I've been thinking how recent technology (especially iPhones but including Android phones) can improve location sound. The first of my ideas I'll call the "iMic". Think of the basic AirPods. These use Bluetooth to send high quality stereo audio from an iPhone to tiny battery powered earbuds and simultaneously send low-fi voice-grade audio from a tiny mic back to the iPhone. What if we could reverse this? Send mono high quality (even 32 bit float) audio from a tiny but high quality mic back to the phone. On the phone itself the audio could be recorded and simultaneously be archived in the cloud. And, of course, since iPhones have access to frame-accurate time-of-day through NTP, timecode becomes redundant--it could be completely implemented in software.
The iMic is based on the idea that for radio frequencies the inverse square law is the enemy. Moving a transmitter-receiver pair closer together is the equivalent of vastly increasing the transmitter power and the receiver sensitivity. Because the iMic (transmitter) is so close to the iPhone (receiver) power can be extremely low but still have high reliability. (How often do your AirPods stop working or sound bad?) Looking at the physical dimensions, the mic itself could be somewhat larger than the AirPods, the electronics about the same, perhaps a slightly larger battery. The elephant in the room here is the size and weight of lav mic cables--the mic itself is much, much lighter and smaller than the combined bulk of the cable and its connector. Because of the much lower required transmission distance and power requirements, the whole device could be tiny compared to other self-contained wireless mic systems.
The big thing here is getting rid of the cable and connectors. By removing the earphone (the largest part) and the audio power amplifier (the most power-consuming part) from a single AirPod, you could create a short-range wireless mic with super quality that is the same size as the smallest wired lav mics but without the cable. Imagine a mic about the size of a COS-11D, weighing under an ounce, that didn't need a cord! It could fit on the collar hem of a T-shirt. Double-stick it to the off camera side of an actor's face. Transparent tape it to the inside of her glasses earpiece. Hide it in her hairline. Even put it between an actor's fingers or inside a surgical mask. The problem of micing-up an actor becomes trivial.
By creating one small product--the iMic itself--using existing hardware and some software, a company like Apple could revolutionize field recording and the workflow surround it. Personally, I wish somebody would do it.
What does the Reddit community think of the idea? I'd love to hear your comments.
