- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, I wanna show you three different ways
to connect an XLR microphone like this one to your iPad.
For all three different ways,
we'll need to use one of these adapters for our iPad
and the adapter that you use
will vary depending on the model of iPad that you have.
If your iPad has a lightning port
at the bottom of your iPad, like most standard iPads,
then you'll need this camera adapter as Apple calls it.
We do have some links and pricing in the description below
if you wanna check it out.
But this goes from lightning to USB.
If you have the iPad Pro,
then you'll need something that goes from USB-C to USB.
They call this a multiport adapter,
there's a couple different versions of it.
They also make a straight USB-C to USB adapter,
that would work as well.
Again, we have some links and pricing
in the description below if you wanna check that out.
Since we're using the standard iPad model,
we're gonna use this lightning to USB adapter.
Plug that in.
Okay, so the first option that I wanna show you today
is an XLR to USB cable.
So this is a pretty straightforward cable.
We can plug the USB end into the USB input
that we did in the first step.
And we plug the XLR end
into the bottom of our XLR microphone.
Now we'll see here that there's a pop up on the iPad,
it says that there's an audio device connected.
And then we can see how this microphone sounds.
So I'll just hit the record button here,
let it count to four.
And this is what it sounds
like with the Shure SM58 microphone plugged into the iPad
using an XLR to USB cable.
Now with this solution, it's important to note
that this will only work with a dynamic microphone.
This will not work with a condenser microphone
like this one here.
A condenser microphone requires 48 volts of phantom power,
and this XLR to USB cable
does not provide that power to this microphone.
This will only work for dynamic microphones
like the one that I'm holding here.
So if you want any pricing or specs on this setup,
please check out the links in the description below.
Okay, so the next option that I wanna show you
is one of my favorite options.
And that's to use an audio mixer
that has a USB output output of the back of it.
You can see here on the back of this audio mixer
there's a USB input, we plug a cable into there.
Now this will send and receive,
so you can use it for plugging in monitors as well.
But we can plug this USB cable into the iPad.
Then again it will ask if we want to,
it'll say that there's an audio device connected
and do we want to turn on monitoring?
I will say yes.
Then we'll plug this XLR cable
into the first channel on this USB mixer
and plug the other end of this cable
into the bottom of the microphone.
Next we'll see how this sounds,
so I'll hit record and let it count to four.
And this is what it sounds like
with a Shure SM58 microphone plugged into an iPad
using the USB output on the Yamaha MG10
and going into the iPad.
All right, so the next option that we have
is to use a USB audio interface like this one,
and this will help you
to connect your XLR microphone to your iPad.
Now the downside of a USB audio interface
is it's used to receiving power
over the USB cable from a computer.
The iPad does not supply the amount of power that's required
to get this thing turned on.
Some USB audio interfaces have their own power supply
that goes to a wall,
but most rely on that USB cable from a computer.
So we're gonna show you how to get around that
and how to power this up
without relying on power from the iPad
because the iPad does not supply enough power
over the USB cable.
So how we do that is we get a powered USB hub like this one.
Now you will know it's self powered
if it has an individual power input on the back
that gets plugged into the wall.
So we've already done that, we plugged it into the wall.
Then we take the USB audio output
out of the back of this hub,
and we plug that into the iPad.
So right now we've plugged our USB hub into the wall
and into the iPad.
Then we'll take our USB cable,
we'll plug it into the back of the audio interface,
and we'll plug the other end into the hub.
So what this is doing
is the hub is powering the USB audio interface
and connecting it to the iPad.
So we can see here that we got our audio device connected.
So we'll turn on monitoring.
And then we'll use an XLR cable
to connect our XLR microphone to the USB audio interface.
So we'll do that.
Plug that into the front
and connect the other end to the microphone.
Make sure the level is up and then we'll hit record.
Let it count to four.
And this is what it sounds like
with the Shure SM58 microphone
plugged into a USB audio interface.
The USB cable comes out of the back of that
into the USB hub where it gets power,
and then it connects from the back of the USB hub
into the lightning port of the iPad
using this lightning to USB adapter.
So there you have it, you have three different options
to connect your XLR microphone to your iPad.
My least favorite option by far is this USB to XLR cable
or XLR to USB cable,
because it would not also power up a condenser microphone.
We've done some other tests on another video
where we've shown that,
but the other two options do work for any type of microphone
and they're the most robust
that will give you plenty more options
for connecting other things to your iPad as well.
They offer a ton of flexibility.
That being said, they're about 10 times the price
of this XLR to USB cable.
So it really depends on the budget and the amount of options
and bells and whistles that you need.
But here are three different options
that do work for connecting to your iPad.
If you have any questions about these things,
we have some links in the description below
for pricing or more information,
or you can leave a comment in the comment section below.
If you wanna see more videos like this in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you for watching.
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