Using your Smartphone as a video recording device

[Bridgepin]

What apps do you use for this process?

Do you use a external microphone?

For myself I use "Open Camera App" from Google play store.

I have had a Blue Snowball Microphone sitting in my closet for years and found a adapter" USB A to USB C Adapter " to make it work with my Android phone.

It is a big improvement to the standard Camera/Video app that came with my phone.

I'm also looking into getting a Adapter for a Standard Microphone that I have but have a bit of trouble locating it locally vs ordering it on line.

What is your method and tools that you use to record?

[Brent Hahn]

The first video was recorded with my iPhone 5. In the second one, everything but the keyboard was recorded on phones. At the risk of repeating myself (there's another thread about this), a lot of it has to do with the space you record in and where you put the phone (or mic).

[Captain Jim]

I'm using the Shure MV88+ with an iPhone 11 Pro. I've used it with just the MV88+ mic and that mic close to a Bose S1 with a vocal mic and guitar plugged in. Both sound decent - much better than the onboard phone mic.

Check out the MV88+ thread here...

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=575804

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Captain Jim

I'm using the Shure MV88+ with an iPhone 11 Pro...

The clips in the other thread sound really good. Have you tried it outdoors? I have a friend who does this stuff out on his porch and he's got some wind issues.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Bridgepin

What apps do you use for this process?

Do you use a external microphone?

For myself I use "Open Camera App" from Google play store.

I have had a Blue Snowball Microphone sitting in my closet for years and found a adapter" USB A to USB C Adapter " to make it work with my Android phone.

It is a big improvement to the standard Camera/Video app that came with my phone.

I'm also looking into getting a Adapter for a Standard Microphone that I have but have a bit of trouble locating it locally vs ordering it on line.

What is your method and tools that you use to record?

Hi B-pin

I do. And I use my current iPhone 8+ but have been using them all the way since the iPhone 5.

I love shooting video with my phones. The essential things I bring along are a Reti©am iPhone/smartphone mount, a tripod and/or mono-pod.

I use several apps…
Of course I still use the native camera app for on the fly short clips when the lighting is reasonably good.

If I want to run-n-gun and edit in my head I use Vee ($5 app store) because it allows me to shoot in sequence, and it assembles it into one ready-to-post clip. It has basic editing tools built into the app.

If I'm going to edit in Final Cut Pro later, I use Filmic Pro ($15 I think) and have their Remote app which allows me to use another iOS device to setup and run/control my camera without touching it. This means the phone can be set in the spot it will be used, and I can run it by connecting the two (built in capability).

This is heavy lifter program. It's like having every manual control on the camera you can imagine, and it allows settings the native camera app doesn't. It's a Professional app and suite of tools. $15 for the main app and similar for the three add-ons (if you need them).

For time lapse I use an app called "Lapse It". Powerful time lapse tools in this one…they have kind of gone to the dark side and made it a subscription model ($5 year unlimited use). If you need a pro tool for time lapse this is it…otherwise there are almost certainly others which are less expensive (and capable) out there.

Mics - I've done used the built in mics, external Zoom recorder (sync in post) and external mics into a field recorder. Depends on the situation.

Hope this helps…

[hubcapsc]

This is an iphone. I use an external microphone with
a "sock" so that a little breeze (it was windy on this day)
doesn't wreck the sound... my recording lacks volume.
Listening to it on a laptop, it only sounds right with
earphones. I'm not sure what to do about that. On my
iphone I don't use a special app, I just turn on the camera
and mash "video".

And I don't try to record this song or that song, that doesn't
seem to work for me... I just sit in front of the camera and
play couch guitar like normal and then clip out a song
with my video editor if there's one I like enough to save...



-Mike

[Captain Jim]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

The clips in the other thread sound really good. Have you tried it outdoors? I have a friend who does this stuff out on his porch and he's got some wind issues.

I did a test with the MV88+ with the standard wind cover on the mic - not singing and playing, just testing moving around with it outside, and it did fine, although it wasn't gale force winds. Your angle to the wind is going to make a difference.

[lkingston]

I got an inexpensive $13 dead cat style wind muff off of eBay for my MV88+. It seems to be good quality and it works great!

