The Voice Memos app on your iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max just got a significant upgrade with the iOS 18.2 update, especially if you’re a musician. Originally announced during the September iPhone 16 event, the Layered Recordings feature is now available, offering a powerful new way to capture musical ideas.
What does Layered Recordings bring to the table? This innovative feature allows you to layer vocal tracks over existing instrumental recordings directly within the Voice Memos app—no headphones required. With iOS 18.2, you can play your instrumental track through your iPhone’s speakers and simultaneously record your vocals using the studio-quality microphone of the iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max.
Apple Voice Memos Layered Recordings feature on iPhone 16 Pro with iOS 18.2.Apple demonstrates using Layered Recordings in Voice Memos on an iPhone 16 Pro.
How Layered Recordings Works
This groundbreaking functionality is powered by the A18 Pro chip in the iPhone 16 Pro models, combined with advanced on-device processing and machine learning. Voice Memos intelligently separates your instrumental and vocal recordings into two distinct tracks. These individual tracks can then be further refined and mixed in professional audio applications like Logic Pro. Seamless integration between devices is also a key feature. With Voice Memos available on both iPhone and Mac, your Layered Recordings can be synced across platforms and even dragged and dropped directly into a Logic Pro session on your Mac.
Expanding Creative Possibilities for Musicians
Layered Recordings offers musicians a flexible and convenient workflow. Imagine laying down an acoustic guitar or piano track as your foundation, then effortlessly adding vocal harmonies or melodies on top. The integration with Logic Pro further enhances the creative process. You can even create a compressed audio file of your instrumental mix in Logic Pro and send it to Voice Memos for vocal layering.
Real-World Example: Maybe This Christmas
Apple demonstrated the power of this new feature with the creation of Maybe This Christmas, a collaborative track featuring Michael Bublé, Carly Pearce, and producer Greg Wells. The song was created using Layered Recordings on the iPhone 16 Pro and is available to listen to in Spatial Audio on Apple Music.
Recorded on iPhone 16 Pro | Michael Bublé, Carly Pearce “Maybe This Christmas” | Apple
Availability
The Layered Recordings feature is exclusively available on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max running iOS 18.2 or later.
