iPhone and iPad Use

The idea of recording studio quality audio straight your phone is great, simply because it makes the recording process so easy. With the iPhone a number of devices are available that provide a line-input for connecting our preamp to. Numerous apps are available for recording audio or video (with sound) and more advanced applications like GarageBand make it feasible to even consider editing an entire album on an iPad!

Options for the iPad

Make & Model	Picture	Test Results	Comments
Griffin iMic	Griffin iMic		Requires camera connection kit and LEAD7 (UniSon to 3.5mm jack) to connect the preamp to the iMic

Note that many sound cards will work with an iPad so long as you use them with a powered hub. The iPad will only provide 100mA to an external device via its dock connector, but many cards require more power. Connect the hub to your iPad and the sound card to the hub.

Summary of the interfaces available for iPod and iPhone (pre iPhone 4)

Make & Model	Picture	Test Results (without adapter)	Test Results (with adapter)	Comments
Blue Mikey 2	Mikey from Blue			For best results use with VA-MIK adapter which has a gold plated 3.5mm minijack for reliable connection and 10dB attenuation. See test results for more details
Alesis Protrack	Alesis Protrack			For best results use with VA-PRO adapter which has balanced XLRs and 25dB of attenuation. See test results for more details

iPhone 4 & 4S

The iPhone 4/4S does not interface with standard iPod accessories with a line level input as the line level input pins on the dock connector have been reallocated for use as a USB input. As the iPhone 4 doesn't work with the iPad camera connection kit either, there are currently very few options for two-channel audio input. Recently Fostex has released the AR-4i which looks promising. Click here to visit their product page. Test results will be available soon.

Recommended Recording Apps

There are many sound recording applications out there, but we currently recommend using GarageBand and Multitrack DAW:

Multitrack DAW has the advantage of allowing two channel recording to two mono tracks. This means that if you are using your Mic Kit to pickup two separate sound sources then the two channels will appear on separate tracks and panned to centre. If you record to a stereo track then one mic will be on the left channel and the other on the right which is fine for spaced omni recording, but not if you're a singer who plays an instrument when it is preferable to have each mic (instrument) on its own track. One disadvantage of Multitrack DAW is that there is no reverb facility.

GarageBand is great for composing songs because it provides a rich set of instruments to choose from and quantising facilities. Unfortunately it only provides mono or stereo input recording and no facilty to split the stereo track; on the other hand it does allow reverb to be added.

The solution is to use both of these apps together and copy and paste between them. If you're a singer and acoutic guitarist for example record your vocals and guitar using Multitrack DAW and then copy and paste the tracks into GarageBand. Add a little reverb, and a bit of percussion and strings and you can produce some very impressive results!

Recording Video with an iPad with Sound from the MiniSonic Mic Kit

With the MiniSonic Mic Kit connected to your iPad via the iMic the camera app on the iPad will automatically switch to recording sound through the iMic. This has many applications including filming Youtube videos, weddings with live bands, live gigs and promotional videos. Because the sound is recorded to a stereo track it may be necessary to use editing software on your computer to split the stereo track if you're recording separate intruments with each mic. Currently there is no app available for this purpose, which means you can't get the audio out of the video for processing in Multitrack DAW or GarageBand without first extracting the sound using software on a computer.

If you have another phone, DSLR or Camcorder available you can always use the iPad to record the audio and then import the video from the other device via the camera connection kit onto your iPad. iMovie provides basic editing functions and is perfectly usable for editing a simple video. Edit the video and lay down the audio from Multitrack DAW or GarageBand by exporting your mix as a song to your music collection and then importing the song into iMovie. Using this technique it is even possible to create multi camera music videos; with fantastic sound and without using a computer!