To record the best audio you need to use an external microphone like a lavalier
clip-on microphone and have it at a distance of about 6 to 10 inches or 15
to 25 centimeters from your mouth. By the way, by external microphone I don't mean
the little mics that plug into your headphone or lightning socket and are
fixed next to your iPhone. The point of using an external microphone is to get
it up to the person who's speaking and not leave it in the same position where
the internal microphones are on your iPhone. This is a lavalier microphone
that's suitable for an iPhone. This one connects to my phone by a wire but you
can also get wireless lavalier mics but good quality ones are quite a bit more
expensive than wired mics. Unless you have a good reason to spend a lot of
money on your lavalier microphone I wouldn't splash the cash. Remember your
finished video is likely to be watched on a mobile device or computer where the
loudspeaker will be small and the viewer won't be able to hear the benefits of a
high-end expensive microphone however that's not an excuse to record poor
quality audio you definitely want to record the best sound you can just
remember the likely limitations in playback from most viewers and decide
whether it's going to be good enough. First of all, not all lavalier mics are
made equal and some may not even work on your iPhone. For instance, this
Audio-Technica ATR 3350 has a three-and-a-half millimeter jack, as does
this MOVO LV1 but they are different. The ATR 3350's jack has a TRS, or tip ring
sleeve connector that won't work on my iPhone without an adapter. But the MOVO's
jack is a TRRS, or tip ring ring sleeve connector, that will work on my iPhone.
You need to know that a microphone with a TRS type jack will need a TRS to TRRS
adapter, but a microphones with a TRRS jack should work fine. However, check the
product details to make sure that the mic
will work with your phone. If you have an iPhone 7 or later you won't have a
headphone socket but you will have a lightning connector. In theory you can
use the Lightning to headphone adapter that probably came with your phone and
then plug in your mic that terminates in a TRRS connector, or add in a TRS to TRRS
adapter. That's the theory, but it doesn't always work. Incidentally, if cost isn't
an issue the Sennheiser ClipMic Digital and Sennheiser MKE2 Digital come with
lightning connectors as standard, so you won't need any of those adapters. They do
produce beautifully clear sound but they are rather pricey. So let's get back to
reasonably priced lavalier microphones. In "Budget Video Production", a course I
co-instruct with Ken McGaffin, we recommend the MOVO LV1 and
Audio-Technica ATR 3350is lavalier microphones. They're both excellent
choices for a wide range of cameras, smartphones, and audio recorders. However,
I found another lavalier microphone that not only is capable of recording good
audio but is also available at a budget price. It's the Power DeWise lavalier
microphone and comes with a handy 79 inch extension cord. So let's see how
these mics compare. I'm now recording using the internal microphone on the
iPhone. To be precise it's the front-facing microphone. It's the one
that corresponds to the FaceTime camera on the iPhone and I'm at about an arm's
length from the iPhone. At this distance the sound quality is not too bad.
It's perfectly acceptable in most circumstances. If I were further away
from the iPhone then the sound quality certainly would not be so good. Next up
in the Battle of the microphones is the MOVO LV1. It's a wired lavalier
microphone and it can clip on to your shirt, lapel,
wherever you want. And currently I suppose it's about six inches away from
my mouth. So a little bit closer, in fact considerably closer, than the iPhone that
we were using just a moment ago. This microphone actually is the one that
myself and my co-instructor Ken McGaffin recommend in our course "Budget Video
Production". It'll be interesting to see how it fares against the microphones in
this test. Next up in this microphone test is the Audio-Technica ATR 3350. It's
the version that comes with the little smartphone adapter so that you can plug
it in to your iPhone or other mobile device. It's also the most expensive in
this test, but not by much. But all the microphones that I'm
testing are roughly about the same price in the 20s. So we'll now move on to the
next microphone. So this is the Power De Wise microphone it comes in on
amazon.com at approximately 22 dollars. So that makes it our second most
expensive microphone. It comes with a 59 inch cable. However in
the box it's also got a 79 inch extension, so you can move around fairly
freely in front of the camera. In fact that applies to all three lavalier
microphones that we've tested here. They all come with a reasonable length of
cable that allows you to get away from the camera and wander around and do what
ever you need to do whilst you're presenting. But of course the distance
between the microphone and your mouth remains the same in all cases apart from
when you're using the internal microphone on the iPhone. So that's the
test done and which microphone did you prefer. All three lavalier microphones
are about $20 on Amazon. For me the Power DeWise was number one, with the MOVO LV1
only just slightly behind. The Audio Technica I've put into third place
with the iPhones internal microphone last. Now I know the internal microphone
sounded OK, but it will only sounded OK at the distance of my arm in a selfie video.
In contrast with the other three microphones I can move away from my
iPhone and the recorded audio will sound just the same no matter what distance I
am from the iPhone. The audio from the MOVO and Audio-Technica mics can
definitely be boosted a little in your editing, but the Power DeWise audio
probably doesn't really need very much done to it. So, I'll probably go for the
Power DeWise, especially if you're a little quieter spoken. At the time of
recording the power wise has more than a thousand reviews on Amazon with 75% of
reviewers leaving a five-star rating. To be honest, I'm a little surprised at the
results, especially since Audio-Technica is a well-established name in audio
products. I didn't expect to like the Power DeWise as much as I did. For instance
on my professional equipment I almost always use Sennheiser and Audio-Technica
microphones. But with filming with my iPhone, and if trying to keep things
simple and affordable, I have to say the Power DeWise microphone does seem to be
a reasonable choice.