Adapter for Microphone to iPhone

dkm13

New member
Hi, I'm new to recording vocals and acoustic instruments and I don't have great equipment. I have this cable:

I have an XLR Female to 3.5mmm Mono Male Cable well as a Shure SM58 microphone. All I have to record with is GarageBand for the iPhone 6. I really need some sort of affordable cable/splitter/adapter that I can use to connect my mic to the phone. Is this possible at all? Are there any adapters that I can use for this purpose? Any help is hugely appreciated.
 
As you may be aware by now, that cable will not suffice to power your mic. I’m also pretty sure you need an extra sleeve for the iPhone.

The iRig Pre is what you need. Should power your mic just fine.
 
As you may be aware by now, that cable will not suffice to power your mic. I’m also pretty sure you need an extra sleeve for the iPhone.

The iRig Pre is what you need. Should power your mic just fine.
Maybe it's just terminology, but an SM58 doesn't need power, as in phantom power, so you might get away with something that simply takes the XLR to a 3.5mm mic-only plug and get it to work with that mic; i.e., the output of the SM58 is likely enough to be recorded.

But, the iRig, or something acting as an interface would be a more flexible choice, and have been designed for that purpose.
 
Maybe it's just terminology, but an SM58 doesn't need power, as in phantom power, so you might get away with something that simply takes the XLR to a 3.5mm mic-only plug and get it to work with that mic; i.e., the output of the SM58 is likely enough to be recorded.

But, the iRig, or something acting as an interface would be a more flexible choice, and have been designed for that purpose.

The connection won’t be right, and I don’t think the preamp on the iPhone is good enough. You’ll need the extra sleeve on the jack in order to use a mic for the iPhone. Conversely, you cannot take the connector for the iPhone and record on a computer.
 
The connection won’t be right, and I don’t think the preamp on the iPhone is good enough. You’ll need the extra sleeve on the jack in order to use a mic for the iPhone. Conversely, you cannot take the connector for the iPhone and record on a computer.
I wasn't suggesting a "generic" XLR to 3.5mm adapter but one specific to the TRSS plug of a phone, if such a thing exists. And, "might" was the key weasel-word in that run-on sentence ;).
 
The Apple 30 pin connector of previous iphones has an analog in and requires only an appropriate adapter to 3,5 mm jack.

The newer Lightning connector isn't as simple and requires some hardware to attach a mic, even if it offers digital and analog inputs. The reason is, the iphone needs to switch in the connection you need. There's only a few pins and most of these are multi-purpose. Only the two power pins are single purpose and even those are intelligent. They ask the charger how much current it provides, fi.

Digital in is digital, but even the analog preamp is pretty useful. Of course, the analog input can't completely bypass the DSP filtering, but it is useable. I've made some pretty decent recordings with it. The major disadvantage is that you can't disable AGC, AFAIK. When you stop playing, background noise will be amplified, fi.

You can even do multi tracking, 8 channels 24 bit, 48 kHz, with the appropriate software and interface. RME, fi. The interface needs to be USB audio class compliant. There are a lot of those around, from Behringer to RME.

An SM58 might not provide enough level. Don't know, never tried anything else besides electrets and condenser mics.

You can also use the TRRS connector, but that doesn't bypass DSP voice processing. It's still useable, but far from ideal for music. It only requires the right TRS to TRRS adapter. And the newest iphones no longer have a 3,5 mm TRRS connector, IIRC.
 
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