Played around with it a bit more today. Pressed record, starting jamming on acoustic & transferred it via ftp instantly.
I also received 50G of free space on DropBox with my 10.1 & uploading files to there is a snap too. 
I'll get some use out of this for sure, works just fine. No complaints for this free app. 
I can always remove it in a few seconds if needed.

Part of the problem is that, at least with my Android phone, these devices just weren't designed with audio in mind. 

There are three ways to get audio in: the built-in microphone, the mic/headset jack and the USB port. Nobody's succeeded in getting the latter to work well because the USB driver is intended for data transfer only, not real-time streaming input. Apparently, somebody is in the process of developing their own USB driver for audio, but AFAIK have not been successful yet. 
 
The built-in microphone is crap, as you'd expect. Adequate for note-taking but too band-limited for any musical application. Automatic noise-reduction makes it worse (there are actually two microphones; they are both active but with opposite polarity for active noise reduction). 

That leaves the mic/headset jack, which is also not designed for high-quality audio, and you cannot monitor audio while recording. 

I can find no technical specs for the port, but it appears to be intended for high-impedance electret condenser microphones such as you'd find on a telephone headset. XLR-to-TRRS cables can be bought, but I don't know that using a high-quality microphone will make much difference. 

Google brought up a great many queries from users attempting to use an external microphone, but I found no reassuring answers. Some experimenters went as far as to use a mixer and quality condenser mics (not exactly a portable solution!) but they all reported horrible sound quality.


Reading through the comments in the Play Store, the most common complaint was low-quality sound. IKM, as usual, was managing the complaints aggressively, as they do with all social media - and generating lots of work for their support people, repeating over and over "thank you for your review...please contact Support" replies.

Here's a typical review:

Waste of time. Eh sounds just as bad as every other recorder. No matter what your recording it all comes out fuzzy and fd up. I used the pre with a rhodes (sic) mic and it was just as bad as the phones inboard mic.

To which IKM replied:

Thank you for your review.
Please contact our Support team for assistance on your issue. Also, for any poor recordings, under Menu/Settings please enable the Audio Input Optimizer option. Please contact our Support team at android.suppoprt@ikmultimedia.com for further assistance.

The Audio Input Optimizer they're recommending is, I'm guessing, a type of AGC. If you remember trying to use cassette recorders in the 70's you'll recall how their AGC circuits made music recording damn near impossible due to their raising the noise floor during quiet passages and severely compressing the loud parts. I can see the need for automating audio settings, though, because you cannot monitor while recording.

At this point, I've pretty much given up on the idea that my phone might serve as a portable recorder. The price of the iRig microphone ($60) is the same as a handheld dictation device. For $99 I can get a Zoom H1, which is probably going to yield better-quality audio, albeit without iRig's (mostly optional at additional cost) software tools ("no audio knowledge required" according to the IKM's product description). 

http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2813213

If anyone is going to turn the iPhone into an ap  ....... It will be IK.

You CAN use an studio mic with your Android, iRig PRE does exactly that. Granted most of the users AREN'T using high quality mics, but if they so choose the same company that makes iRig Recorder also makes a ton of microphones that would work for them. You're right, many Android devices were not created for recording, but there are many tools that were meant for one thing that ended up being near perfect for another. We've seen it in musical technology with the advent of digital recording, sample, turntablism and tons more. People are already using these devices for recording.

That's a bit of a stretch, comparing iRig with "the advent of digital recording". (And I don't consider "turntableism" a big step forward in the evolution of music technology, either.) 

But I get your point, that tools are often re-purposed. Picture the first recordist who saw a leveling amplifier in a radio station and said "hey, I'll bet I could use that!" 

In the engineering world, it's such a common practice that it warrants its own word: "kludge". 

Turntablism was a huge step forward along with digital sampling. "Kludge" I kinda like that, I genuinely look forward to seeing things used in fashions they weren't meant to be used. Repurposing or kludg(ing?) a device to capture ideas on the go sounds like a win for me. I mean, long before the iPhone was announced I carried a small sony handheld recorder for recording ideas and revisiting them later. To me, that was more important than being able to play a ton of music on the go with an iPhone. The best part is its only growing.

Obi - I hope you know it's nothing personal as I sincerely appreciate you being around. 

I'm guessing that IK hired you guys for a reason and that they do encourage you to make sure that they get as much visibility as possible. 

It is a strategy, but not one that works for me. In fact, the more I hear about something, the more likely I am to be annoyed and to NOT buy the product(s). Works w/ TV ads and w/ everything else. But it's a strategy that must be working.

But, yes, as far as I'm concerned, yes it gets heavy to see the IK logo pop up in my newsfeed for no particular reason. 

Maybe also because I already own all the computer products besides ARC. It's much harder to come up w/ something that could potentially interest me. No fix for my issues, no new products for me.

But OTOH, see, I like having news about things like the new British Chanel GUI. So I can't just block you guys from my Newsfeed. 

"Turntablism was a huge step forward along with digital sampling."


That's going into my best-forum-quotes collection.

Are you saying they didn't play their part in helping create a whole new parket for better turntables, digital samplers and drum machines?

I didn't say that, but I agree with it.