| Cult of Mac

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.