Have you ever recorded a song on your cellphone?

R

R D Smith

It's as good as it is, for as long as it lasts.
I have friends that send me electric guitar tracks they record on their phones, and they usually sound pretty good. So, the other day I was wondering about using my cellphone to record a song. I didn't know how well it would work with an acoustic guitar and a vocal, but thought I would give it a try. This is the audio recorder app that came on the Motorola phone, nothing special.

I played around with positioning the phone to try and get the vocal and guitar levels the same. I ended up with the the phone about 18" away and slightly above the height of the guitar. I turned the phone sideways (turns out it records in stereo) and laid it across the shock mount for my Nt1 pointing straight at me. I positioned myself so the guitar pointed about 20 degrees to the right side of the phone.

I was amazed at how good it came out. There is some echo/reverb from the room with the phone being so far away and some funny artifacts that I couldn't identify the source of, but it's not bad considering. I ran it through Reaper and did a little EQ, compression, and limiting, but that's it. This is a live performance. Take Me Home, Country Roads.
 

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The only time I've recorded any music with my phone was at a concert. I thought the sound was dreadful. In general, I find phone recordings are mediocre at best.

As a documentary device, they are great, but they would be one of my last options for anything of quality.
 
I have used my phone to capture ideas but I have good mic's for when I get serious. That said I think your recording sounds really good!
 
Odi said:
I riff on my phone all the time 8-)

Nice job!
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Thanks Odi, I like that it was pretty easy and quick. The only problem I had was the phone fell over the first time, so I had to record it again. :facepalm:
markmann said:
I have used my phone to capture ideas but I have good mic's for when I get serious. That said I think your recording sounds really good!
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Thanks markmann, using the phone to record ideas when I'm working on a new song is what I'm going to do. I don't have my recording gear setup all the time, and it's kind a hassle to set it up, the phone is easy.
 
R D Smith said:
Thanks markmann, using the phone to record ideas when I'm working on a new song is what I'm going to do. I don't have my recording gear setup all the time, and it's kind a hassle to set it up, the phone is easy.
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Plus, I have my phone with me where ever I go so if I have an idea I can immediately hum or sing it and listen back later.
 
I use my phone to record ideas, some of which I've actually ended up editing/using in finished tracks, but I've never recorded a "song" using my cellphone. I've also used my cellphone as a "monitor" to play an instrumental of my track for recording vocals (using a separate microphone/recorder).
 
I also use a phone to record ideas. Very convenient. And although it doesn't sound great and it can't take high levels, it still sounds better than I would have guessed.
 
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Ujn Hunter said:
I use my phone to record ideas, some of which I've actually ended up editing/using in finished tracks, but I've never recorded a "song" using my cellphone. I've also used my cellphone as a "monitor" to play an instrumental of my track for recording vocals (using a separate microphone/recorder).
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I was just curious at how good it would sound. Now that I have the position and orientation worked out, it will be easy to go back and do it again. I can see using the phone to record a scratch track. Vocals or finger picking sounds OK, strummed guitar gets a little muddy. With a little editing, I can see using the track or parts of it in a mix.
 
R D Smith said:
I was just curious at how good it would sound. Now that I have the position and orientation worked out, it will be easy to go back and do it again. I can see using the phone to record a scratch track. Vocals or finger picking sounds OK, strummed guitar gets a little muddy. With a little editing, I can see using the track or parts of it in a mix.
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Yeah, the couple of times I can recall actually using recordings in a finished track were probably a strummed (electric) guitar part (it just had a certain sound to it that couldn't be re-created later) and a couple of vocal parts. Usually, it's just a scratch idea recorder... but if the part works... it works.
 
GoPro cameras have pretty good audio. I've made a couple of GoPro videos, and while the guitar sounds really good, the vocal is usually low because of the distance to the camera that is needed to get video framed properly. I've used RX8 to pull just to vocal track off and do a little processing to bring up the level up. But that only works (for me anyway) if the levels are not too much different.
 
I use iPad Garageband for all my scratchpad work. It takes about twenty seconds to set up, and sounds pretty okay. The playback system's got treble/bass/reverb settings for instant mixing. 😂

We should do a thread called 'Phone Tracks' to see what we could come up with - everybody do a song on their phone or iPad.
 
dobro said:
I use iPad Garageband for all my scratchpad work. It takes about twenty seconds to set up, and sounds pretty okay. The playback system's got treble/bass/reverb settings for instant mixing. 😂

We should do a thread called 'Phone Tracks' to see what we could come up with - everybody do a song on their phone or iPad.
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Yeah, my wife's iPad and iPhone record very good audio and video. I never thought about mixing on a mobile device. Sounds like GB has everything you need.

A thread for phone tracks sounds like fun. I'll see what I can do later today, or you can if you like dobro. We have already had a worst recordings thread, I think we can shoot for a best phone recording, although it may end up being another worst recording thread. :ROFLMAO:
 
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