Create a Portable Studio Using iPhone Voice Memo

The new iPhone 3.0 software has some great updates, but my favorite by far is the new iPhone Voice Memo App. Sure, third party vendors like Griffin have come up with technologies that do the same thing (iTalk), but with Voice Memos everything you need for recording (and recovering) your memo files is on your phone. With iTalk you still need sync your iPhone with your computer, and must have the Griffin software installed on your computer as well as your iPhone.

Voice Memos syncs automatically iTunes library and creates a playlist in your library for quick access. I think this is a great improvement in terms of simplicity – not to mention a real time saver. But I wanted to take it one step further. Now that it’s easier to use, is it possible to improve the sound quality?

Absolutely. You can easily create a portable studio using iPhone Voice Memos and get recordings that are, in my estimation, comparable to a commercial recording device. You’ll find that the basic built-in microphone on the iPhone or the one on the iPhone stereo headset are convenient, but lacking in recording quality.

I tested this with a iPhone 3G, new iPhone 3GS and 1st and 2nd Generation iTouch and it worked like a charm. Granted, you have to have a quality microphone, a basic mixing board and some cables you probably already had on hand. But if you’re like me and a quality recording is important to you, you’ll probably have access to these already.

So, here’s what you’ll need:

1) A standard mixing board (or line level attenuator) for normalizing incoming audio
2) A professional quality microphone
3) A pair of better quality headphones
4) A mini AV cable (for example the kind that comes with a MiniDV video camera), or an Apple composite AV cable

There’s no such thing (yet!) as a direct microphone cable connection for the iPhone input jack. That’s why you can use a Mini AV cable with three standard RCA plugs (white, yellow and red). These are on one end, and on the other a four-conductor mini plug that conveniently fits any iPhone or iTouch headphone jack. Plug this cable into your iPhone and the RCA jacks go into the mixing board. I have re-identified them as being (white/black) is Audio Out (L); Yellow is Audio Out (R) and Red is the Mic Input.

Here’s how easy it is:

1) Connect the Mini AV Cable to your iPhone’s Audio In port, located at the top of the phone.
2) Connect the RCA jack (the red one) to the tape input on the mixing board, leaving the white and yellow unplugged.
3) Plug in the XLR cable - one end into the microphone and the other into the first Line In on the mixing board.
3) Plug headphones into the board (Phone jack) and make sure to test levels (you need the mixing board because the incoming level to the iPhone is TOO LOUD).

The recording will be in mono, but you can do post production in Garageband if you sync your iPhone with your Mac.

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