I have been trying to record my band’s rehearsals on my new Fairphone 5 using the Easy Voice Recorder app and the sound sis completely blown out, like the input levels are too high for the microphone to handle. On my previous Android phone I used the same app to record the same band in the same space at the same volume and I never had any issues.
I’ve seen this same topic in the forum for previous Fairphone models, but there didn’t seem to be any solution offered, other than a recommended camera app, which is not what I’m looking for - I only want to record sound.
The problem with the default recorder is the file format it uses, which is amr.
More about amr
Amr is a lossy audio codec been which was developed in 1990s for human voice. It’s a narrow band codec, which means it basically throws away everything outside speech frequency spectrum, so it’s okay for speech, but terrible for anything else. Why it’s still used is probably because it’s quite efficient with space.
What’s the option if you don’t want to use camera? Download any good 3rd party recorder app from Play store. Most are free and can be purchased ad free if desired.
I can recommend Audio Recorder by Hipxel. It doesn’t have too distracting ads, it has all the normal audio options and it can do flac, which is a lossless compressed codec.
@CyclingEngineer thanks for the explanation and the recommendation. the default recorder app had no issue on my old phone and I assume it used the same file format, so I think there must be something specific to my new phone.
but anyway, I’ll check out the other app you recommended - thanks!
I doubt that. I’ve yet to use any recorder app that works any different if it records as amr. Most probably you just didn’t notice the bad quality, some music might sound okay especially if the dynamic range isn’t too wide. The amr is designed to record speech, so too loud or too distant/quiet sounds are where it starts not to work.
@CyclingEngineer like I said, same app, same band, same songs, same music, same room, phone in same position, same volume. Definite extremely noticeable difference in the sound quality. Old phone recordings sounded like they were made on a phone, but listenable. New phone, completely blown out and distorted, unlistenable. Despite your doubts, I can assure you that anybody would instantly be able to tell the difference - it’s not subtle.
I’ll try with the app you recommended. If it is still blown out, perhaps there’s a problem with the mic on the phone?
I used to record me playing my classic guitar at home but I stopped with FP3+ as the quality was awful.
I tried iother apps and also playing with settings to change audio file format but nothing happened. I also have problems with FP5 even if it seems a bit better.
As of now I can only record using the PC, I gave up trying with a Fairphone.
@mpolito1969 thanks for sharing your experience - not very promising news, I’m afraid!
It seems crazy, as I’ve never had this issue with other phones (even very cheap ones), so obviously it’s not hard to make a phone that can handle loud inputs…
Went to a metal concert yesterday with my new Fairphone 5. All video recordings I made with the default camera app are absolutely unlistenable. For someone who regularly uses their phone for recording live music, this makes the phone unusable for me. Audio recording quality is way, way worse than my old Moto G5, a phone from 2017. Absolutely shameful, Fairphone!
