Hello everyone, It’s “nice” to see this is not just an issue with my FP6. This concert video perfectly demonstrates the experience I had yesterday on a concert. I was front row and all sounds basically completely vanished in an extremely loud distortion. A friend of mine just normally recorded the same scene with a cheap Xiaomi and it came out fine. The microphone quality is freakishly bad with this phone (other than that, I really love my FP!)
It also is weird the audio is only on the left channel.
I can now add that I can record (with Blackmagic) through a relatively cheap Lavalier type external bluetooth microphone (from Amazon: Neewer KM23B) alright. But I cannot record using Fairphones Fairbuds (the small ones). The level would be okay, there are no clippings. But HEAVY artifacts from severe postprocessing. Obviously Fairbuds are ONLY for voice, and nothing but voice. Recording normal audio (music) is possible, but the results are useless. So there is postprocessing on Bluetooth, but it seems limited to Fairbuds and not to all BT microphones.
Last saturday I visited a concert in a small club. I know the band and was asked to record the gig with my smartphone, noting special. It was a rock concert, but not overly loud.
The result is absolutely useless. Video quality is okay, but the sound is garbage, completely overdriven and distorted. I had not experienced this with this device before. But all smartphones I used since my very first smartphone many years ago delivered something that was better than useless…. and I visit concerts very often and shoot videos all the time.
Is this sound quality normal for a new FP6, or could it be defective?
No, not with all Fairphones. To my knowledge, this started with the FP4. My FP2 never had that problem. Yes, at one point, the main mic in my FP2 failed altogether, but never have I had problems with loud environments. And IMHO it is just a software issue. For reasons I have never understood they turned up the pre-amp ludicrously high, therefore overloading the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and when it comes to clipping, no postprocessing in the world can rectify it. Fairphone knows about the problem for years…
I just saw this because my original post was merged into this thread.
Dear FairPhone B.V. staff and mainly CEO and FP6 product manager, let me put it straight:
If I had read this thread before purchase and if I had known that this problem exists, I would have bought a different phone. This is absolutely unacceptable, and you can call yourself lucky that this problem is not well-known in the market - it would harm your sales significantly. Today, things go well, your sales are great. But that can change if people find out that you don’t fix such an unnessecary, stupid but annoying problem for years.
Find a solution.
I am willing to purchase a new microphone module if it fixes the problem.
Sorry to correct you. Yes, you did. To quote you precisely “This is a common problem with the Fairphones”. If you say “the Fairphones” without specifying those that you include or exclude, you are indeed talking about all of them.
Yes ! For some strange reason in no test report of the FP4, 5 and 6 this is even mentioned. Looks like the reviewers never tested Fairphones in real-life situations.
I recently was at a concert and took a short video with my FP5 and didnt expect much, because of the negative experiences of others and was suprised that it was ok.
Yeaterday I was at a concert and took a short video with my FP6 and its awful…
It highly depends on the volume, and maybe there is a difference between 5 and 6 after all… And another factor is the partial volume of the bass in the signal, as the postprocessing seemingly tries to eliminate bass altogether (which is a good idea, but only for telephony, not for recordings). To eliminate the effects of the postprocessing it is utmost advisable to switch to the raw (i.e. unprocessed) audio stream. But lamentably not all apps allow you to do so, and there is no possibility to generally reroute streams.
For sure there is difference in hard as well as software and still reports for the FP5 are very bad and in my case the outcome therefore was surpisingly ok. And I know there are Apps that have unprocessed settings and I did not use them but stock camera, I just shared my experience
What I am struggling with is that 3rd party apps allow selection of unprocessed audio AND more control over exposure and other settings of image recording, but cannot access all capabilities of the hardware, i.e. only a tiny fraction of the resolution of both sensors.
And not by accident, but by a very consumer unfriendly (unfair IMHO) decision by Fairphone
So there is no optimal decision. Both choices (3rd party or stock app) have great advantages and severe limitations at the same time. It’s impossible to select “the best app”.
I am a professional sound engineer and I am baffled by the recording quality on Fairphone gen 6 in stock apps and outside.
Adjusting gain in Black magic app to match the line level didn’t help, audio is still atrociously clipped and distorted when dealing with wide frequency range loud environments, like concerts or any musical performance.
