Heart2Heart is shutting down after seven years.

paperpenguin

Member

Joined: 2017-02-17

Posts: 96

Files: 3

PM

Useful gear

Here's a list of handy gear you might find useful for sharing and recording. Feel free to add your own examples. Pictures and detailed explanations strongly encouraged.

Assuming most members will be recording using phones, but stuff may be somewhat compatible with cameras, camcorders and webcams. It's not necessary to go for premium stuff, cheap gear should work just as well.

Phone tripod mount

A mounting bracket for attaching your phone to a tripod or arm is a useful thing to have. Most brackets are adjustable one-size-fits-all-phones type deals, and have the standard tripod screw hole. Some selfie-sticks may have removable brackets, so you may already have this in a drawer somewhere.

Gooseneck phone arm

One side clips onto furniture (works best on wooden planks), the other holds the phone. Handy for holding your phone up close and personal, especially if you can't get a regular standing tripod near enough. The arm is stiff enough to hold shape, yet flexible enough to position easily, and the supplied phone clip gapes wide and accepts any reasonably sized phone. On the downside, it can spring and jiggle, taking some time to settle down when moved.

Articulated Segmented Tripod™ (Totally Not GorillaPod I Swear™)

The legs bend into shape and grab onto furniture (works best on pipes, rods and chunky parts) to hold the phone securely. Less maneuverable than the gooseneck, but stiff enough to sit still and not jiggle. Requires a separate phone mount, but accepts anything with a tripod hole.

Headset adapter

Vital for connecting a common 3.5mm stereo-TRS-plug microphone used for stethmics to a phone or a Mac, this adapter takes two female 3.5mm TRS jacks (green for headphones, pink for microphones) and converts them to a male 3.5mm TRRS plug in a (typically CTIA/AHJ) headset configuration. Works with most smartphones (sometimes even with native apps) and newer computers with combined audio jacks. Steer clear of branded versions like HeadsetBuddy if possible, since they offer no benefit over the regular no-name kind but are way more expensive. If native recording apps don't work out of the box, the app stores will certainly have options.

CTIA/AHJ->OMTP (or OMTP->CTIA/AHJ) adapter

If for whatever unlikely reason your phone is being weird about your headset adapter (barring software issues, of course, always try a different app first), it might expect a different tip-ring-ring-sleeve configuration standard. Older phones use OMTP, and newer ones use CTIA/AHJ. Symptoms may include only one earbud playing sound, sound being too quiet or failure to recognize a microphone and reporting plain headphones instead of a headset. While it's usually CTIA/AHJ that needs to be converted to OMTP, the adapters are cheap enough that you can just buy both kinds at the same time just in case. Please note that this problem is very very rare in new smartphones and mostly affects old and pre-iPhone smartphones and feature phones (should you choose to use one to record), since CTIA/AHJ is now standard, and most phones and headset adapters use it.

Last edited by paperpenguin (2017-03-12 16:50:44)

---

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those rap guys' girlfriends.

Diff

Member

From: Middle of nowhere, Kansas

Joined: 2017-02-15

Posts: 658

Files: 139

PM

Re: Useful gear

Please note that this problem is very very rare in new smartphones and mostly affects old pre-iPhone smartphones and feature phones (should you choose to use one to record).

So are newer phones mostly one or the other or are they able to do witchcraft and change which they are on the fly?

paperpenguin

Member

Joined: 2017-02-17

Posts: 96

Files: 3

PM

Re: Useful gear

So are newer phones mostly one or the other or are they able to do witchcraft and change which they are on the fly?

CTIA (also known as AHJ) became the dominant standard after the iPhone adopted it, so most manufacturers are using it now. According to the HeadsetBuddy help pages:

AHJ/CTIA is used by: Apple, HTC, LG, Blackberry, latest Nokia (including 1st gen Lumia as well as later models), latest Samsung, Jolla, Sony (Dualshock 4), Microsoft (including Surface and XboxOne controller with chat adapter), most Android phones.

OMTP is used by: old Nokia (and also Lumia starting from the 2nd gen), old Samsung (2012 Chromebooks), old Sony Ericsson (2010 and 2011 Xperias), Sony (PlayStation Vita), OnePlus One

Edit: Updated previous post with new info and clarifications.

Last edited by paperpenguin (2017-03-12 16:51:24)

---

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those rap guys' girlfriends.