Rode Smartlav Lavalier Microphone for iPhone and Smartphones (OLD MODEL)

I bought this because of the convenience factor most of all. Last weekend me had a conference at our church and they wanted the speaker in a small school room to be recorded. No PA system is in there of course, so I pulled this out to give it a first try. I tried it with Rode's LE app and it sounded pretty bad to me. I spent 6 bucks on Rode's full version of the app and set the sample rate to 48Khz and what a DIFFERENCE in sound quality! The recorded speaking voice was much fuller, and there was no hiss because I had enough input gain.ONE thing needs fixing afterwards: I uploaded the 348mb WAV file it created (40-minute speech) to DropBox then opened it in Audition CS6 and while it sounded like a quality recording, the tone had that typical ballpark-speaker midrange horn sound to it. So I dropped 450hz down -20db with a Parametric EQ with a fairly wide Q range, and whammo, the sound evened right out. That frequency is always over boosted in cheap lav mics. Afterwards, I looked in the 6 Rode app and noticed it has a TON of features, one of which is a frequency boost/cut! Dial in 450hz and drop it all the way (it allows 12db of boost/cut) and you'll have a much more peasant speaking voice recorded. I need to play with all of the other options, there are so many in the app, there is NO reason why this thing can't sound quite acceptable for A/V projects. Much better than that horrid mic built into my 5D3.

I purchased two of these smartlav mics to do short product videos for my company. I use an iPhone 4s. This product works very well with my setup IF and ONLY IF used in conjunction with the MoviePro app ($2.99) on the App Store. I highly recommend MoviePro for its plethora of useful features and ease of use. Again, without it, the SmartLav is useless for video. The reason it is useless is that the signal strength (gain) delivered to the default video app in the iPhone is too hot and clips -- resulting in a buzzing, muffled mess of sound rather than clean beautiful sound. No amount of repositioning the SmartLav would attenuate the clipping. The only way to stop the clipping is to move the mic so far away from the subject's mouth that it defeats the purpose of a lav mic in the first place.If you use the SmartLav with MoviePro, it is a wonderful combination. MoviePro allows you to adjust the mic gain and also has a visible signal strength meter to show when your levels are in the sweet spot. Before I found MoviePro, I benched my SmartLav for a MicW iShotgun boom mic. It worked very well and had levels that were compatible with the iPhone video app. But now with MoviePro, I am back to using the SmartLav because it sounds MUCH better than the boom mic.I also tested the SmartLav with the default audio recording app in the iPhone. It works GREAT with that. The input levels for the audio recorder and video recorder are different and the SmartLav does not clip when using just the audio recorder.One final note. Some reviewers have noted a "hiss" in their recordings. If you play back the recordings on your iPhone, sometimes there is a noticeable hissing noise, however, when you download it to your PC for editing, you'll notice that the hissing is gone. I believe the hiss is a result of the small iPhone speaker trying to play loudly. On regular computer speakers, there is no hiss at all -- at least for me.Hope this helps!

The raw audio is not all that great but after running it through EQ it doesn't sound too bad. Must have a poor response curve. Certainly useable as a backup to a boomed shotgun mic. I was afraid of the Rode Rec app because of horrible reviews. I searched for a number of recording apps on the App Store but did not find anything that would give 48 kHz and 16 bit depth and allow adjustable gain. In the meantime, Rode came out with a "light" version of their app for free, perhaps a response to really bad reviews. I am now using the free app. It's a pain to adjust the gain as it requires digging through the menus, but it does work. I am using this on a decomissioned iPhone 4. I use a 5s as my active phone. I don't think I would want to give any talent my active iPhone to carry in their pocket. Why would anybody do that? I would never use this microphone if I didn't have a decommissioned iPhone that was not worth more than $50. If you are making enough money to afford it, do yourself a favor and purchase the Senheiser wireless lav. It is ten+ times the cost of this mic. I'm just a poor schmuk so this is all I can afford for the time being.

Being a former Professional Disc Jockey and Recording Engineer, I purchased this microphone in order to make video recordings on my iPhone or iPad. I had been using my Bose Wired Headset and it made excellent sound recordings, but wanted a professional Lavalier microphone.When recording (no matter what application), if you have an above average voice level (like I do) then the microphone records the audio distorted. I tried talking softer (hard for me to do) and it still has some minor distortion. I tried the following and it still did not work:1) Putting the microphone inside the shirt (No)2) Putting the microphone facing down toward the ground (No)3) Putting the microphone at waist height (No)The only thing that worked is to have the microphone about 5 feet away from me (I'm not that loud!!!). At 5 feet the level was good, but the background noise was high (compared to being on your shirt).So I am considering returning the microphone and using my iPhone Bose Headset, but I might keep it for use with other people with soft voices.I hope this helps.