Hey Folks,
First let me say that if you are trying to do any sound comparison using the speaker(s) on your phone or tablet or laptop computer, or anything where there is only a single full-range speaker element (i.e., only a 'woofer' and no 'tweeter' and/or no 'midrange' additional speaker elements) such speakers are physically and mechanically incapable of the audio fidelity required to hear any significant difference in these videos.
Please note that If you cannot tell any difference in the sound of these videos that it is not a failure of my recordings or YouTube compression, but instead the equipment used to reproduce the sound.
Also, such small speakers tend to offer a compressed or normalized sound due to being a 'full-range' transducer (due to volume averaging that is a result of being so small), as well as simply not able to reproduce proper lower bass or higher treble, and usually serve as more of a bandpass filter in the frequency range from about 400hz up to about 6khz (also due to the speaker element itself being so small).
With regard to the above, keep in mind that this is not
my opinion, this is science and fact and how physics, transducers, and acoustic sound waves behave.
Home stereo speakers would improve the fidelity, usually at the cost of unwanted over-emphasized bass frequencies, and
'studio monitor' speakers would be significantly truer to the actual recorded sound, but not everyone has these, so in lieu of studio monitors, if you wish to have a better chance of hearing the audio fidelity, you should use headphones, preferably on-ear type (but NOT the Dr. Dre 'beats' - see above note about bass emphasis), but if all you have a the white Apple ear-pods/ear-buds, this will actually be a MORE neutral sound, and enough that you will be able to hear the difference in the recordings.
As promised, here are a few sound samples...
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Nota Bene: I encourage you to READ the description on the page of each video, which is where you have to click SHOW MORE on YouTube to see it as this gives the proper context for the video, otherwise the whole intro is likely not to make any sense.
1. For a baseline comparison, here is a video I made for The Seasons
using the mic built-in to the iPad3.
https://youtu.be/a-drVdXprLg
You might notice a certain boomy-ness, and unfocused sound with this mic, which is omnidirectional and hearing reflections from all the room surfaces surrounding the iPad, such as close walls and a hard-wood floor. The iPad is positioned on my desk and the iPad's mic is about the level of my sternum and about 2.5" away from me.
2. Example #1 of the sound of the Apogee MiC.
This is a previous entry I did for The Seasons here on UU.
This first one I did while I had a cold, and thus not a lot of breath to sing, so I am singing and playing significantly softer than normal, and thus the input gain on the mic is a little higher than I usually have it set to in order to compensate the volume level in the recording, but still no clipping or distortion.
Recording notes for the signal path are in the video and on the YT description. To my ears the sound is more focused than the first video above using the iPad3' built-in mic, owing primarily to the fact that the Apogee MiC is cardioid (i.e., unidirectional).
The reverb that you might hear is the natural acoustics of the same room as in the first video above. No post-processing was done here, this is raw audio as heard by the Apogee Mic.
https://youtu.be/V2WSBOLinc8
3. Example #2 of the sound of the Apogee MiC.
This is ALSO a previous entry I did for The Seasons here on UU.
This second video was done prior to the first, and since I had to really belt out the vocal part to hit the high notes, the input gain is lower than the above video, you might need to turn up your volume a bit. Also, the reverb that you might hear is the natural acoustics of the same room as in the two videos above. No post-processing was done here, this is raw audio as heard by the Apogee Mic.
https://youtu.be/jaYC-LGIsPs
NOTES:
In both videos, I have the Apogee MiC positioned at about equal to the height of the middle of my forehead, and about 30 inches AWAY from me. This position typically provides a good volume balance between uke and vocal, since going single channel in such recordings, you cannot adjust volume levels on separate tracks after the fact.
I've done a few videos for The Seasons with multi-track audio, but that is NOT what these videos are to show you, and that is a whole other can of worms beyond the scope of this thread....
I don't have lots of time to setup all kinds of cable connections when I want to record, and right now I can only record from my desk, so having the Apogee MiC handy, easily mounted above my computer monitor, and ready to plug in to the iPad, means that I can be recording in seconds.
Also, I used to wear headphones in my videos to monitor myself, but stopped doing that since it seemed to me to distract from my performance since I was wearing the 'recording engineer's hat' while ALSO wearing the 'music performer's hat'. What I do is get ready to go, and using the recording program, I check the input level and make sure it's not in the red when I strum or sing the hardest or loudest, and then I take OFF the headphones and press the RED BUTTON and go.
Most of the time on the iPad I am using program called Movie Pro which has an option to show an audio LED sound meter overlaid on the screen - which is a feature LACKING in the Apple Camera app, and by stealing a peek at this while recording, and can visually monitor the sound level, without being too distracted and also without wearing headphones...
So hopefully this is helpful to those wondering about the Apogee MiC.
Feel free to ask questions here or contact me via PM if I have missed anything important and I will do my best...
Mahalo - Booli