Audigo Labs: Studio Quality Recording On The Go?

When rising bluegrass stars The Price Sisters posted an impromptu field recording of “Weary Lonesome Blues” to their Facebook page last year, they had no idea it would reach more than one million viewers worldwide. One reason for its success was that the videographer used a new mic from Audigo Labs that clearly and crisply captured every nuance of their sister harmony vocals and Lauren’s epic Monroe-style mandolin.

The Audigo mic is a wireless, condenser mic and companion app designed specially to provide high quality audio in most any setting a musician might find themselves in, such as hotel rooms, apartments, backstage, during tour bus jams, even remote rehearsals.

The Audigo provided excellent sound quality in every situation I tested it in. Solo recording at home, indoor and outdoor jam sessions, etc. all sounded quite good even when compared to my standard iPhone video recording setup with the Shure MV88+ stereo condenser mic and its excellent MOTIV app. And the Audigo was much more convenient. Linking to the app on your smartphone, the system gives the user tons of essential recording and audio editing features like reverb and other effects, audio editing, multi-channel recording linking up to four Audigos simultaneously, and much more. When paired with the company’s excellent add-on “Studio” and “Pro” plans, subscription features like cloud storage, multi-track video recording, auto soundcheck, and remote collaboration enhance Audigo’s capabilities.

All the recording functions worked as advertised, but there’s one inherent limitation when using the multi-track options that could be a deal-breaker for some. The mic, since it records directly to memory inside the Audigo unit and not to the smartphone, cannot provide live in-ear monitoring when adding a track or an overdub. “As audio is recorded to memory on the mic, its inherent to the hardware,” explains Aaron Foreman of Audigo Labs. “For multi-track recording, we recommend leaving one ear cover off wired headphones or adjusting your AirPods to allow pass-through audio.” That’s really the biggest limitation I found with the device. But even without actual live monitoring, the app makes overdubbing simple. Foreman says the mic unit can hold “hours of audio (it will run out of battery before its full) and the tracks will delete from memory after transferring (to the smartphone app).”

Studio quality means control over all the basics of sound equalization (EQ) processing, an area Audigo definitely excels in. The Audigo EQ lets you select one of four “one-tap” presets, or the more adventurous can customize settings for Bass, Warmth, Clarity, Presence and Shimmer. That EQ can be employed either for single track videos or multitrack projects, and different EQ settings can be applied to each track individually. And because the mic unit captures all the sound, like a digital camera capturing RAW files, the app can be used to edit and refine the final track much like a photographer editing a digital image in Photoshop.

Physically, the Audigo system includes a studio-style microphone adapter that will screw into any standard mic stand boom. The engineers cleverly included a magnetic clip to the adapter, which can be reversed to provide a standard 1/4” tripod thread so the mic can be used with a small tabletop tripod. The mic unit is built robustly and looks like it could survive inside a gig bag or backpack without concern.

One caveat is that Audigo is only compatible with iPhone and the current Apple OS for now. Android-compatible software will launch in 2025. Also, the mic only works with the Audigo app and cannot be used as an external mic when shooting iPhone video.

In a tech-mad world brimming with on-the-move recording options for musicians of all types, Audigo Labs has created a very strong product entry that will appeal to many in the bluegrass community; artists, songwriters, and recording techs alike. If an all-in-one, highly portable and flexible recording setup with superior audio quality is on your must-find list, Audigo deserves your serious consideration.