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With a proliferation of digital modeling of microphones and environments, it’s no surprise that adding a certain microphone and room virtualization to a recording ON YOUR PHONE has come to light. In this article, we’ll review the iOS “MicSwap” and see how they did.

The Basics

I ran this app on my iPhone 7+ running iOS 11. The app ran smoothly after a 10 second black face. It’s a pretty cool thing actually; being able to drop your recording, vo, sfx into a studio and change microphones. The free version comes with a single default studio environment and three microphone emulations. Naturally, the manufacturers of the app wish for you to spend $20 and get the upgrade which unlocks all the rooms and the microphones.

You can either record from the iPhone microphone (blech) or import recordings from various apps or cloud services. Once there, processing is simple. Once processed the files can be file shared or sent back to the cloud.

The Mics

Several of the microphone choices, like the U47 are so close to how I remember them sounding, you might as well have recorded on one. The SM 58 even reproduces the plosive “fuzz” of the internal windscreen of its Shure counterpart. As to the

AKG 414 analog, it’s clearly a “gold-side” emulation in a cardioid pattern – as are the rest of the multi-pattern microphones. The mega phone is hilarious fun as well – especially as you move around the various environments. It’s helpful to have audio which is at 48/24 instead of trying to import an .mp3 or some other such compressed format, since the process of emulation requires a great deal from the fidelity of the audio file. In other words, for best results, only use full resolution audio files.

Another thing that’s cool is that you can hear the input of your mic while recording right into your headphones and audition the various mics before you record.

The Bottom Line

The free version is fantastic. I think the paid version is overpriced for something which is really just a novelty because of it’s inability to connect with professional apps outside of the cumbersome file exchange method. It IS easy to use for an app, however, and it has plenty of fun features for a mic and room emulator.

I don’t know of anyone who is processing their production audio in a smart phone. The apps say that “it will interface with AU/VST as a plugin” but I could not find any way to do that, and there is no manual or FAQ which explains how it works if at all.

But Waves Audio has several of these kinds of plugins available- although nowhere near the price point. All in all, MicSwap receives a 92 CS rating. If it were to have AU/VST interaction, it’s value rating would go a lot higher.
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