in addition to built-in stereo condenser mics. Of course, fitting in all that extra recording technology makes for a bulkier product, but the appeal of turning an iPod into a full-fledged mobile recording rig may prove hard for some to resist.

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