RØDE Announces SmartLav Lavalier Microphone for iOS Devices

[Chris Hurd]

The microphone connects to the headset jack of any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, and at a suggested retail price of around US$60 it provides an easy to use, inexpensive solution for close-miking of talent. Combined with our recently released RØDE Rec app (www.rodemic.com/getroderec) the smartLav makes it incredibly easy to capture audio and share or publish it online with an audience, colleagues or friends.

Full press release, photo at RØDE Announces SmartLav Lavalier Microphone for iOS Devices at DV Info Net

Introducing the smartLav from RØDE Microphones - YouTube

[Trevor Dennis]

Kind of surprised it took so long to get a heads up here. A quick Google shows it being discussed a few days ago, and there even some reviews about:

Rode SmartLav Review | recording hacks

It has to be a winning formula, and I am sure it will sell like hot cakes at that price. Has anyone been able to compare it directly to an iXY yet?

[Chris Hurd]

I published that press release within minutes of receiving it from RØDE. The word doesn't really get out until they send out the press release.

[Gary Nattrass]

If the mic is half decent it may be worth buying a few to convert to radio mic and xlr use at that price!

[Ammar Ijaz]

Anyone tried to use a TRRS adapter with a different mic? I've got other lapel mics I'd love to use with this app.

I've been thinking about this for a while so maybe I'll fool around with this with my Android phone. I'm sure there's an app that can record from plugged in mic...

[Richard Crowley]

This is as much a marvelous innovation for the software as for the hardware. All the previous audio recording apps for IOS looked like silly games written by people who had no clue how audio is recorded. They had uncalibrated "level meters" and you couldn't even adjust record levels on the same "screen" as the metering! How completely ignorant. At least this one looks like it was designed for reasonably "pro" audio use.

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by Ammar Ijaz

Anyone tried to use a TRRS adapter with a different mic? I've got other lapel mics I'd love to use with this app.

I've been thinking about this for a while so maybe I'll fool around with this with my Android phone. I'm sure there's an app that can record from plugged in mic...

Yes I hooked up one of my ultradisk 4016 lavs and it worked a treat, the mic only costs $15 so even cheaper than the rode! The i fone gives 2.7 volts so should power most lavs OK

[Jesse Pepin]

I did a quick video too, testing it's functionality while shooting video comparing it to the iPhone's onboard mics: RODE Smartlav test with iPhone 4s for audio/video quality jesse's gear

All in all I love both of the new RODE iOS mics (Smartlav, iXY) doing a video on the iXY soon to compare it to the Tascam iM2

[Al Gardner]

I think that's pretty novel, but why would I want to use this as opposed to wireless lavs i already have, that I'm capable of monitoring at all times. Or my Tascam device which I can plug my wireless lavs into and monitor. I don't want to take my iphone and put on someone.
I don't see the sense in it unless you have absolutely nothing else to use.
Al

[Colin McDonald]

I wonder if any of the recent iOS updates have enabled the connection through the headphone TRRS jack because I couldn't get this to work earlier when I tried:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/all-thin...ck-pinout.html

Also, can't help wondering - is this new lav and also the iXY be immune from the usual RF interference generated by the phone or does one have to use the Airplane mode? And what about interference from other iPhones? Anyone tried it out?

[Jesse Pepin]

@Al: I don't think this is designed to compete with people who have existing wireless/wired lavalier systems. This is a $60 microphone with TRRS so it works on the iOS. If you've already got better stuff, I don't think you'd need it. But if you wanted to have a quick way to improve the audio if you just bust out your phone for a quick video, it's pretty decent.

@Colin - I wish I knew. I'm currently planning to do a video testing the iXY against the Tascam iM2, and if having another phone near to check for interference would help, I can write that down.

[Gary Nattrass]

You need a certain impedance mic for it to work as it needs a reistive load to flip the mic from internal to ext, I seem to recall 1.6k being mentioned!

[Jesse Pepin]

Update: just tested out a cable by Startech.com that gives you a split from the headphone jack to TRRS mic input and headphone out: it did work with the Smartlav within the RODE recording iPhone app, but wasn't able to monitor levels while using it to shoot video.

[Tom Morrow]

A real smart lav would transmit the lav signal over wifi to the sound engineer's computer for monitoring and buffered recording.

[Phil Goetz]

Just did a little research. Consensus seems to be that the mic works while shooting video with the standard video recording utility on the iPhone 4 and 4S. Correct?