Harry Klippton
Well-known member
Hey y'all, I've shared this with a couple people around here and would like to share this more widely for everyone. This is one method for using a smartphone camera and better quality sound through a recording interface, no computer software, clapper board etc needed.
My phone sucks and has terrible audio. It definitely can't handle the frequency spectrum nor volume levels of a guitar amp. I had a good phone whose mic did work great but I dropped it too many times and now I have a POS. This is my solution.
Here's what I used, and likely what you'll need to get started:
-An Android phone (I have no idea if/how this works on apple)
-An audio interface that can be externally powered
-A USB OTG adapter or cable
-Guitar, pedals, whatever etc
-OpenCamera app. Free open source camera app
Ok as I said above, I have no idea if this works on an apple device, and I'm not a phone whiz or tech guy.
More about the interface: I use a Steinberg UR22 MKII. It has a switchable power source. That means I can power it via 5v from a USB cable with a phone charger, and the main USB port is only transferring data. If you try to do this without the external power source, it'll likely zap your phone battery real fast trying to power the interface. See pics below
you'll see I have cables plugged into both ports. The white cable is the 5v power source plugged into a power strip, and the black cable is going to my phone for the audio transfer, more about that in a sec
When I'm using this interface into my computer, I only need to use the USB port to do data and power.
Another easy step in my process is using an Orange Micro Dark as my desktop amp. It sounds decent, doesn't take up a lot of space, doesn't need a speaker load, and has a cab sim on the headphone out. It sounds decent with pedals and has an effects loop too. I run my pedals into the micro dark, cab sim out into my interface, and interface into my phone like so I bet a unicab would be killer if I didn't have the micro dark
I had a hard time getting the native camera app on my phone to record the audio while recording video, so I downloaded an app called Open Camera. It's free and open source, and it has great configurable options for the audio. When I first tried it with the default settings, it must have been expecting a stereo signal because it was only playing out of one earphone. So I switched it to mono and it was good to go.
You also need a USB OTG adapter or cable to make your phone use its USB port for the incoming audio. I think you can get a cable with the OTG thing in it, but I had an adapter from when I had a good phone
Proof of concept here I could've recorded something flashier with a pedal action shot instead of my face but you get what you get and you don't get upset. I purposely dialed up a wacky setting to make sure I was unmistakably getting the direct signal and not the room mic sound.
If this is helpful to even one other person, I'll be happy. I'm happy to answer any questions about how I made this work for me. Your equipment may work differently, or this might spark an idea for an alternate method. The result I'm hoping for here is help you folks out or inspire an idea that might lead to some interesting and enjoyable content around here. Finally, I posted this in the test kitchen cuz I wanted to use the green tutorial flag to make this easier to find
My phone sucks and has terrible audio. It definitely can't handle the frequency spectrum nor volume levels of a guitar amp. I had a good phone whose mic did work great but I dropped it too many times and now I have a POS. This is my solution.
Here's what I used, and likely what you'll need to get started:
-An Android phone (I have no idea if/how this works on apple)
-An audio interface that can be externally powered
-A USB OTG adapter or cable
-Guitar, pedals, whatever etc
-OpenCamera app. Free open source camera app
Ok as I said above, I have no idea if this works on an apple device, and I'm not a phone whiz or tech guy.
More about the interface: I use a Steinberg UR22 MKII. It has a switchable power source. That means I can power it via 5v from a USB cable with a phone charger, and the main USB port is only transferring data. If you try to do this without the external power source, it'll likely zap your phone battery real fast trying to power the interface. See pics below
you'll see I have cables plugged into both ports. The white cable is the 5v power source plugged into a power strip, and the black cable is going to my phone for the audio transfer, more about that in a sec
When I'm using this interface into my computer, I only need to use the USB port to do data and power.
Another easy step in my process is using an Orange Micro Dark as my desktop amp. It sounds decent, doesn't take up a lot of space, doesn't need a speaker load, and has a cab sim on the headphone out. It sounds decent with pedals and has an effects loop too. I run my pedals into the micro dark, cab sim out into my interface, and interface into my phone like so
I bet a unicab would be killer if I didn't have the micro dark
I had a hard time getting the native camera app on my phone to record the audio while recording video, so I downloaded an app called Open Camera. It's free and open source, and it has great configurable options for the audio. When I first tried it with the default settings, it must have been expecting a stereo signal because it was only playing out of one earphone. So I switched it to mono and it was good to go.
You also need a USB OTG adapter or cable to make your phone use its USB port for the incoming audio. I think you can get a cable with the OTG thing in it, but I had an adapter from when I had a good phone
Proof of concept here
I could've recorded something flashier with a pedal action shot instead of my face but you get what you get and you don't get upset. I purposely dialed up a wacky setting to make sure I was unmistakably getting the direct signal and not the room mic sound. If this is helpful to even one other person, I'll be happy. I'm happy to answer any questions about how I made this work for me. Your equipment may work differently, or this might spark an idea for an alternate method. The result I'm hoping for here is help you folks out or inspire an idea that might lead to some interesting and enjoyable content around here. Finally, I posted this in the test kitchen cuz I wanted to use the green tutorial flag to make this easier to find
