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Level 3

913 points

Line-in Recording for iPad?

I use a 17 inch MacBook Pro for recording special songs and sermons at our church but would like to switch to using my iPad. It sure would be nice not to have to lug the MBP to every service.

I'm not a sound guru. I just plug a cable into the line-in on my MBP and record using QuickTime, convert it to MP3 using iTunes, then podcast it using another software.

All the mics come into a box (mixer?) and then there's this small cable that has a line in for my MBP at one end and it plugs into the "box" with RCA jacks at the other.

What would it take, hardware and sofware-wise, to do the same thing using my iPad that I'm doing with the MBP? (I mean just the capturing of the sound--I can transfer to the MBP at home for converting to MP3 and podcasting.)

MacBook Pro 17" 3GB RAM/Mac Pro 2.66 13GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 24" iMac, MacBook, 32GB iPod Touch, Apple TV, iPad

Posted on Nov 10, 2010 7:06 AM

Best reply

Barbara Brundage

Level 7

22,066 points

Posted on Nov 10, 2010 7:50 AM

Well, sometimes you can use the headphone jack with an adaptor, but I personally think you'd be better off doing the USB part of the camera connection kit with some kind of interface like the griffin imic. I myself use the Blue Yeti directly into the CCK, but for your purposes I think that would probably be insufficient, especially since you already have the other hardware.

Definitely figure out your recording app first (I use DAW) and then see what they recommend. Different apps are designed to work with different hardware connections. Most recording apps on the ipad will do the conversion to MP3 and some will even do the podcast upload for you.

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27 replies

Alan Cook2 Author

Level 3

913 points

Nov 11, 2010 4:16 PM in response to Alan Cook2

I posted a request in the Multitrack DAW forum for someone to give me a step by step on how I would record a song and then a sermon using DAW. I got the following response from pwnified, who I presume is one of the developers or one of their support people:

Actually, we don't recommend using MultiTrack for field recording, where the recordings are long and you're not going to overdub (or multitrack) any other parts. This is because there is a cache track which spans the entire length of the song and is fairly wide (more than twice as wide as a single stereo track in wav format). This extra track is very costly in terms of filespace, but the cost is amortized much lower when you have many tracks in parallel. So MultiTrack is intended for shorter song lengths, with many tracks in parallel.

Personally, if I'm going to record an impromptu jam session where I know I'm not going to do any overdubs, I always just use "FiRe" as a field recorder. It's a great little stereo recorder and has many exporting features.

Alan Cook2 Author

Level 3

913 points

Nov 11, 2010 4:48 PM in response to Alan Cook2

Does anyone know if FiRe will work with the Camera Connection Kit/Griffin iMic setup?

Nov 11, 2010 5:13 PM in response to Alan Cook2

I think you would need to ask them about that, since they don't really specify anything specific about using it with the ipad. My guess is it would.

EDIT There's a thread around here somewhere from someone who had figured out how to do CD quality recording without ever using a computer, and it involved using both an ipod and ipad and both FIRe and DAW, but that was before the release of the CCK, so I don't know how having the CCK would have changed his procedure (which was extremely complicated, IIRC).

Alan Cook2 Author

Level 3

913 points

Nov 12, 2010 10:18 AM in response to Alan Cook2

I contacted Bias support (iProRecorder) and mentioned that someone said it "clips" when recording music. This is what their rep said in reply:

The definition of "Clipping" is that to strong a signal is entering your recording device. If someone says that the iProRecorder "clips" when you record they simply do not understand the fundamentals of audio or the terminology they are using. There is no input gain on the iProRecorder, when using it with the built in microp but since you are using an external mic and mixer, this should not be a problem as there should be at least one gain control stage in that signal chain.

Nov 14, 2010 1:21 PM in response to Alan Cook2

This is very interesting. Since reading your post I've done more testing, but I'm still seeing the same thing, with the exact same setup that works fine with some of the other programs. If I reduce the input to the point where clipping is infrequent, the resulting track volume is so low and needs so much boosting in post that it sounds fake, but then again I have one of the trickiest instruments to record, so hopefully this is working fine for you. Perhaps it's just more sensitive to input levels. Let us know your results, please.

Alan Cook2 Author

Level 3

913 points

Nov 14, 2010 1:28 PM in response to Alan Cook2

I don't have the iMic yet...should be here some time this week. I will certainly let you know what happens when I get it and start testing.

The same rep also said that none of their products were compatible with the iPad. When I challenged him that iProRecorder was working on the iPad he said, well, if it does it's unofficial and not supported by them. He wanted me to let him know how I got along with my proposed setup.

Alan Cook2 Author

Level 3

913 points

Nov 16, 2010 6:26 PM in response to Alan Cook2

I took delivery of the CCK yesterday and the iMic today. Tonight I went down to the church and did some basic testing. The recordings I got from me just speaking at the pulpit desk were very good.

I tried both FiRe and iProRecorder and settled on the latter. It doesn't have as many features as FiRe, but it seems more stable and reliable. With FiRe, I found that if I stopped recording and then wanted to start again, sometimes I had to go into the "Categories" area and select the file again before the "record" button became live.

Also with FiRe, when I tried to convert to MP3, it kept crashing and at one point totally crashed the iPad so it had to reboot.

iProRecorder was problem free. I purchased Peak Express for editing the files. I like how you can just tell iProRecorder to "send file to Peak" and Peak on the Mac immediately recognizes an incoming file and asks you to accept it. I can then edit the file in Peak Express and convert it to MP3 ready for podcasting. So, this is going to be my workflow for now.

Nov 17, 2010 7:33 AM in response to Alan Cook2

Great, I'm glad you got a good workflow figured out for yourself.

Oct 15, 2011 2:29 PM in response to Barbara Brundage

DAW description mentions headset plug is one way of input. Is it possible to record using the headset mic? Or a 3mm cable that is connected to my cassette player and the iPad in order to record from the Cassette player?...

Nov 15, 2011 12:56 PM in response to Alan Cook2

AlanCook

So what do you do now? I have an iPad2 and want to use it to record sermons as well.

What app and hardware do you use...if you still use it to record sermons?

Thanks!

krayons

Level 1

0 points

Feb 1, 2012 10:55 AM in response to Alan Cook2

the guitar amp app would technically have to use line in recording capabilities. Does anyone know of specific adapters just for this purpose? perhaps the actual guitar amp adapter?

Sep 30, 2013 6:47 AM in response to Barbara Brundage

Hi Barbara,

I'm a bit confused, is there no way of converting the headphone jack O/p to a Line Jack I/p? On the laptops you can usually do this via system settings.

Umberto

Line-in Recording for iPad?