Recording through the headphone jack of an iPad 4

[Spanglenator]

Is it possible to do this? And if so, with what apps and how? Anyways, here was the reason:


I made a bunch of custom ringtones on my Android device and I didn't want to bluetooth it over, transfer it over, and etc (I guess you could call this an experiment as well). Well I got to thinking, is it possible to plug in a standard 3.5mm 2 male Stereo audio cord from my Android LG tablet directly into my iPad 4?

It seems like it would work, but I do not know if there were any apps that could do that.

I have GarageBand (since I make my own music), TwistedWave Audio Recorder FREE, and Audio Mastering (app).

I have iOS 8.3 with 1GB of space available.

 

[twerppoet]

Yes. GarageBand will record audio from the audio jack using the Audio Recorder instrument. What the quality would be like, I don't know. That would depend on input and impedance matching. You can adjust the input levels to some degree. At any rate it is worth trying, and won't hurt anything.

There are other apps you could do this with, but GarageBand has the benefit of being able to export directly to your ringtones. You might want to be cautious with that. As far as I know it's not possible to delete a ringtone added this way except through iTunes on a computer.

 

[Spanglenator]

Thank you twerppoet! I know GarageBand well but I did not know it could capture from the audio jack. I'm a self taught sound engineer so I don't think it would be much of a hassle.

 

[twerppoet]

No problem.

Pretty much every iOS device has a microphone input in the audio jack. Pretty much every audio app will use that instead of the built in mic when a mic is detected. I believe it's system level, so it's not even up to the developer. Or maybe it's a default they could override. I'm not sure.

The same is true of a USB mic when it's plugged into the lighting port (with the proper adaptor, of course).

 

[Spanglenator]

So all I do is just plug in the cable from my Android device's headphone jack directly to my iPad's headphone jack. Then just go into Audio Recorder, set the levels properly to a degree, and press record?

I just wanted to clarify.

 

[twerppoet]

So all I do is just plug in the cable from my Android device's headphone jack directly to my iPad's headphone jack. Then just go into Audio Recorder, set the levels properly to a degree, and press record?

I just wanted to clarify.

Let me revise my answer.

More research shows it to be more trouble than I thought. I tend to think in terms of audio in and audio out. Mic inputs are different, much lower power than audio in.

First, you'd need something other than a normal audio extension cable. You need to cross the headphone output to the microphone input, something a male-to-male extension cable would not do.

The differences in levels is pretty high. The quality would be terrible unless something in the cable, or another adaptor box adjusted the levels, not to mention combining the left-right channels into the mono input the mic would need.

Can it be done? Yes. As simple as I thought. No.

The best instructions I could find was a YouTube video that shows how to make the cable you need. There are probably pre-made cables out there somewhere, but I could not find any. Also, the video has a computer as the microphone device. You may need to modify the instructions to deal with the iPhones audio jack. I'm not sure.

Sorry for the initial, and less than accurate response.

All said and done, there's probably an easier, software only way to do all this. Or just start over with your ringtones on the iPhone. That's what I'd do, but I'm lazy, lazy, lazy.

 

[Spanglenator]

Thanks for letting me know. That does suck. I wished someone would make an app that had the capability of recording "what I hear" from the iPad to an MP3 or use Inter-app audio support.

 

[twerppoet]

Thanks for letting me know. That does suck. I wished someone would make an app that had the capability of recording "what I hear" from the iPad to an MP3 or use Inter-app audio support.

Audiobus

Don't know if it will do what you want, but for apps that support it, you can record audio output from one app to the input of another. Apple approved and liked it well enough they added support for it in GarageBand.

I did not mention before it because I doubt it will solve your ringtone question.