#Best microphone to record lectures portable#

Portable voice recorders are enormously helpful tools in many settings, whether you’re a college student recording a lecture, a musician recording a particular melody, a journalist recording an interview, or a professional recording an important meeting. The best voice recorders won’t interrupt your recording with a pesky phone call, and they include a variety of helpful functions like easy start and stop, volume settings, and noise filtering, which can vastly improve the audio quality. The voice notes app on your phone is all well and good, but it’s no real replacement for a high quality voice recorder. Your browser does not support iFrame.If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission. The 2 battery powered Mics mentioned above are real “portable” also. I use a Zoom H2 with a $25 ATR-3350 Lav Mic and a $50 ECZ-990 Shotgun Mic feeding into a Y cable on the H2 for 2 channel audio and sync in PluralEyes with the scratch audio off my iPhone 4. You should also invest in a good deadcat to reduce wind noise and boom pole when shooting outside. The NTG-2 / Shockmount Kit is $269 at B&H. I would invest in a battery powered Rode NTG-2 Mic Kit with the excellent Pearston LMT00 Shockmount (to reduce handling noise) versus the lower end Rode VideoMic with flimsy Shockmount. You would sync up both audio channels via PluralEyes The mono analaog audio recorded on the iPhone 4 internal Mic / external Mic input cuts off below 200 Hz and has other fidelity issues. Record Scratch audio via iPhone 4 internal mic & record Production audio via the Zoom H4n portable audio recorder. I would suggest you use Dual System Audio. Post navigation ← Rode VideoMic design flaw Vincent Moon: I make films for the small screen →Ĥ4 thoughts on “ iPhone 4 as audio recorder with external mic: a comparison” This entry was posted in News on Augby Dan McComb. But I’ll skip the earbud mics – they sound really tinny to my ear. In a pinch I could even use the built-in iPhone mic. The external powered mic cuts down on the brightness that’s picked up in both of the iPhone’s native recording configurations. Bottom line is: I could actually use the iPhone with adapter and powered mic for a documentary project if I have to. PlayĬonclusion: The iPhone with adapter and Rode VideoMic sounds decent! (But as I discovered during this testing and posted previously, the Rode VideoMic suffers from horrible handling issues and so is only useful when I can mount it to a stand while recording). For a control, I recorded my Tram TR50 recorded to my Zoom H4N. iPhone with adapter and Rode VideoMic: PlayĤ. I held the phone and mic about a foot away from my mouth (except for the iPhone earbud mic, which I let hang in its natural position when worn in the ear, which is about 3″ from my mouth. I ran three tests, reading the first lines from Origin of Species (which I’m currently reading in preparation for a December trip to the Gallapagos Islands). I did the test in my office, which is a fairly small 13×24 space without much wallcovering, hardwood floors with a throw run, definitely the kind of less-than-ideal recording environment that I have to work in all the time. It’s called KM-IPHONE-MIC and it costs only 18 bucks. Beforehand, I ordered a great little device from, which allows you to use a self-powered external mic with iPhone 4. But can you really record great audio with it? Or even useable audio? Since I always have my iPhone 4 with me, I always have a microphone. I’m a big believer in the best microphone being the one you have with you, and that getting it close to your subject is 80 percent of great audio.

Best microphone to record lectures