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pianojoe

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 5, 2001
461
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N 49.50121 E008.54558
Now, my new iPhone XS has stereo microphones. So any video you shoot gets stereo audio. Cool!

Unfortunately, no other app seems to be able to access the stereo mics as an input source. As of now, the only way to record stereo audio with the built-in mics, is shooting video—which is, of course, heavy on the battery.

Any ideas?
 
It’s up to each individual developer to enable features such as stereo microphones into their app.

The title of your thread is a bit misleading btw.
 
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It’s up to each individual developer to enable features such as stereo microphones into their app.

The title of your thread is a bit misleading btw.

I don’t think that the thread title is misleading. Name one app that can record stereo audio on the iPhone XS rxcept Apple’s video app which cannot do audio only!

I do have several apps that can record stereo audio from external microphones, so stereo audio recording must be enabled in these apps. Obviously, iOS does not advertise stereo capability of the input source. I wonder if this is a design flaw of the API.
 
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I don’t think that the thread title is misleading. Name one app that can record stereo audio on the iPhone XS rxcept Apple’s video app which cannot do audio only!

I do have several apps that can record stereo audio from external microphones, so stereo audio recording must be enabled in these apps. Obviously, iOS does not advertise stereo capability of the input source. I wonder if this is a design flaw of the API.

You are making it sound like stereo is better than mono. Both have specific uses. For example...

If you were recording an an outdoor event or nature then stereo would be preferable. You are capturing an environment and stereo give a sense of surrounding and immersion. This is why music sounds like you are in the band/group/artist not watching them.

If you are recording a speech you want it captured on a single channel and output evenly. Capturing the surroundings drowns out specific sources. Also specific sources not output evenly sound bad. Even worse if you or the source is moving and its moving between channels it not only sounds bad its obnoxious. This is one reason why singers, reporters, tv host, etc are individually mic'd with a handheld held or clipped on mic. They can move around but not sound like they are moving around since they are their sound is the focal point.

As for the reason other apps don't have it there are several probable reasons, all of which are just guesses on my behalf. It's closed to 3rd party devs. Apps don't want/need stereo for their specific use. There is a lot of audio processing required to make it work as a one size fits all solution. Etc.
 
I too would like to figure out how to record stereo audio on my iPhone 11 (iOS 13.1), using the built-in mics. Anyone know how to do this?
 
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