BusinessWeek has a review today of Belkin’s TuneStudio for iPod 5th generation, a four-channel audio mixer that lets you create high-quality digital recordings directly onto your iPod.

TuneStudio lets you input up to four different instruments or audio sources, and record the audio directly onto your iPod.

Per BusinessWeek:

Although TuneStudio supports four simultaneous audio inputs, recordings to the iPod are WAV files that consist of a single stereo track, which makes it hard to edit unless you record each instrument and vocal part separately. It would have been nice if the individual tracks matched the inputs.

It would be cool if TuneStudio included more than one headphone jack so a number of users could accurately monitor the sounds their instruments and microphones are producing. Presumably, though, users can plug in a splitter to enable two people to hear audio levels.

Generally, TuneStudio was fun and easy to use and produced consistently good sounds that made me want to keep playing and recording.

They go on to give TuneStudio 3/5 stars.

We checked out the TuneStudio recently and had some of the same concerns. While the iPod mixer concept is sexy, do you want your mixer to be obsolete when Apple intros its latest whiz-bang iPod?

If that’s not a concern, though, and your main interest is capturing stereo recordings, the TuneStudio could be a nice option for both musicians and podcasters.

The TuneStudio retails for about $200.