That's really all you need to know to get started. Or, you turn it on, connect with the app, and hit record. You quite literally turn it on, and hit record. If you're someone who misses the spontaneity of the old tape-based 4- and 8-track recorders, and you have a bag it'll fit into, the Spire is worth checking out.The Spire is about as straightforward as you could hope. Yet, even with its odd shape and slightly high price point, the Spire is an outstanding piece of equipment for musicians. The lights on the top are nice visual indicators of what's happening, but it really doesn't need to be a circle for that system to work. A rectangle or square might not look as cool, but it would be a design that's easier to shove into a gig bag. It doesn't come with a carrying case and the stubby shape makes it difficult to find a case it'll fit in. My biggest beef with the Spire is its circular form. I just wish that some of the apps slick design translated over to the actual hardware. Like recording, iZotope took something that can be a huge pain and maked it visual and easy to grasp.

It's easy to adjust all your tracks on the fly and hear in real time how it affects the finished song. Higher in the space for louder and left and right for stereo mixing. When you're done, 'mixing' is just a matter of moving your tracks in a virtual space. The quality is impressive, but not nearly as nice as plugging in the instrument or using a high-end microphone. There's also a built-in mic that'll work in a pinch for singing or acoustic guitar. This makes singing while playing guitar or playing with another band member as easy as playing a single instrument on your own. If you happen to connect two instruments at once, the app automatically produces two new tracks to record on. The amps are for guitar and bass primarily but can be applied to any instrument attached to the Spire. Each of these effects can be fine-tuned to your liking. The company has a long history of audio manipulation via software. That said, a quick naming convention would be helpful, especially if you're dealing with more than one track of the same instrument.Д«efore recording each track there are virtual amps and 'spaces' (acoustic recreations of rooms) that can be added for deeper and more robust sounds. Each one is color-coded, so determining which audio is which a cinch. Playing, recording and mixing those normalized tracks only requires a few taps in the companion app. My tests with different guitars, bass, keyboards and synths all produced solid audio levels adequate for mixing. Press the button and play an instrument (or sing into a mic) and the Spire will find a level that's appropriate for that instrument. To keep audio levels from being all over the map, the Spire has a 'Sound Check' button on the device and in the app. The device's four-hour battery life also meant I didn't have to dig up an extension cord to record in my living room. I didn't have to hunt down dongles or adaptors like I would with my computer. Connecting my synth, guitar, bass or drum machine to the Spire via one of the two XLR/TOS combo ports was as easy as plugging them into a soundboard. It all starts with industry-standard audio inputs. well, a stubby 'spire' and connecting it to a robust but easy-to-use companion app (over WiFi). The Spire speeds things up by shoving the necessary audio ports and hardware into a. You have to deal with cable adaptors, varying sound levels and complex software.

While computers have democratized music recording, they can be cumbersome when you just want to get an idea down.

Spire studio