audio recording app

It's a bit on the expensive side, around $5 if I remember right, but it's definitely worth the money. It records directly to CAF and wav, and you can convert the file, on the device, to m4a, ogg, and I think MP3 as well. You can get at your recordings either with iTunes file sharing, Dropbox, Email, or a built-in http server. What makes this one really stand out though is the ability to disable iOS processing such as the bass rolloff on the internal mic. It really improves recording quality. The app can do processing of its own, however, such as a noise gate, adjusting gain or applying an EQ. You can also monitor on headphones while recording, and it's quite accessible. The only thing i'd suggest you change is in the transport settings change the record option from slide to a standard button. The slide can be done with VO, but it is rather slow.

 

Hi, trying to post this reply for the third time today. FiRe 2 - Field Recorder supports recording to wave, AIFF (the Mac equivalent) and CAF (core audio file -- an upgraded extension that Apple created that isn't subject to many of the older format limitations, such as the 2 GB maximum for the number of samples), and will convert to ogg vorbis format. AAC, FLAC, Apple lossless, among others. It does not support mp3. It supports file sharing via Dropbox, SoundCloud, email, iTunes file sharing, Wi-Fi sharing through a web interface, and FTP, but not Facebook, to my knowledge. I don't think it meets the original poster's requirements of being an "app which is not a studio/music app … but something lighter". The original (version 1) FiRe app was the first iPhone app that qualified as a professional sound quality field recorder for music.  That's why many users like this app, because the sound quality that you can get for a recording by using the app's processing settings can be much better than with the vast majority of recording apps.  While you can set up your usage preferences, and then basically just use this app to record, without using any of the many other features of this app, it's not really designed to be a lightweight app for social media sharing.  That's why a Facebook sharing feature isn't present (to my knowledge), but there are so many other options for loading up sound samples, including direct FTP and uploads to SoundCloud. It may also help to describe the background for why Voice Memos and Apple's music formats use AAC (m4a) instead of mp3.  Although mp3 and AAC are both compressed formats, the big advantage of the AAC format is that high rates of compression are used, which especially applies to voice recordings and lower-bit rate podcasts, the AAC format lets you better quality sound from a smaller file.   The amount you gain diminishes if you use high bit-rate encodings, and don't compress your music files much, but at the time the first iPods were released and for some time after, a typical number for music files was that you could get the same quality of sound out in files that are 10% smaller by using AAC instead mp3.  The savings can be even larger for voice recording files that can take lower bit rates. This was a big factor when the available storage of your music device was limited. It's less of a factor now, except that people have expanded the amount of music they carry with them to fill the available space *smile*.  It does mean that music file formats you use have less cross-platform compatibility.  You may have more success finding an mp3 only recorder that does what you want, or maybe mp3 and wave, instead of including ogg. All of these recording programs will have to record an uncompressed version and convert to other file formats, even if that compression processing is not visible to the user.  You can also always use iTunes on your computer to "convert to mp3", but I understand that this may not be an adequate solution if you want to mail your recordings as an email attachment to another Windows user.

I'd also love to learn everything about Garageband for iPhone and Hocus I. Thanks! Have a really blessed night.