iPhone 13 Pro microphone discrepancy for guitar recordings

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iPhone 13 Pro microphone discrepancy for guitar recordings

I just learned that the voice memo recording I was doing when I practice my guitar which were very poor and not representative of the sound of my guitar is quite different from the audio quality of same guitar using a video recording.

Further research suggested that the iPhone uses a different microphone in the back of the camera vs the mircrophone the phone uses in the front for memo recordings. Seems like I should not have to do video recordings to hear my guitar recordings.

Able to switch to the rear microphone would be acceptable, or possibly the iphone could ask me whether I was doing a voice or instrument recording and then the iphone could do the switching.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Iphone 13 Pro Microphones

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 8, 2025 3:55 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

SravanKrA

Community+ 2025

Level 10

431,148 points

Sep 8, 2025 10:17 PM in response to WRR2

If you don’t need the video itself, I’d suggest extracting just the audio from the video recording.

ChatGPT says:

What you noticed is true (with a few nuances):

Voice Memos app → By default, it optimizes for speech clarity, not music. Apple applies noise reduction and compression tuned for the human voice (midrange, 300–3400 Hz). That makes guitars and other instruments sound flat, boxy, or “phone call-ish.”
Video recording → Uses the rear mic array (and sometimes multiple mics) with much wider frequency response, less aggressive processing, and stereo capture. That’s why your guitar suddenly sounds “real” in videos.

Your idea is spot-on:

Apple could add a “Recording Profile” option (Voice vs. Music vs. Lecture) in Voice Memos, and just switch to the more suitable mic array. So far, though, they haven’t.

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