[Coop47]

I'm using my Mackie mixer with USB out into a camera adapter into my iPhone X. Shure SM58 for vocals and a pair of Samson CO2 condenser mics for the guitar (very reasonably priced). The Mackie has reverb onboard to sweeten things. Very happy with the set up.

[Headless Folkie]

To date, I’ve just been using the very basic setup of the camera in an iPad Mini 4, and a Blue Microphones Spark Digital - chosen because it plugs directly into the iPad. I've played with GarageBand if I wanted more than one track, but so far mostly just use Apple's Camera App. (My needs so far are simple ones.)

You can see an example of the result here https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=582830.

Of course the convenience of that lightning plug and direct digital signal be a limitation too, if you later wanted to start running the mic through an interface, which is why I expect they discontinued it.

But it’s a good quality mic if at some point I get semi-serious, and in the meantime, it makes the ‘good enough to share with friends’ quality that I’m currently shooting for easy to quickly set up.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by Headless Folkie

To date, I’ve just been using the very basic setup of the camera in an iPad Mini 4, and a Blue Microphones Spark Digital - chosen because it plugs directly into the iPad.

Your i-device recording has plenty of volume. Is your mic externally powered?
My mic, a RØDE VideoMic Me-L, is not... the sound seems good, but there's
not much volume... maybe I just put the microphone too far away?





-Mike

[Headless Folkie]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

Your i-device recording has plenty of volume. Is your mic externally powered?
My mic, a RØDE VideoMic Me-L, is not... the sound seems good, but there's
not much volume... maybe I just put the microphone too far away?

-Mike

It does draw power through the Lightning Plug, but the original volume is incredibly low for me too. It drove me a little crazy at first, assuming I was missing something obvious (perhaps I still am), and for a while, I would open the file in iMovie and separate and duplicate the soundtrack multiple times to bring the volume up, but then I remembered something from audio sketches I recorded in SoundStudio many years before - "Normalize"!

So now, when I'm done recording, I just open it in iMovie and Normalize the sound track. Not suitable for audiophiles, I'm sure, but again, good enough for my simple requirements.

Keep in mind though (as you're mentioning your distance from your mic), that in the clip you've included (nice rendition - I really need to learn Blackbird), Normalizing will bring up the sound of the water too - so you'd have to get closer to the mic to better separate you from the water.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by Headless Folkie

It does draw power through the Lightning Plug, but the original volume is incredibly low for me too. It drove me a little crazy at first, assuming I was missing something obvious (perhaps I still am), and for a while, I would open the file in iMovie and separate and duplicate the soundtrack multiple times to bring the volume up, but then I remembered something from audio sketches I recorded in SoundStudio many years before - "Normalize"!

So now, when I'm done recording, I just open it in iMovie and Normalize the sound track. Not suitable for audiophiles, I'm sure, but again, good enough for my simple requirements.

Keep in mind though (as you're mentioning your distance from your mic), that in the clip you've included (nice rendition - I really need to learn Blackbird), Normalizing will bring up the sound of the water too - so you'd have to get closer to the mic to better separate you from the water.

I use a command line tool, ffmpeg, for video editing... I just googled
"ffmpeg audio normalize" and it has such a feature. I'll give it a
try real soon ...

Thanks!

-Mike

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by Headless Folkie

Normalizing will bring up the sound of the water too - so you'd have to get closer to the mic to better separate you from the water.

All normalize does is bring up the gain so the peaks are at a pre-determined level. It's just boosting the volume, basically.

With the mic attached to the phone, it'll be be a little far away for you to get that wide a shot. You need to have the phone closer for better audio (the reason you see so many "up the nose" videos these days!) or mic with a cable, so the mic can be closer than the camera.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

All normalize does is bring up the gain so the peaks are at a pre-determined level. It's just boosting the volume, basically.

With the mic attached to the phone, it'll be be a little far away for you to get that wide a shot. You need to have the phone closer for better audio (the reason you see so many "up the nose" videos these days!) or mic with a cable, so the mic can be closer than the camera.

You can see the mic hanging on a tomato stake in the picture. The
ipad, which had the mic (on a three foot cable), that was doing the
video, is out of the shot. There's a six foot cable on the way.

I don't want to get "up the nose" or a "dead cat" in the picture either...

-Mike