The two biggest drawbacks of having a Touch is the lack of camera and microphone. This causes you to lose functionality in quite a few very cool apps. While I don’t think there is much you can do about the lack of camera, there are solutions to the mic issue. The ThumbTacks is one such solution. It is an adorable little accessory for your iPod Touch or Nano 4G. Or even the iPhone if you want. Now they call it a ThumbTacks, but I think it is more of a push pin than a thumb tack. I guess thumb tack is a catchier name.
I really really like this mic. I didn’t get a headphone/mic combo because I find that to be a bit awkward for recording purposes. It’s hard to point the mic and unravelling the headphones every time you want to record something can be a pain. Being a musician, this is the perfect solution for saving ideas. Often I’ll come up with a nice riff or chord progression and I will rely on my brain to remember them. This has proven unsuccessful as my brain is full of useless platypus trivia and has no more room for a song ideas. I have the musical memory of a fish. I have a nice pro recording setup, but it is a bit overkill just to capture a short riff or idea. For a while I used a mini-voice recorder, but the sound quality is pretty awful and sometimes you can lose some of the notes due to that. So, when I saw the ThumbTacks I jumped at the buy button. Well…I don’t really jump…let’s call it an enthusiastic hop.
Design: This thing is sturdy and the push pin look really works. It is very easy to just plug in and go. It comes in three colors.
Sound Quality: I’m not expecting it to sound as good as a studio mic, but when I recorded a song with it, I was pleasantly surprised. The notes are all very clear and the highs and lows were captured fairly well. I would compare it to a built in mic on a camcorder. I am very pleased with how good this sounds. Here is a sample of a song I recorded. Warning, it is very sad and may make you cry.
Drawbacks: The only real drawback of this mic is that it disables the speaker. It would not work for Skype or any app that required sound and mic at the same time. I don’t see that as a big deal, as this is not meant to replace headphone/mic combos. I find it is more of a convenience device for recording apps. It is also great to use with instrument tuning apps. No fumbling with headphone wires.
Verdict: If you are a musician, buy this right now. If you need a high quality voice recorder…same thing. The ThumbTacks is awesome.
I give the ThumbTacks 5 out of 5 pushpins.
Price: $15 with shipping
