Mobile Recording Setup

Welcome to our Getting Started with Riverside series. In this video, we're going to show you how you can use your mobile device to create high-quality video and audio content using the Riverside app. We're going to talk about ways to mount your device so you can have high-quality video that’s steady and we'll cover how to connect external microphones to get even better audio quality from your recordings. Let's get started. The first thing you'll want to do is download the Riverside app from the App Store. It's available both for iPhone and Android devices and iPad as well. We'll cover how to use your iPad for recordings in another video.

Once the app is downloaded, open the app and sign into your Riverside account. Here you can view any of the studios you've already created in your account. Or you can click the plus button to create a new studio and start recording right away. If you're on Riverside teams plan, you'll see the new production option and productions here at the top. If you hit the Settings gear, you can see the upload status get app ID for support from the app and also give us a five star rating or tell a friend about Riverside. Clicking the account icon in the top left you can edit your name or logout and then log back into a different Riverside account.

When you're ready to record, just tap the studio you'd like to enter type in your name and you can even add a photo of yourself for other guests to see. Hit next, then you can choose whether or not to use the front-facing or back camera. For the highest quality video, you should use the back camera on your device. If all you have is a mobile device, it might be difficult to frame yourself up properly. Although you can ask your other guests and co host to help you adjust the phone to get that back camera look. But you can always use the front facing camera so you can see yourself and your guests at the same time. And now you're almost ready to record here in your studio.

You can invite people by tapping the invite people button, send a guest invite for those who would like to record with you, you can send a producer invite and you can learn about our producer mode in the video link below. And you can even send an audience invite for those who are going to watch live. If you send guest invite, you can just copy the link and send it in a text or email a Slack message or hit the three dots and the Share menu comes up and you can send it to someone right away without even leaving the app. Then when you're ready to record just hit the record button in the top left, and you're recording with you and your guests.

Just like on desktop you'll get high-quality video and audio tracks individually. For every guest that's on the call. You can download those from the Riverside Studio on a desktop or laptop later. While you record from a mobile device you can disable or enable your camera, mute your microphone, see a list of the participants here in the call. And you can even now participate in the live chat from a mobile device. When you're done recording hit the stop button. And once you see that your video and audio has been uploaded, you can end the call for everyone.

You'll get a confirmation page to show that everyone's video and audio has been uploaded successfully. And then you can download those tracks later. Now to get high-quality audio from your mobile device. It has a built-in microphone, but often it will pick up lots of room noise lots of background noise, and you can get higher-quality audio pretty easily. If you're on an iPhone. The first thing you'll need is the lightning-to-headphone adapter. This actually allows you to use the lightning port on your phone and split that into a microphone and headphone connections. This will plug into the bottom of your phone. And if you have an Android device you'll need a USB C to headphone adapter.

Once that adapter is connected, you'll need something called a T RR s splitter. You'll be able to tell the difference between this and a normal headphone jack because it has three black lines here on the connector. Those three black lines stand for microphone and then left right audio output like for headphones. You'll plug this end with the three lines into the adapter that's going into your mobile device. And now you have two connections on the other end, a microphone connection and headphones. We'll put a link to that headphone to lightning adapter and the splitter below this video.

Now that you have the splitter connected, you need to connect a pair of wired headphones to the headphone portion of the splitter, we always recommend using wired headphones. This way you won't have to worry about latency or battery life and it's just a better more stable connection during the recording. Now for the microphone side you have a couple of options. First, you can use a microphone like this one a small shotgun microphone with or without a windscreen. And you can connect this directly to that splitter, I can use the shotgun microphone connected to this side of the splitter. And now I'm ready to record with this higher-quality microphone.

Now you will need to wait to mount this microphone and you might get some noise if you're holding it. So you might want to get like a small tripod to hold this microphone in addition to one that's going to hold your phone and we'll show you that in a moment. If you prefer a lapel style microphone, you could get something like the Rode wireless go to this has a wireless microphone that you'll attach to the shirt or you can hold it but attaching it to a shirt is better. And then it comes with a receiver that has a headphone jack out. You'll connect that headphone jack to the other side of the splitter that's going to your iPhone. And once you turn on both the receiver and microphone, you'll be able to get the signal from the high-quality microphone directly into your Riverside recording.

When you connect an external microphone like this, once you join the studio, you will see this message pop up. If you're going to be using wired headphones with a splitter like we recommend tap No. This way you'll be able to hear and speak in the microphone without any kind of toggling. If you're using something like air pods in addition to a wired microphone, then you would have to hit yes on this pop up, and you'll have to toggle between speaking and listening during the recording, we don't recommend that. You want to use a pair of wired headphones, and then tap no on this pop up box, and then you're ready to record.

Finally, you'll want to mount your mobile device so it's steady throughout the entire recording, we recommend getting either a table top or you can get a full-standing tripod. And you can attach your mobile device to that you can buy inexpensive clips like this that will extend and these kinds of clips can accommodate multiple-size phones. Here you can see it's holding onto my mobile device, and then I can screw it onto a tripod tabletop or full standing, and then it will hold my device steady during the recording. If you use an iPhone 12 or newer, there's a great case-by-peak design that makes products for creators.

And this special case actually magnetically attaches to a tripod adapter. You see I have a tabletop tripod here and the Peak Design adapter here at the top. And when you're ready to connect your mobile device, you literally just magnetically attach it, it's holding on very tightly, you don't have to worry about it falling off, and when you're ready to release it, just hold these clips, pull your phone off, and then you're ready to go. If you'd like to try this Peak Design Creator tool, you can check out the link below this video.

Now your mobile device especially iPhone 12 or newer will probably do a good job about lighting. But if you'd like an even higher quality video setup, just with a mobile device, you can choose to get a small LED light you will need somewhere to mount the light. Although they do make lights that you can mount directly onto your mobile device or on a small tripod like I've shown you. But if you'd like to get some kind of external light source, we'll put some links below this video for you to check out.And that's how to get high-quality recordings from just a mobile device using the Riverside app.

If you're watching on YouTube, or if you're on our website, contact our support team and we'd love to help you there. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel youtube.com/riversidefm. We have lots of content on equipment recommendations, how to build a full video podcast setup from beginner to pro level and a ton more. Thanks for tuning in. We'll catch you in the next video.