Using an external microphone with an iPhone seems like a simple thing to do but it's stumped
a lot of people so today I'll show you how to make it work. A microphone with a 3.5mm
plug usually just works when you plug it in but not with an iPhone. This is an iPhone
5S but what you'll learn here will work with any Apple device. To begin, you'll need this
inexpensive adapter cable made by StarTech. I paid $7.00 for it but it works great! Here's
why we need this adapter. First of all, this cable splits the plug into two separate inputs.
One for a microphone and one for a stereo headset. But there's a major difference on
the plug end. Here's the plug from my microphone. Notice it has 3 sections. This is a TRS connector.
Now compare that with the StarTech cable. This plug has 4 sections and is called a TRRS
connector. The extra section is for the mic input which the iPhone needs to recognize
an external microphone. To use your microphone, just plug your mic into the mic input on the
adapter. Then the adapter plugs into the headset jack on the phone. To show you that this works,
I'm using an app called Recorder Plus. It's free and you can get it in the App Store.
What I like is that this app tells me what is connected to the audio jack on my phone.
Here you can see that it shows me that the input is my headset mic. Output is headsets.
When I unplug my adapter the display changes and tells me that the phone is now using the
built-in mic. Ok so here's a quick test to show you that my external microphone is really
working with my phone. I'll start the recording now. As I tap on the mic you can see the waveform
registering the sound. I just keep tapping a little bit longer so you can see that this
is working. This microphone I'm using is just a simple computer mic I got from my Gateway
computer about 15 years ago. And then just last week I bought these lapel mics by Neewer.
I got a bundle of 5 of them for about $8.00 total so they're super cheap. But as I was
testing them, out of the 5 lapel mics I got, only one of them was recognized by the iPhone.
But they all worked in the other cameras, computers and smartphones I tried them on.
So I wouldn't recommend these if you are using them strictly to record on Apple devices.
On a final note, if you need to use an external microphone with your iPhone right now, just
plug in the earbuds that came with your phone. On the back of the volume controls is the
microphone and you can see here that the plug is a TRRS type connector. To recap the only
way to use an external 3.5mm microphone on your iPhone or any Apple device is with an
adapter and I'll link to the one I used in the description. I've tried this on my phone,
iPad and my MacBook and the adapter works with all of them. Next I'm hopping into my
car to give you a microphone demonstration. I used the Neewer mic but when I got back
to editing, I can tell that the sound quality isn't great from that mic. So here's the driving
test. Ok so now I'm here in the car testing out
the built-in microphone on the iPhone. I know a lot of people make videos in the car and
I just wanted to show you the difference between the built in microphone and an external microphone.
So I'm just driving around and I've got my phone clipped to my rear view mirror and hopefully
you can hear me but here in a second I'm going to switch over to my other microphone so you
can hear the difference. So now I'm using the external microphone. I'm actually plugged
in with the Neewer microphone, that lapel microphone and this is the only one out of
that five pack that worked. I've got it plugged into my iPhone with the adapter and it's clipped
to my collar on my shirt. But I just wanted you to be able to hear the difference that
an external mic can make when you're recording especially in a noisy environment like here
in the car while I'm driving. I'm trying to look for a long stretch of road here where
I can keep driving but there's a lot of traffic here but the point is really so you can hear
the difference that an external microphone can make especially if you're recording in
a car in this noisy environment. I hope you found this video helpful to you. And if you
did please give me a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I've got a lot
more how to videos and product reviews coming up so don't forget to subscribe and I'll see
you next time!