There seems to be an automatic noise reduction or filter that removes some of the audio but introduces very ugly audio artefacts. This affects videos but also voice messages. When I do not want this processing applied for videos I can use OpenCamera and select “unprocessed” for audio (automatic audio ducking in videos but for example with audio messages using a chat app (Signal, Threema) there is no such option and I’m left with this processing and the ugly artefacts in the recording. Is there an option I am missing or some workaround?
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Hi Balearis,
As you’ve no doubt seen, I’ve been having the exact same issue. While the Open Camera solution for standard videos is useful, the level of the audio recorded is still quite quiet. I’ve been speaking to a member of the Fairphone team directly and they reassure me that they’re looking into the issue, so hopefully a fix/update will be issued in the coming months.
Jon
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Why do you not trying to use another ROM?
How do you mean using another ROM, and which one would you recommend? Would this solve the problem?
I bought the FP4 with e/OS/ specifically because I want to reduce dependance of Google and because it is (hopefully) less of a PITA than LineageOS et. al. 
Alternatives are
IodeOS ROM
CalyxOS ROM
LeOS GSI
I was just doing some videos outdoor with the noise of a small river in the background, the videos are either unuseable because of the audio-artefacts (settings Camcorder etc.) or extremely quiet (setting unprocessed). For later video-editing unprocessed is fine for me, but I fear most of the users want to send their videos to friends via their mobile phone and then this presents quite an issue. 
@Jonboyh21 which contact did you use from the fairphone-team?
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Agreed, and I’ve noticed the same when taking a short video for something like Instagram using the unprocessed setting on OpenCamera. Audio is noticeably quieter than it would be when using the default camera app. I have zero understanding of mobile phone architecture (hardware or software), but I find it hard to understand why it’s not possible to simply increase the input level of the microphone and employ some gentle dynamics (e.g. compression and limiting) to ensure there’s no clipping. Like you, I tried to record the sea around Xmas time without realising there was an issue with the audio encoder causing unpleasant noise reduction. The sound of the waves literally vanished into thin air after less than a second of video playback, It’s a highly annoying bug and one that absolutely needs to be addressed.
Support contact form:
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
As for the Fairphone team, I simply used the main contact form for the support team and someone got back to me a few days later. They asked me to perform all sorts of tests, such as launching my FP4 in safe mode, running the self-diagnostic command etc but the issue has persisted.
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I’m having the same issue as well, I believe it started a month or so ago. I’m a musician and regularly record myself playing piano on my phone to send to other people, but now the recordings are unusable (if I play a note on the piano, the audio cuts out after about 1 second as the sustain fades away, so any slow songs are unlistenable).
I’ve tried multiple recording apps, and all seem to have the same problem. This is something I use my phone for every week, and really upsetting that something so simple and essential doesn’t work for me anymore because they seemed to add some noise reduction in the software or something.
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Same problem here! The audio quality of recordings donr with FP4 is very disappointing
I’m a musician and I like to use my phone to record spontaneous ideas and snippets of sessions, as well as videos for my social media accounts and students, but the sound quality is very disappointing to unusable.
Honestly, the audio recording app that came with the phone is completely unusable, because the quality is so extremely low.
I’ve tried simplemobiletool’s audio recording app, which is a bit better, but still rubbish when it comes to loud environments i.e. a session. Also volume is really low.
I’ve tried the OpenCamera app for video recording and while the unprocessed audio quality is much better, it is extremely low in volume.
I would really appreciate some help here or a patch, since good quality audio recordings should be standard for modern smartphones. I really hope the team is working on a solution!
I feel like the microphones are technically good, it’s just that the software can’t access them or processes the recordings to death.
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You should not hope but contact them to make them aware contactsupport
Just remind its a user forum and there is no public bug tracker, so the only way to infrom FP about issues is the support Team. And it helps to speed up fixes when they have various information from different user
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Although the volume level of recorded audio is quite low, I recommend using Open Camera and changing the audio source to Unprocessed in the video settings of the app. There’s no ugly noise reduction, you just have to make sure the source volume (playing an instrument etc) is loud enough to compensate for the low input level of the Open Camera app when audio source is set to Unprocessed.
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I contacted the support about this, until now there is no new information.
Message from support:
“Currently, the experts in our Software Team are investigating the issue and are liaising with the manufacturer to find the quickest possible solution. I appreciate your patience and cooperation so far.”
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About time. They denied it was an issue for more than a year.
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