Mic up that iPhone

iPhones, iPod touches, and other smartphones, tablets, or i-devices have incredible utility for birders in the field.  While iEtiquette should be considered carefully, there are many ways that these can ease our load and better our understanding of birds. Electronic field guides, bird sound recording libraries, BirdsEye (for finding birds & birding locations), weather apps, travel apps, mapping apps, and communications by phone, email & texting all support my birding with the information they output, but don't forget that these devices can collect data, too.  My iPhone can be used for digiscoping (er, phone scoping- check out Bird Chick's tutorial for this technique!), entering eBird checklists (using BirdsEye BirdLog- more on that later...), and for recording bird songs.  It is the latter utility that I'd like to briefly discuss here...

 There are many recording apps to choose from including the built-in Voice Memo- I happen to use Recorder but in truth I haven't researched these very deeply (please weigh in though the comments section if you have a better recommendation!)  It lets me record audio through the built-in mic, saves the tracks, allows for track clipping, and has the ability to export AIFF or MP3 versions of the recordings.  It can be pretty slick to grab audio of a vocalizing bird for later research or documentation, but the downside is that the built-in mic is meant to record voice right next to it, not a faint sound being heard in the distance.  Enter the Edutige EIM-001 i-Microphone Voice Recorder, a small mic that plugs into the earphone jack and promises a 12 decibel boost to the device's recording volume.  

After trying it I can say that it indeed boosts the recording performance of my iPhone- check out the examples below.  It doesn't necessarily produce professional-quality audio but I think that for the price (around $25) & size (about like the end of a pencil) it will add a lot of utility to my iPhone, letting me document birds & research the ID of unknown bird vocalization without toting along a separate recorder.  

Examples:

Marsh_No_Mic.mp3
Marsh sounds, Jackson County, Colorado, 25 March 2012 recorded with iPhone built-in mic.

Marsh_Mic.mp3
Same marsh sounds recorded moments later with EIM-001 i-Microphone mounted on iPhone.  (p.s. My herp-pro buddy Joey Kellner tells me the crickety sounds are from Western Chorus Frogs.)

WESO_no-mic.mp3
Western Screech-Owl, Alamosa County, Colorado, 30 March 2012 recorded with iPhone built-in mic.

WESO_mic.mp3
Same owl recorded moments later with EIM-001 i-Microphone mounted on iPhone.  While still faint, the owl comes through much better with the iPhone mic'd up.  There's also an increase in the background noise, but I got sufficient audio to generate a definitive spectrograph of the vocalization (nice, as this is an eBird review species for the county & so I could attach the image to my checklist in the comments section.)

Comments

[Andrew Core]

Thanks for this helpful summary, Bill. I've been using Blue FiRe for recording for a couple years and have been pleased. It's pretty versatile, and free:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blue-fire/id336713577?mt=8

Here's a couple recordings I've made with it.

Palm Warbler:
http://www.azfo.org/SoundLibrary/sounds_Page10.html

an atypical Swamp Sparrow:
http://www.azfo.org/SoundLibrary/sounds_Page11.html

[Bill Schmoker]

Excellent, Andrew!  I'll check that out.

[Bill Schmoker]

Quick question, Andrew- do you use that app with the built-in mic or are you using an external mic?

[Andrew Core]

Hi Bill - I use the built in mic. I looked around for an external but couldn't find one I liked, plus didn't know how I would keep from losing it. I didn't know about the one above, though, so I may reconsider.

[Cliff]

Can you use a true shotgun microphone with a phone? I was thinking of getting the real thing. Would something like this be possible to plug into the average smart phone? http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATR-6550-Condenser-Shotgun-Microphone/dp/B002GYPS3M/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1334360207&sr=1-1

[Jason K. Pietrzak]

Cliff, I am using that mic with my iPhone 4. Not completely sure what I think yet, but FYI - you need a $20 conversion wire to make the setup work. Still experimenting!

[Cliff]

What does the conversion kit entail? Is it just a different plug setup?

[Bill Schmoker]

Very interesting, Cliff & Jason. I found a couple of adapters that might work, but have no experience here so any other examples or clarifications welcomed!!
http://www.kvconnection.com/product-p/km-iphone-mic.htm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002PC88X2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

[Paul Hurtado]

Bill, there are also XLR to 1/8" adapters:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=233893&Q=&is=REG&A=details

[Paul Hurtado]

You can also embed xeno-canto recordings, if the clip is worthy of being posted to xeno-canto.org ;)

Example (Kentucky Warbler): http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10996696

So far, SoundCloud.com embeddings get stripped out of eBird comments :-(

[Katie Andersen]

I was referred to this article just recently. Has anybody done anything further with adapting shotgun mics? Other favored mics and adapters? Thanks.