[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by gmm55

I am looking for a Lightning connector microphone like the Shure MV88, Rode iXY-L, Zoom iq7, etc., for use almost exclusively in capturing good acoustic guitar sound. Has anyone here had a chance to compare two or more of these iphone mics?

Hi gmm

I'm showing up late for the party…

I almost bit on a lightning-connector mic for iPhones when I bought my iPhone 5s. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, just point out a different take on mobile recording and keeping it simple.

As I began to research, try mics, and thought about my workflow…I soon realized, I'd already had 2 different input connectors to my iPads and iPhones and guessed that we may soon be upgrading our phones to another input system soon.

I've owned 4 phones, and anticipate my next iPhone (the 11?) may well have a USB-C connector instead of lightning port. And we lost the headphone jack at iPhone 7 for monitoring audio (and bluetooth lags).

My 2019 iPad has the USB-C connector which would mean if I'd bought a lightning connected mic, to use a lightning connector for the mic, I'd need an adapter to record using it. The reason I was going to buy the lightning-port connected mic was to AVOID using adapters like I did with the 4 and 5s (and improve the quality).

So I opted to go another direction. I currently (for the past 6 years) use my Zoom recorders to capture mobile audio, and edit the audio in my computer.

When shooting audio for video, I merge the audio into video in post, and the mics in the Zoom H4n and up are better than any of the iPhone mics I've played with. I have not limited my mobility, nor simplicity.

Zoom keeps improving the quality of their recorders, yet the ones I have are already up to the task, and will never need to be updated nor adapted to do what I ask of them (until I wear one out).

When I travel I carry a Zoom H1n in the camera bag, and a lavaliere mic in my backpack in case I need to put some distance between performer and recorder.

If you are going to limit yourself to an iPhone, and it has adequate memory, and you are simply capturing audio, then you should be good with about any choice of mics listed here in the thread. The iPhone can do high quality recordings.

The snafu for me was all the work I would have to go through to get it set up to record, and monitoring it without headphones (the new iPhone and iPad don't have headphone jacks), and running an app while recording.

It's do-able, and once you have a routine it can work fine. But it just didn't seem flexible for me.

This may not be relevant information for your situation, but just wanted to toss it into the discussion (this is still a discussion forum).