iPhone App Developers at MicSwap Supercharge your iPhone Mic

The iPhone has become slimmer, stronger, and more feature-rich with every update to the original design — but when it comes to sound input and output, the hardware doesn’t always live up to its true potential. Luckily, a group of musicians-turned-iPhone-app-developers is working to solve this small but unnecessary problem. The result: MicSwap, a new app for iOS that supercharges the mic on your phone, allowing higher-quality recordings and a range of unique effects.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of MicSwap is the selection of “classic” mics; for example, the ribbon mic that defined Led Zeppelin’s sound, or the warmer podcasting booth sound familiar to This American Life aficionados. The team of iPhone app developers accomplished this by applying filters to incoming sound, tweaking each “style” to match the original full-sized mic as closely as possible. Considering that the app is working with such a limited input source, the quality of recordings that it allows is truly impressive. Long story short, it really does make you sound like Ira Glass.

Forbes calls it “…like Instagram for your voice,” and while the app is purely utilitarian with no built-in social network, the statement holds true; like Instagram filters, New York iPhone app developers testing the app will find that for many use cases, a filter and a tiny mic can get 90% of the same results as a full-sized mic and control board. Essentially, the same way Instagram filters get 90% of the same effect as actual vintage cameras. Particularly for iPhone app developers and users recording on-the-fly projects like podcasts or musical demos, it’s a perfect solution.

In addition to making in-app recordings, MicSwap iPhone app developers also created import features that allow you to import recordings from elsewhere on your phone (Evernote, Google, etc.) and give them the same audio spit-polish.

So far as monetization, iPhone app developers will note that the app follows a tried-and-true freemium structure. MicSwap is free to download from the Apple App Store, with a selection of core mic styles. The pro version comes at a surprisingly steep price-point ($20 USD), but for power users who record using their phone frequently, the app more than justifies the one-time cost for access to the full array of mics, filters, and editing capabilities.