iPhone XS - Stereo Recording

By Q, 19 October, 2018

Forum

iOS and iPadOS

Greetings

2 Days ago I became the owner of the new iPhone Xs, and for me one of it's most exciting features, is it's ability to record in stereo, ... or so it's been advertised. Sure enough, when recording video, the sound is stereo, and a nice, clear sound at that, with a reasonably low noise floor. However, I'd like to record plain simple audio in stereo, and have tried various apps and methods, including RecUp, Voice Memos, Auphonic, and a few other voice recorders. Unfortunately none of these apps record in stereo. I've also looked through various settings to see if there's a way to adjust the phone's settings so that audio would be recorded in stereo by default. However, seems like I have no luck.

It seems logic to me that, if the phone is able to record video in stereo, audio should not be a problem, right?

If there then is a solution, could someone please shed light on it for me?

Thanks very much.

All the best.

Options

Comments

there isn't a way, ... yet

hiya, nope there's no way to just record in audio on the new mics. my guess is, apple will at some point bring out an update of iOS, in which they will proudly announce that we now can record in stereo in audio only! ... lol.bit silly really, adding stereo mics, but only making them good for video. personally i think they should have put both forward facing and backward facing stereo mics, and even enabled it for all calls and so on. IE, facetime and the like. that could have been really interesting. but nope, as of yet, no luck on audio recording with them.

Hmmm

Thanks for clarifying. Pardon me for saying so, but that's such a retarded approach. I can't help wondering about their logical abilities. lol.

Probably needs updates

While it seems unusual that Apple might not have thought ahead for their own apps, I wouldn't be surprised if other audio recording apps will have an update in the near future. Then again, Airpods have been out for a couple years now, they have a microphone each and you still can't record in stereo with those. So maybe I'm wrong.

Have you tried . . .

Have you tried recording with Audacity, Garage Band, or any of the other medium to higher level recording apps? I can't imagine they would record mono only.

Siri shortcuts are the answer

Hi.
It's not all that battery efficient but you can make a Shortcut to record a video, then convert it into an audio file.
Regarding Airpods and stereo recording, the sound profile they use when the microphones are active doesn't support stereo, whether it's recording or playback. The majority of bluetooth headsets out there are the same way, from my understanding.

Unfortunately, only movies

Unfortunately, only movies are recorded in stereo.
This is probably due to the fact that other microphones are used for audio recording.
I also regret, but so far in the system there is no option for recording audio in stereo in audio materials.

I wonder if Apple will ever give such an opportunity.

Stereo recording status?

Hi, does anybody know, if this has changed? Is it possible to record in stereo without recording video with iPhone XS?

Nothing either

As far as I know, nothing has changed. Apple will probably keep this under wraps until iOS 13. One of the big new features of iOS 13 will be stereo support for FaceTime and stereo recording for Voice Memos and other audio apps. This is ridiculous and just goes to show how arrogant the folks at Apple are. The hardware is there, it's just not being used. Just like with anything else, the tool itself isn't bad or lacking, it's all how the person who controls said tool decides to use, or in this case, not use it.

iOS 13

Hope in the new iOS that will come out in September this will be address. I agreed what is the point of having stereo in video and not just in audio.

There is an app that could be used

I personally have never tried this, but I know there’s an audio recorder specificallyfor podcast recording, but the audio could be used other things (it could be exported.) It's called Hokusai 2, and it can record stereo. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info

OK, where did you find out that it can record stereo? The app page talks about converting , split&merge and stereo spacialise

When recording on an iPad,

When recording on an iPad, and going through the list of tracks, it labeled my recording as stereo. I also heard my recordings through headphones and it seems to be stereo to me.

OK, so how would you create a

OK, so how would you create a shortcut to do this?

A shortcut to record stereo,

A shortcut to record stereo, you mean? If that's what you meant, I don't think there's a shortcut for that, just record something in Hokusai and if it comes out as mono go to the track listing and swipe up or down to go to the "convert to stereo" option.

Using "convert to stereo" in Hokusai

Using "convert to stereo" in Hokusai simply creates a dual-mono file. No stereo information.

Until Apple deems us worthy to record audio via the stereo mics used for video recordings, the best way I've found to record stereo is to simply use the video recorder...with my finger over the lens or whatever. The video files are huge of course but sound pretty good considering its from a phone, and have a decent stereo field

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