Simple and Portable Podcasting with the i-XLR

One of the most common topics we are asked about at RØDE Microphones is how to record great audio for a Podcast, with a portable setup that you can use both indoors and out. Often a good setup isn't portable, and a portable setup isn't very good!

With indoor locations, like a bedroom, office or home studio (typically places that people may be recording their podcasts) the room can be quite reverberant or noisy, so using just a phone or camera with their omni-directional microphones just doesn't cut it. Using a directional microphone will allow you to focus on your dialogue, and not much else, but you still need a recording device!

For outdoor locations, you need to walk around, talk to different people and cover all the action of an event. So using a big, bulky recording device or multiple devices and microphones will be awkward. You need something small and portable, but it also has to sound good!

The RØDE i-XLR , which is a digital XLR interface for Apple iPhone is the perfect solution for both scenarios.


This handy little device will allow you to plug a professional microphone directly into your iPhone, whether it is the iPhone 7, iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S and 5C. If you have the iPhone 4, it might be time to look at an upgrade!

In this example above our microphone of choice is the RØDE NTG4+ shotgun microphone, which is self powered with it's own on-board, rechargeable lithium battery. This is because the i-XLR does NOT supply 48v "phantom power" to your microphone, which most condenser microphones do require. Keep this in mind with your microphone selection, as you will need to use either a self powered condenser, like theNTG4+ or NTG2, or a dynamic (unpowered) microphone like the Reporter or M1 Microphone.

Combined with the RØDE Reporter App you have a handy, simple to use, and very portable setup which will give you fantastic audio quality no matter where you need to take it!

In the video below we break down this simple and portable setup!

Skip to 1:50 in the video above to hear the drastic improvement in sound!

As you can hear; the audio captured by the NTG4+ shotgun microphone, through the i-XLR into the iPhone greatly reduces the reflections and natural reverberation of the indoor space, and is a huge improvement on what you would capture with the iPhone alone!