It was already established that microphone and software work as intended for voice.
The issue at hand is not the design of the microphone it seems, but that a filter is applied by default by the software, when not applying it would increase music recording quality dramatically.
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I think the videos and recordings in this thread are just exaggerated examples. Assumably most of the people wouldn’t want to record and mix their band on a phone to print it on disk later on. But probably a lot of people want to record a concert, or a video of them singing a birthday serenade, or send a voice mail, while in a loud club or on the street passing a street musician. And all of that are cases, in which the filter applied to the recording would distort the voices to an almost completly opaque level.
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Hello, I have gotten used to using my phone to record myself playing or my fellow musicians playing. I don’t have very high expectations, I just need the recordings as a reference, or I try different arrangements while reproducing them. This has worked well with my previous very old (2014) phone. It’s similar to my taking photos with my phone to document some of the jobs I do in my garage, I actually have a nice choice of digital cameras from Fuji and Nikon, but the phone is what I find in my pocket while working and just use it. The photos are not great but “good enoug”. This is just to explain why one could use the microphone in a smartphone for something different from voice, the smartphone has the quality of being in my pocket quite often! That said, yesterday I tried the Audio Recorder app, set the source to “Unprocessed”, bumped the gain to 400% et voilà, I am back in the game 
I like what I hear, the sound level is still quite low but the recordings are again “good enoug” to me, or I dare say even “promising” if I find a way to increase the level with some sort of postprocessing with another app. Maybe recording in wav and then converting to mp3 while increasing the volume? I’ll try also “open camera” for video recording with unprocessed sound, I need those videos to have a record of the right fingering while studying a new music: I film my teacher and then try to reproduce at home. Ciao marco
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a filter is applied by default by the software, when not applying it would increase music recording quality dramatically.
Okay, sorry, I obviously skipped that comment.
Still this does not change my perspective. Because obviously, when recording language, you need background suppression of some sort. Which would not be very kind in general to a music recording like this. That - to me - is to be expected of a phone mic and standard phone software.
probably a lot of people want to record a concert, or a video of them singing a birthday serenade, or send a voice mail, while in a loud club or on the street passing a street musician.
That’s the real hardware issue here. (The one behind the hardware.)
I probably have very different standards at this point. I do video and sound editing for years now. And I completely disagree with this consumer claim of having a phone being able to make a good-quality audio recording of anything other than voice in an average noisy area. If I want to write an essay, I do it using a keyboard. This is not something basic. If you want a great recording, get a great recorder.
I’ll leave you ppl alone now, recording some serenades on your phone and writing essays on a palm-sized screen… 
Practical thought: The only thing you can do if you want to “improve” the quality of bad recordings is to do some post fixing on it (preferably on a computer, with real software, not an app), and use a recording app that only sets the input level and does not process the raw voice data any further. But I hope that one is in here already.
Bye then 
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The problem isn’t just that music recording fails. The presence of music scrambles any recording. This means if you try to record voicemail, make a phonecall, or do anything else voice related while there is music in the background (at a party, etc…) it will not just scramble the music, it will scramble the voice, too to the point it’s not intelligible.
If the music was simply filtered out in favor of voice - that’d be OK - at least for the speech relevant profiles (voicecall, etc…) but that is not the case, the culprit is the auto-gain which affects the entire recording.
But if you have the luxury to be able to go to a quiet place every single time you need to take or make a phone- or skype/whatsapp/other-messenger call, then this will not affect you and FP3 will work great.
(otherwise I’m sure this would have been caught during testing before phones were shipped out)
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It looks that this problem has been fixed in the last software update (FP3 A.0110). You can compare how default camera app recorded audio before the update and after updating the phone:
Also the app I usually use for recording (Easy Voice Recorder Pro) now allows me to choose non-filtered source for my recordings. I’m still doing tests with different settings, but it looks that the problem has gone (even with external mics plugged by jack). Great!
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So i just tested the video sound with the new January2020 software update.
To me the issue is resolved now. Thank you very much.
If anyone asks me to I can provide a before and after test video, but since this requires a little bit of effort I would only do this if anyone needs it.
Again thanks to Fairphone, the video sound quality on this device is finally good enough for everyday use
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Glad to hear this issue is resolved by Fairphone 
Could someone, who examined the problem before, state which audio source I should choose after the update for:
Standard Camera App:
OpenCamera App:
Voice recordings:
Music recordings / live music recordings:
Thank you!
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So, i used and tested the standard video app, as well as the ported Google camera (as seen here)
Both of them in standard settings had the issue, I never changed the audio settings in these apps since I wasn’t aware this was possible (is it?)
Now the issue is resolved in both apps (and I guess in any other app as well)
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Hi folks,
I have an issue with my Bluetooth headset. When using the headset on my Samsung S7 in Skype or zoom, it works just fine. If I try using it on the new fairphone, the microphone gain is being set way too high.
Using the Skype test account can recognise the exaggerated gain and do a correct auto adjust. But unlucky me, this setting is not saved and used for the next vidro call. Instead, a completely exaggerated standard gain setting is used for each new call.
Given the successful test on my ancient Samsung cell phone, the problem must be a fairphone software issue.
I’m using the software upgrade provided in January 2021, so it isn’t any kind of an outdated software version thing.
Does anybody have a decent solution how to use an adequate microphone gain setting with Bluetooth devices?
Beautiful good day.
I shot a short video at a very loud music concert. Unfortunately the sound of the video is totally overdriven. It was ok for normal music passages, but when the bass or the drums started, it started to overdrive.
Best regards
franco07
Yes this has been reported a few times:
Here is another topic on the issue
I have the same audio distortion on high volumes. It’s really not workable for me; when at a festival I ask my friends to film a band, send the video to myself via whatsapp to upload it to instagram on my phone. And previously I could do this with my phone without any problems. The same happened with my FP2, and for that reason I got the FP3. Now I have to upgrade to FP4 to have a FP to shoot videos with sound, very annoying, and wasteful.
I tried the Open Camera app with the unprocessed sound, but the level is too low to be usable I’m afraid…
If there is a workaround that would be great, but this is such a basic function of a phone it shouldn’t require one.
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Hi,
Observing issues on 2 different FP3+ with the micro.
When going to concert (very loud environment) and recording a video, the sound is totally in overdrive and it sound terrible.
Made an experiment at the same location with a very cheap Huawai phone and making a video with this one at the same noisy environmet sound much better - no overdrive.
Anyone else experienced micro not adjusting level in noisy environments with FP3?
Is there a way to adjust the micro level?
Trying to find out if this is a construction issue…
Hi and welcome, there are several discussion on the forum I think the above is the most informative
Hi, oh thanks for the hint, seems this is an systemic issue.
Is there any official communication from Fairphone about it?
And the most important question, is this issue fixed on FP4?
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Please do some reading and search in the forum.
Thanks for the very helpfull answer. Not.
I’ve contacted the FP support and got this response:
Thanks for your patience.
Unfortunately, there is nothing more we can help you within your situation.
The microphones on the Fairphones (that won’t change if switching to FP4) are made for calls.
They aren’t professional gear and are not guaranteed to work well at concerts, where many sounds are coming from all sides.
Thank you for your understanding,
Wishing you a beautiful day,
So for me the Fairphone chapter is closed until they develop a good micro.
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Hi and again, welcome to the forum.
This is a known issue as maybe you now have confirmed, the only option is to dumb down the mics, I’ll leave that idea to you.