What can you do if your perfect production is made a little less perfect by some lousy audio? Very often, an actor’s lines will be unusable because of extra noise, background sounds, or a variety of technical glitches. But, don’t despair. You can easy replace that bad dialogue with the help of your iPhone, and we’re going to show you how.  This tutorial also demonstrates the use of the FourTrack recording app, and an external mic named Mikey.
A special thanks goes out to Byrne Offutt for helping with this demonstration.
USEFUL LINKS RELATED TO THIS STORY:
• Download a pre-made 3-beep count-down for use in your iPhone ADR sessions.
• Check out FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works
• Learn about Mikey from Blue Microphone
13 Responses
I’ve did something like this using 4track and Alesis ProTrack. It’s a great microphone attachment for iPhone, but it’s very expensive.
You said you were using an iPhone 3G. You don’t have a 3GS? How do you shoot your movies?
Good catch, BlueGun!
Yes, it’s true. I’m still using a 3G. Why? Because AT&T won’t let me upgrade my phone for another 2 weeks without paying an extra $200. And as much as I love AT&T (I hate them, actually…a lot), I don’t want to give them any extra cash. So… I’m waiting the extra few days, and then upgrading. Until then, I’ve been using my friend’s iPhone for reviews. He gets some cool software out of the deal, so he’s stoked.
-Taz
I keep realizing how my iPhone is more of an investmant than just as a smart phone. Thanks so much for this, I know it will come in handy down the road. Great tutorial!
What a great video, and what a great blog, I’m glad I found your site. You might be interested in my blog too which is about handheld music on iPhones and other handheld devices.
http://the-palm-sound.blogspot.com/
This ADR video tutorial is great. thanks so much for including Blue’s Mikey. Please check out http://www.hearmikey.com for more content and information about how to use this mic.
I have a 3GS and a Mikey and I’ve used it to record audio for a music class. It works the same way that it does on the 3G. Great product!!
Thanks, Jeremy! I had read that it worked with the 3Gs, but it’s nice to get feedback from someone who’s actually used it.
Best,
-Taz
I am afraid the audio quality must be pretty bad for such device.
Any HQ recording samples up there?
Hi Peeter,
Blue Microphone’s got a whole mess of sample audio clips up on their web site. Just go to http://www.bluemic.com/mikey/ and click on any of the 5 suggested uses. Each use has 2 sample audio clips. Hopefully, that will help.
Best,
-Taz
Hi wsmith,
I appreciate all the feedback, and I’d like to address your comments, but the conversation is a bit off topic. I’ve moved the last 3 comments, along with my response, into the discussion area. Here’s the link:
https://handheldhollywood.com/discussion/post/913192
Best Wishes,
-Taz
Why don’t you just do the ADR recording directly into FCP? OK, you are in the field and might not have a MacBook or MacBook Pro with you, but why not just wait until you get back to the edit suite to do the ADR? The only reason I can imagine for using the iPhone for this problem is if you don’t have a laptop in the field and/or can’t get the talent to come into your edit suite some time after the shoot. Otherwise, it seems like an overly complicated way to solve the problem. However, thanks for showing how you can do ADR in FCP. Great demo!!!!
Hi Ullianj1,
Good question! The tutorial was meant for filmmakers that don’t have laptops, studios, or the ability to bring an actor in for looping. Yes, most of the time, I bring my actors into a professional recording studio. But having worked on many low and no-budget projects, I know that portable, quickly accessible options are always valuable. That said, when this tutorial was recorded, there was no such thing as an iPod Touch with video. So, now it’s even easier… video playback on one iDevice, and audio recording on another.
Best,
-Taz