Recording

How to record any audio on your iPhone

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Make sure you use the right cable for IPhone recording
Make sure you use the right cable.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

However old your iPhone is, it records great audio. You can use it as a dictaphone, to make field recordings of ambient sounds, to “tape” music, and even sample everyday noises and make music from them. But how do you do it? How do you hook up, say, a portable keyboard or an MP3 player to your iPhone, and actually save a recording? Let’s see.

Retro mic turns your iOS device into a portable studio

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Samson Satellite mic
The Samson Satellite USB/iOS Broadcast Microphone brings the studio into the field.
Photo: Samson Technologies

CES 2019 bugFor musicians, podcasters and streamers, “the studio” is an iOS device in a living room, coffee shop or some crazy live event.

Samson Technologies rolled out a new microphone at CES this week that promises to gather studio-quality audio no matter the location.

Facebook’s scary plan to record your conversations while you watch TV

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the Facebook logo on an iPhone 6 Plus
Here we go again.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Some believe Facebook is already using our smartphones to hear our private conversations. That’s not true, but the social network is certainly considering it.

Facebook has applied for a new patent that describes a method of tapping into our microphones to listen to our reactions to TV ads. It’s just as invasive as it sounds.

How to record Apple TV on your Mac, wirelessly

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record Apple TV quicktime
QuickTime Player can record all kinds of things.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Today we’re going to learn how to record a movie that’s playing on your Apple TV direct to your Mac, with no wires required, no weird hacks, and not even any third-party software. The tools are all built into every Mac that ships. To record a movie off the “screen” of your Apple TV, you’re going to use Apple’s QuickTime app, and one of its lesser-known but super-powerful features.

This mic boom doesn’t care if you shake the room

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Blue Designs compass mic boom
Imagine how professional you'll look with this on your desk.
Photo: Blue Designs

Podcasters, musicians, and haters of annoying noises rejoice. Blue Designs has come up with the Compass, a microphone boom that keeps your mic fixed right over your desk, your computer, your countertop, or even your ghetto ironing-board podcasting desk. Paired with Blue’s Radius shock mount, you need never worry about mic noise ever again.

These are the best music memo apps for iPhone

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alternative to voice memos
We've come a long way.
Photo: YunHo LEE/Flickr Public Domain

If you like to pretend you’re in a private detective movie, recording yourself with voice-memos as you go about your everyday business, then your app choice is obvious: Voice Memos from Apple. It’s built into your iPhone, it’s simple, quick to use, and rock solid. But if you’re a musician, and you want to quickly capture ideas, the choice is more complicated. Let’s take a look at the best iOS apps for recording music memos.

Use AudioShare to slice, dice, zip, and share audio files on iOS

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audioshare
If there was a music app that was like a kind of military tool from a neutral European country, then AudioShare would be it.
Photo: Cult of Mac

There’s no iTunes for iOS. Thank God, some may say — after all, iTunes on the desktop is Apple’s Office, a bloated, do-it-all app that does nothing well, and is impossible to kill. But this also means that there’s no good way to save and wrangle music files on iOS — not from Apple at least. Which is where Kymatica’s AudioShare comes in. AudioShare is really a tool for musicians and other folks who work with sound, but it is so useful, and so easy to use, that everyone should have it on their iPhone and iPad to deal with audio files of all kinds.

Recover unsaved QuickTime files with this handy trick

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If you lost an audio file due to the dreaded QuickTime crash, this tip could save the day.
If you lost an audio file due to the dreaded QuickTime crash, this tip could save the day.
Image: PSD.Graphics/Ste Smith

When you’re recording audio in QuickTime, there’s nothing more frustrating than a crash before you’ve had time to click Save. But all is not lost: This handy trick can help you recover lost recordings in the QuickTime app.

It might just save you a whole lot of effort. Here’s how to use it.

Apple’s new Music Memos app makes songwriting chimp-simple

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Easy to use music creation app means the end of complex demos.
Easy-to-use music creation app Music Memos does away with complex demos.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Apple’s new app, Music Memos, is hands-down the best free music-creation app I’ve ever used on my iPhone. The amount of tech packed into this tiny little iOS app is nothing short of amazing, and it shows Apple’s continuing commitment to the creative community.

Music Memos lets you sit down with your iPhone, tap the screen, and record music. Then it will totally figure out what you played, and supply fairly decent drum and bass tracks to complement your chords. Wow.

I’ve played in live bands that can’t even do that.

Take my word on this: If you can play even rudimentary guitar, piano or even ukulele, you owe it to yourself to give Music Memos a try.

3 easy ways to record Beats 1 audio onto your Mac

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beats-1-radio-shows-day-one - 1

Screen: George Tinari/Cult of Mac

Beats 1 is live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it’s a fantastic way to get your dose of what’s happening right now in urban music.

Problem is, just like the terrestrial radio that it uses as its model, Beats 1 doesn’t have an archived recording of its shows. If you want to hear a specific DJ or interview, you have to tune in.

