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My children play violin and cello. We sometimes make recordings for the grandparents or friends, often with piano accompaniment. These are just done in our living room with an iphone camera and the built-in microphone from about two meters away.

I would like to invest a little money in getting better sound quality for these recordings.

I read about the types of microphones, and I assume I want a ribbon mic somewhere between the instruments. I've read other answers1 2, but they seem to suggest fancy equipment that sounds more professional than I'm looking for.

Is it OK to just connect a microphone to my iphone through some kind of adapter?

The serious users seem to have a pre-amp and audio mixer. Is there any reason to get that route for my use case?

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  • Ribbon mics are particularly esoteric, expensive & require specific hardware support. You can't just plug one into a computer, & absolutely not into any phone. What drew you to that conclusion?
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Mar 24, 2020 at 17:57
  • Great to know. I guess I was reading articles for professionals and not ordinary people who just want home videos. So, what should I use?
    – Jeremy Stein
    Commented Mar 24, 2020 at 21:15

2 Answers 2

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I use iRig pro to connect higher end microphones or condensers into my phone. It runs off AA batteries and can provide phantom 48 Volts to the microphones. I adjust gain on iRig pro and the audio comes into the phone video pretty seamlessly. Its made for iPhone, but it comes with a usb A adapter so it will probably work with other brands as well if you have the adapter. I have plugged it into multiple computers and it has worked. Ive just never tried an android phone.

It does require you to have a microphone to plug in, but its a good way to get good audio into a phone video.

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I found this page most helpful: https://www.mediashi.com/articles/how-to-record-professional-audio-on-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-an-external-microphone

There are several suggestions on the page. I took the most complex one:

Pair of condensor mics → XLR to XLR microphone cables → audio mixer with Phantom Power turned on → RCA to 3.5mm TRS adapter connected to the main audio output of the audio mixer → TRS to TRRS adapter → Apple Lightning headphone adapter → iPhone

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