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I had recently gotten curious about the Sony ECM-MS957 after seeing one for sale locally. Then I found this video. Ah, so it can operate balanced but runs on an internal AA battery. A little odd by modern standards, but sure, ok.

Meanwhile my 3 year old iPhone SE has been dying a slow death, my wife's phone, has been struggling, and our son needed a phone, so for Xmas we all got new phones. Turns out the USB C iPhone 15 will work with class compliant interfaces like my MOTU M4. Cool!

This renewed my interest in the ECM-MS957, and after I quick search I found one on the Guitar Center site for $50 WITH a 5 to dual 3 pin XLR cable as part of the package. Sweet! Here's the typical Guitar Center potato photo of it.



I'd bet running interface will be a bit of a battery drain, but since the mic doesn't need phantom power hopefully that will help a bit.

Once I get a measurement of the mic's diameter I'll get a cheap shockmount for it. It's rated for SPL up to 115 dB, so I'm hoping it will work for a quick n' dirty drum overhead. It should be fine for practices and live gigs though.

Tried the setup last night with a different mic and it works, at least for recording two channels.

GarageBand didn’t seem to see inputs 3 and 4 on the M4. The phone and M4 do take a minute to handshake.

I was able to record a stereo track, overdub another stereo track, mix, and text the mp3 to my bandmates.

If I can figure out how to import audio files and export sessions in a way that doesn’t require iCloud that would be pretty neat.

Even just being able to record high resolution two channel audio on my phone with a decent mic and minimal setup is awesome though.

Double post.

Now that I’ve had a chance to play with the mic a little more I quite like it.

I recorded this song as a test live to two tracks. There’s some light eq, a touch a reverb and a little “‘make it louder” going on. This is a song an old bandmate wrote.

In retrospect I should have lowered the mic like 4 inches to get more guitar/less voice, but oh well.

I also tried it as a drum overhead over the weekend, and it’s nice for that as well. A little lean sounding I guess.

I’m liking the mid/side thing. It doesn’t leave a hole in the middle of the stereo image. Sometimes that hole is helpful, but yeah.

I record onto my phone quite regularly, but normally just live guitar and/or loop stuff, then I move the file over to Logic for overdubbing/mixing, etc. I’m not really up on the lingo, but would this mic you bought work using it that way? Meaning opposed to me using the inbuilt mic on my iPhone, I’d use something like this mic? It’s something I’ve always meant to explore the use of mics with my phone, but I’ve never got round to it man.

Mondaysoutar wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 10, 2024 3:35 am

I record onto my phone quite regularly, but normally just live guitar and/or loop stuff, then I move the file over to Logic for overdubbing/mixing, etc. I’m not really up on the lingo, but would this mic you bought work using it that way? Meaning opposed to me using the inbuilt mic on my iPhone, I’d use something like this mic? It’s something I’ve always meant to explore the use of mics with my phone, but I’ve never got round to it man.

You’d need a way to interface it with your phone.
That’s the clunkiest part.

If you don’t need stereo and don't have the budget for or interest in getting a full blown interface I’d look into a USB mic.

I quite like this Sony mic though.

I tried it for drum overhead recently and it works well for that.

marqueemoon wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 10, 2024 11:22 am

Mondaysoutar wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 10, 2024 3:35 am

I record onto my phone quite regularly, but normally just live guitar and/or loop stuff, then I move the file over to Logic for overdubbing/mixing, etc. I’m not really up on the lingo, but would this mic you bought work using it that way? Meaning opposed to me using the inbuilt mic on my iPhone, I’d use something like this mic? It’s something I’ve always meant to explore the use of mics with my phone, but I’ve never got round to it man.

You’d need a way to interface it with your phone.
That’s the clunkiest part.

If you don’t need stereo and don't have the budget for or interest in getting a full blown interface I’d look into a USB mic.

I quite like this Sony mic though.

I tried it for drum overhead recently and it works well for that.

Ah appreciate the info man. I’ve got an interface too, so I can record more conventionally when required and that, but I really like the quickness and (most of the time) the sound when recording live directly onto my phone, maybe a USB mic compatible with my iPhone 11 might be the ticket, see how it sounds. Great idea though man, I really like to record whenever I come up with something so I’m always interested to hear/read methods to streamline that process.