There are ways, however, of recording the audio stream with varying degrees of “free” and “easy.” Two of them involve some technical know how while the third will require you to drop some cash. Check it out.

Security App Streams Live Video To Contact Or Cloud When Danger Is Near

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eye-got-you-covered-1

 

Most of us are aware that the iPhone can be an effective security tool; there are countless clips on YouTube proving its worth as a recording device, and FaceTime, Skype and the like allow someone on the other end to watch, and if needed send help, when things get sketchy.

A recording of a mugging, however, is no use if the muggers steal the phone; and initiating a FaceTime call under extreme stress is probably more difficult than it might seem.

Enter Eye Got You Covered, a $4 app that fixes both those problems and adds other thoughtful features.

How To Use Your Mac To Record Your iOS Screen With Reflector [OS X Tips]

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reflector

I wasn’t sure if this would be a good iOS Tip or OS X Tip, but I figure that since most of the heavy lifting occurs on your Mac, we’d post this as an OS X Tip.

Ever want to record your iPhone screen? Maybe take a video of something you’re doing on your iPad? Well, you can record any portion of your screen with Quicktime Player, which we’ll cover later this week, but the easy way to get a video of what’s going on on your iPad or iPhone is to use an OS X App: Reflector.

What the app does is trick your iOS device into thinking that your Mac is an AirPlay device, like an Apple TV. Once your iPhone or iPad is sending it’s video display to your Mac, Reflector has a built-in recording option.

Here’s how to make it all happen.

D-Link’s New Security Camera Is Cheap, iPhone-Linked And Has Motorized Pan-And-Tilt Controls

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dlink-5010l-camera
Does the "D" in "D-Link" stand for "Dalek"?

While there’s no dearth of choice when it comes to picking a security cam that can viewed over an iPhone, finding one with the ability to pan and zoom remotely is a trickier proposition. And finding one with pan-and-zoom for under $100 is even rarer.

But that’s exactly what D-Link’s new DCS-5010L is: a pan-and-zoom, app-paired security camera, with all the fixings, for $100.

Blue Microphones New Nessie Mic Is Loaded With Good Stuff for Beginners

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blue-nessie-1

 

Nestled amid the gentle rolling hills of my old stomping ground of Westlake Village sits Blue Microphones, little more than a half hour north of Los Angeles. There’re actually two lakes in the area: beautiful Lake Sherwood, and the grubby, man-made boating pond of Westlake Lake. Neither, to my recollection, has ever had a reported sighting of a monster.

Blue Microphones’s new USB mic is named “Nessie,” which I guess means now the area has at least one lake monster. Only in this case it’s the good, super-friendly kind of monster.

Try A Kinder, Gentler Real-Time Social Photo Sharing App, SpeakingPhoto

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Speaking Photo

SpeakingPhoto is a new social photography app that lets you connect in real-time with anyone you like, using photos and recorded audio to share your special moments. Competing with Vine, Snapchat, and Digisocial, SpeakingPhoto aims to be a nicer place to be; instead of the party-atmosphere of the latter two apps, this one wants to let you record and archive the “memories, notes, and stories behind milestone moments in your personal and professional lives.”

Pretty heady stuff for a photo sharing app, right?

Auria Turns iPad Into 48-Track Recording Studio

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My experience of recording music is limited to bouncing down bedroom guitar recordings to free up tracks on a cassette-based Tascam Portastudio, way back in the 1980s. So anything that records 24 tracks simultaneously onto a tiny iPad seems astounding to me. That is costs just $40 makes it even crazier. We’re talking about the new musicians’ iFriend, Auria.

IPhone Boom Mic Adds Sound-Sensitive Proboscis To Your iDevice

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There are plenty of add-on lenses for the iPhone’s great camera, but if you’re shooting movies, the sound is still going to suck. The iPhone’s mic does a fine job of picking up sound, but maybe it picks up a little too much, or maybe it gets freaked out by a little wind and starts to sound awful?

What you need is a boom mic, and luckily Photojojo will sell you one specifically made for the iPhone.

Microcone Revolutionizes Multi-Track Recording on the Mac [Macworld / iWorld 2012]

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Microcone

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / IWORLD 2012 — One of the Macworld Best in Show winners that caught my attention during the past few days is an audio solution by Australia-based Dev-Audio. The Microcone features a revolutionary technology that innovates the way multiple tracks are produced.

The Microcone is an incredibly intelligent microphone that is unbelievably simple to use and can help anyone manage group conversations. While it’s not going to be something everyone can use, there are some practical applications beyond traditional meetings that are worth looking at.

New Apple Patent Reveals Upcoming Apple TV Set Could Have DVR Capabilities

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apple-icloud-hd-itv

Apple is expected to revolutionize television with a set of its own later this year, and while we’re all expecting the device to feature Siri, there’s very little else we know about it. But according to a relatively new Apple patent, credited to Steve Jobs, it may also feature digital video recording capabilities that allow you to save your favorite shows for viewing at a later date.