Microphone for phone recording

Good afternoon here,

I would like to ask you if you are using external microphone for phone so you can have better quality in music record. I got an iPhone 12 and I am looking for anything wired or wireless and of course not for that much money. I found this one and it looks pretty decent to me, but I did not find anyone recording music. Do you have any ideas?
Is brand Boya anything that resonate in music group and its good?

https://www.amazon.com/BOYA-Microphone-Omnidirectional-Lightning-Recording/dp/B0BR3S4KPD?th=1

Boya is not a well-known name in the music industry. They are a Chinese manufacturer of cheap audio equipment. There are many such companies on Amazon, eBay, etc.

That doesn’t mean that they aren’t good and some of the reviews I found when I googled them are pretty positive. Just be aware that they don’t have a track record and there’s not really many reviews out there to give a good indication of their products.

And they are certainly not “professional” in the sense that I doubt you’ll find this sort of equipment anywhere near a recording studio. They are home use, hobby, or Youtuber devices.

And you may have limited support options if the mic turns out to be garbage, or stops working.

That is a lavelier or lapel mic. It’s designed for clipping to a lapel near your mouth for voice recording, as is indicated in the product photos.

It does claim to be omnidirectional so if you were sitting playing acoustic guitar, it might work to pick up the guitar, assuming that’s what you are aiming at. And one of the product photos shows this scenario:

At the price it is then I, personally, would consider it worth trying as a cheap and cheerful solution. Just don’t set your expectations too high. And there’s always the option to return it to Amazon.

Cheers,

Keith

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I have tried a couple of these. Also with iPhone 12. But not this particular one.

My limited experience is that they are either worse than the built or not meaningfully better and not worth the trouble.

Maybe someone else has had a better experience?

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I really wish people wouldn’t spend money on stuff like this. Apple put a lot of R&D into the mics in their phones, way more than some no name company selling stuff cheaply on Amazon. Either use the mic on the iPhone or invest in a good mic that will serve you for years to come. Buy cheap, buy twice.

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I have a plug-in mic that I use when recording videos on my iPhone (I have a professional need to frequently record videos at home with good audio). I use this: https://rode.com/en-us/microphones/on-camera/videomicro. Keep in mind that it will require a phone-specific adapter to work with your iPhone. When recording videos, I do also have a phone mount with a cold shoe on top, which can hold the mic.

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Thank you all for your opinions. Well I decided I can go a little but higher for Rode and I can see two options. One is for 60$ and second is 80$. I got 2 questions.
1.) Does range 100-20 000mhz vs 20-20 000mhz matter and is it worth it?
2.) Both devices are 3.5mm jack or USB-C, but i have lighting port. If I use some kind of reduction so I can connect it to phone, will aĹĄ affect sound record quality?


Zoom offers an external for Android and Apple devices.

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I use the Shure MV88 on my older iPhone. Works great for my purposes. Decent app as well.

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Thanks for tip. Unfortunatelly both of them are fixed to phone and you cant move it closer or farther to guitar or AMP without messing phone record angle. I watched few videos and decided to pick Rode VideoMic Go 2. :slight_smile:

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The Rode will get the job done.

I imagine that one could use a cable and a cheap tripod to make that Zoom mic work as a free-standing unit.

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