How do people record live sounds in a decent quality? How can you plug a microphone into an android phone? Which microphone should I get (portability vs quality)? Any tips or tricks would be helpful
How to record live sound with a mobile?
You can use USB mic but I don't think caustic supports it. Maybe rej could add it....
Can you plug a microphone into the headphone jack (as it has microphone input for hands free kits)? Would you need an adaptor?
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I have asked for a Line-in Machine in the feature requests section. It would be great to have live instruments or vocals baked in to a Caustic track.
There is an application called Audio Evolution which is fantastic and powerful mobile DAW for Android. You can by an option to Audio Evolution which allows for USB audio devices like sound cards and mics. I have used my Zoom H2 with this DAW. You can use the mic in on the headphone jack but you will be limited to a mono signal.
I built a small mono plug-in mic with a higher quality mic capsule which works nicely. I found the pinouts for my phone, which I think are standard on Android devices now. I lopped off a 4 contact TRS plug from one of those 1/8in to component video cables. ran the left and right out to a female 1/8in jack and the mic input ring to the capsule. Then elegantly hot melt glued the whole thing together. I plug the mic in to the phone and plug my headphones in to the female plug I put on the circuit.
There are Android latency drawbacks and Android does not allow for recording and simultaneous monitoring of the current source. This means you can hear all the the playback tracks except the one that is currently recording on the mix.
I record into my Alcatel phone with my IK iRig mic plugged into the headphone jack.
http://pquenin.free.fr/pqnaudio
http://www.soundclick.com/thepqueninproject
USB recording not quite there yet..... but some phone mics yield very nice input into Caustic...... if you are recording vocals into the app, I recommend the following:
1. a pop screen of sorts (or make your own) to have a physical barrier between your mouth and the phone mic to control air pressure bursts for sounds like "t" and "p"
2. hold phone mic at least 45* angle, and at least 1 foot (1/3 meter) from your mouth.
3. enunciate your words cleanly and clearly, more than you do when you talk.
4. stand up and straight when you speak or sing
5. your room environment should have little reflections if possible (carpeted, furnished room is good enough)
6. don't worry too much about environmental noise or room reverberation..... most noise floor senerios will disappear in your mix later (even if you use limiters or compressors later)
7. EQ...... in most cases, you will end up boosting the HighEQ to the max in your mixer..... for better high end control, use the multi-filter, use HighShelf..... Freq knob to the max right, reso knob to the minimum... boost your gain to taste.
These tips listed above will give you pleasing results in your Caustic 3 tracks.
I have a video planned for recording vocals straight into your device coming soon....
USB recording is not too bad in Audio Evolution. The application calculates and tries to correct latency in playback. What is the clip length limit in Caustic?
Yeah it works great in audio evolution.
If I remember well you have to purchase another special application to have USB recording in Audio Evolution... Too bad that this application works only with Audio Evolution
http://pquenin.free.fr/pqnaudio
http://www.soundclick.com/thepqueninproject
Audio Evolution and/or USB recorder Pro and a Samson Go Mic gets very nice audio recordings. If Rej could talk to the guys that wrote the USB driver so he could incorporate it in Caustic then we could get great recordings within the app!
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Yes, Audio Evolution and Caustic would be an excellent partnership. They are not direct competitors and only have things to gain from each other. If it is possible to make the USB recorder integrate with Caustic, they will sell more USB recorder licenses, and Caustic will gain a valuable attribute. What I'd like to see is just a line-in machine with some basic editing features, not unlike the wave editor already backed in to Caustic.
And, yes, the USB recorder pro is a separate application. This happened because Audio Evolution and USB recorder started as independent applications. Some people had one or the other. The vendor likely kept them separate assuming not everyone would want both. I have both and its a great package.
To answer the first question, to get good quality audio into Caustic, I record on my PC. Chop into rough samples, import to PCMSynth and then do some further edits there. It'd be nice to skip that though for sure.
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There seem to be various products from www.ikmultimedia.com that look interesting. Especially the small cast mic (for portability reasons). Does anyone have experience with these?
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USB Recorder Pro supports many different audio interfaces, so it's your best (and most affordable) option if you already have one. Check out their site to see which ones are compatible. Even my old Xiosynth works, and I can hook up a guitar/line in instrument and mic if I want to. I have tried the Samson Go Mic with this app and it delivers great audio. For $40 and with direct monitoring nothing beats it for portability. As for the wave files, I use Recycle on the PC when I have time to create slices and export as a soundfont which works great in PCMSynth! When on the tablet, any audio editor, even the one in Caustic can deliver. It's a bit more work but it's doable.
https://soundcloud.com/spyro-karagiannis
I do not have iRIG cast but the other one that they offer that have a little bit more flexibility. It is okay you get a little bit less noise in your recording.
But would not recommend it unless you do recordings all the time with your device. The problem is that depending on your device and the Android system is that there can be compression sneaking in making weird things with the audio. This does not happen with the USB Audio Recorder PRO that bypasses the built in Audio system.
In either case if you have some spare money laying around it can be worth it to get one of the IK Multimedias microphones and if you record a lot on your device... Maybe more if you are a journalist and need to get a clearer recording of your subject in a noisy environment or if you do a lot of filming with your device and want a little bit better and directed recordings it could be something?
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My Zoom H2 is dual purpose. I can plug it in to the usb and record directly in to Audio Evolution or use it as a stand alone recorder. I use the Zoom H2 in stand alone mode for almost all of my samples. I chop them up in Sound Forge on my PC. On the go I can record directly to my mobile device using Audio Evolution.
You should strongly consider a Zoom recorder. It will set you back more money but you can use it for field recording as a stand alone device. Additionally, it can handle high SPL very well. I record band practice with it and very loud concerts with no distortion or clipping. Also, since it has an analog out for monitoring (via headphones) I can connect it to my DSLR for premium audio while recording video.
Yeah those little Zoom field recorders are awesome for the money value no doubt..
If you have watched any of my recent videos, I record my audio using my Samsung Galaxy S1 phone using Caustic, then incorporate the audio and sync it with my video content and that is what you hear.... It is clean and clear. No external hardware or software needed for now
What are exactly the limits in recording time in the Caustic sample editor ?
http://pquenin.free.fr/pqnaudio
http://www.soundclick.com/thepqueninproject
The IK MicCast is junk. No better than the mic on your phone. I returned mine the day after buying it.
Someone else mentioned the Samson Go Mic - if you want USB, it's nearly as compact as the MicCast + far superior sound & internal monitor path.
The best solution I've found for line/headphone input mics on Android is the Tascam iXZ interface. Fairly transparent and it's own internal monitoring. Then just use any decent mic you like.
What I normally do is right most of the track and then chuck loops and arrange a 20 minute jam in audio evolution mobile. I've been recording vocals and flute with an artist I'm working with. The 20 minute jam gives me plenty of bites to choose from. I then export as wav and go back into caustic and fine chop them in the pcmsynth + the wider range of fx in Caustic.I'm not using a usb mike at the. Moment but I'm getting good results through my phones microphone, the frequencies it picks up is just a sort of low cut and is great for vocals and flute.
Maximum recording time
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well i suggest you get a mic, maybe an irig ? there are mics that plug into the audio jack, try that