What are those alien, otherworldly sounds coming out of the iPad? That’s not GarageBand. It’s what happens when Reed Ghazala, the father of circuit bending some decades ago, meets the iPad. Not that it’s his first encounter with products from Apple – he’s been approaching that company’s hardware as he does everything else, prying unexpected life with modifications and experimentation.

But just as “circuit bending” need not be seen as “breaking,” here, too, Ghazala’s modifications make the device more humane, more musical, and – for all the shouting about how the design is perfect – far, far more usable. A breakout and controls mean that you can finally extract sound and video from the iPad in usable form, without the usual, fragile, impractical connections. Reed sends the details to CDM; I can’t wait to see readers build some of these. (I may wind up building two – one for my Apple tab, and one for other hardware experimentation with whatever Honeycomb Android tablet I pick up, which at this point is probably going to be a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It’ll be doubly important, as apparently Samsung in their infinite wisdom juggle the usual pinouts on their 30-pin connector.)

Whether your sounds tend in this vein or somewhere else altogether, Reed’s DIY instructions look to beat promised commercial offerings from the likes of Akai. (The Akai dock, for the record, hasn’t shipped yet, so it’s no contest for the time being.) As Reed describes it:

I’ve been sneaking around Apple’s garden for a long time, dating back to the Apple II motherboard hacked into my code-munching poly-synth of the early ’80′s. I’ve modded iMacs, towers, endless accessories, and I’ve drastically bent mac-centric code with wonderful result. This movie loosens another brick in Apple’s wall, and opens the iPad’s usability tremendously.

I know I’m not the only individual appreciating the experimental music apps available on the iPad. I’m anxious to support the developers’ fine work. But for musicians, the iPad’s interface can be frustrating. Do you really want to use dongles, mini-jacks and flimsy wire to get in and out of the thing?

This audio breakout solves these problems, is easy to do, and is inexpensive.

No bending here, just a quick, theory-true hack based upon iPad docking charts I found online. Not a superdock. No competition for the Alesis breakout. But if you want a slick, basic and functional DIY audio desk, on the cheap, check this hack out!

The breakout board is available at kineteka.com

Be sure to see the photos and REVISIONS, and pick-up the printable schematic at my iPad Audio Desk flickr gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonbear3325/sets/72157626688587705/

This audio desk is really fun to use. Hacking the apple is always a good thing. I hope you’ll enjoy the movie! (Let it download for full-screen 1080).

Instructions in the final slide of that Flickr deck:
iPad Audio Desk Schematic

If someone would like to be commissioned to write a step-by-step tutorial with CDM, get in touch and I can help.

Ever wished you could take any mic you wanted and plug it directly into your computer? With Apple nixing FireWire and the whole size issue, it’s not quite practical to expect an XLR jack on your computer. You could use a USB mic, but they’re useless in other situations. Blue Microphones has a new product called the Icicle, which is a small, pen-sized gadget that has XLR on one end, USB on the other end, and a preamp and a converter in the middle.

Price: US$59.99. No drivers required.

I actually have a couple of questions about this on the PC – will Blue have ASIO drivers? Is this less useful without the nice Mac feature of being able to aggregate interfaces? The primary question, of course, is how it all sounds. Recording engineer Tom McCauley has endorsed the product and is involved in the launch event, but the proof is in the product.

It certainly could fill a key gap, though, especially if Blue has nailed the quality. Specs from Blue:

• Studio quality microphone preamp
• 48V phantom power
• Fully balanced low noise front end
• Analog gain control
• Plug and Play driverless operation
• 44.1 kHz, 16-bit CD quality converter
• Mac or PC operation

It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this. IK Multimedia’s StealthPlug is a similar concept, for instance, with 1/4” guitar/bass jacks in place of XLR mic connections. And we’ve seen a few USB-XLR cables with audio interfaces, like Lightsnake’s, though I can’t think of any that have caught on. Blue is doing a huge push behind this, so this could be The One.

It’s certainly a prime stocking stuffer target. Just make sure no one tries to eat it.

Certainly, the venerable audio interface isn’t at any risk. Dedicated interfaces give you more I/O options and other functionality, not to mention output. In fact, I use dedicated interfaces so much for input and output alike, I actually can’t see myself making much use of the Icicle. Once you’ve got an interface plugged in, you probably have an XLR jack. On the other hand, somewhere there’s someone with a MacBook Air who wants to just lug in a mic and record beatboxing in a hotel room, I’m sure.

So what do you think? Would you use something like this? In what situations?

Blue Microphones