Database Develop

[Q] ADC audio capture recording level and aliasing

Hi there
last week I got a new Samsung Galaxy S GT I-9000, and although I am generally happy with it, I am very disappointed with the ADC recording quality.
As others, I noticed it after asking a friend to film me playing at a gig, and the audio was completely unuseable.
After digging around and some experiments I found so far 2 serious issues:
1 - As others pointed out, the microphone input level seems to be unadjustable. I have digged around in the hidden menus, where I could find a way to adjust the input level for speech calls but not for audio recording.
(Audio -> Handset ->I2S1 Rx Gain, although I am not sure if the signal clips before or after that point when doing audio recording ).
2 - This is an issue I have not seen documented anywhere: no matter what application I use, I am not able to record at any higher sampling rate than 22.050kHz. This is with both handset and headset microphone. But what is probably worse, is that the signal is not (or not very well) low pass filtered (antialised) before being downsampled!! I tried recording a frequency sweep from 0 to 16kHz, and the first 8kHz (11025 Hz inn 22050 Hz sampling rate mode) were Ok, the next 8kHz (11025Hz) where aliased like hell. Try record a 10 khz and a 12 kHz tone at 11khz adc rate and you will get a 10khz back in both cases, almost at the same amplitude ! Not sure why I can't acces 48kHz, as I read somewhere that the audio chipset should support that.
Anyone know if there is a fix for either?

Just uploaded the recorded sample for reference.
This was a 100Hz to 16kHz frequency sweep of 30 seconds.
The test setting was far from ideal (just played it out on my PC) but it gives an indication. Note that aliasing is so bad that even harmonic distortion gets aliased, and it becomes really loud when all harmonics get imaged back to the same frequency by the aliasing process. If the situation is not fixed, there is no hope for high quality audio for the galaxy... Anyone knows if with 2.2 upgrade this will work?
Do HTC desire or wildfire have similar issues? I am seriously considering swapping before my 14 days trial runs out: no point in having HD video (main selling point of the phone) if the audio is close to unuseable (and I don't want to go to Apple just yet)

The voice quality on my Galaxy S is really bad. I've had several people say to me that on calls it's difficult to understand what I'm saying and that the sound is either muffled or distorted.
I tried some recordings with the voice recorder app and these two don't sound clear at all.
Could this be caused by the same thing you're mentioning, or do I have a problem with my phone?
How do other people find the call quality (that is, someone listening to you calling *from* your Galaxy.)?

Meza1 said:
The voice quality on my Galaxy S is really bad. I've had several people say to me that on calls it's difficult to understand what I'm saying and that the sound is either muffled or distorted.
I tried some recordings with the voice recorder app and these two don't sound clear at all.
Could this be caused by the same thing you're mentioning, or do I have a problem with my phone?
How do other people find the call quality (that is, someone listening to you calling *from* your Galaxy.)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is related to the same bugs mentioned as the subject of this thread.
BTW, it looks like HTC desire has the same issue wrt video recording, so it might be an Android issue rather than a Samsung one...
You can find some additional details in the modaco forum, on thread samsung-galaxy-s-i9000-mic-sensitivity-recording.
(can't add the link here)

ilcello said:
(...)
2 - This is an issue I have not seen documented anywhere: no matter what application I use, I am not able to record at any higher sampling rate than 22.050kHz. (...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After flashing the european firmware JM1 from Kies I am able to record at 44.1 kHz now!
Haven't checked aliasing yet.

I'm on JM2 and this is a topic that I would very much be interested in.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

There is another older post but still active here:
http://ip208-100-42-21.static.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=721069

Same problem gggrrr
I recorded a friend of mine singing last night and the audio on the video is terrible and i mean really terrible, the picture is fine but the audio, nope.
I have heard that there is a way to load in a new kernal to be able to change the sensitivity of the mic but i'm not sure if that is the way to go or not, i just want to be able to record video that sounds good, please help.

Flash a kernel with voodoo sound. Then the audio quality will be amazing
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Read this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=806195&page=103
I've used voodoo sound ever since I go this phone. You don't even have to flash a kernel anymore, supercurio's made it even easier, as long as you have root just go onto the market and buy Voodoo Control Plus and unlock the true audio capabilities of your Galaxy S
I started out with JPY and using Tape Machine I've been able to record just fine at 44100Hz. Same with JVB.

Thanks for that, i installed voodoo control plus, really easy to do, at a gig tonight so i will record and see what the sound is like on the video, thanks again

russellhearn69 said:
Thanks for that, i installed voodoo control plus, really easy to do, at a gig tonight so i will record and see what the sound is like on the video, thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank supercurio not me

[Q] galaxy s mic problem

hi:
besides the galaxy s I have a nokia 72e and I want to ask if anyone has a problem with microphone (with Galaxy s)? maybe is not something serious but when i`m talking from the e72 the people hear me more clearly than i talk from Galaxy s;they complain that my voice is muffed.
i don`t know what to do .... if i go to warranty and stand in lines and let the phone for almost a week in their custody,and find out after that the phone was alright...?!
i discovered the difference by chance,when I called the same person from both phones shortly.
if anyone knows this kind of problem please let me know......

First of all, this doesn't belong in development.
Secondly, yes there is a known issue with the mic on the SGS, or rather the mic drivers and settings. I don't think there is a community fix for this, and Samsung has not acknowledged it publicly, so I don't think it will be fixed any time soon.

jap, I just finished my mic mod there. I looked the youtube video
how to disassemble the phone and bettered the mic part.
The mic is situated 90 degree and little rubber channel is used
to direct the sound to mic. This tiny rubber channel was incorrectly
pressed in so half of the input was covered. So a I widened the channel input
and also drilled the hole in case little bigger (do not do that! it may ruin the
case chrome). Sounds little bit better.
Now, is this normal, to make a mod to better mic sound for a elite phone ?

yes, there absolutely a known issue. I purchased two of these phones, and both had the exact same thing you describe. It was absolutely horrible!! I received two replacements, and the sound quality is MUCH MUCH better... BUT, it is still no where near where i think it should be. all my previous HTC devices had far superior sound quality than the Samsung GS. The Galaxy picks up voices 100 feet away... and noises from other crap that none of my other phones ever did... I'm hoping that it is in fact a software thing, and once 2.2 is released, it has better canceling technology built in. Will see..

Construction of built-in microphone is not a problem... The problem lies in software. If you connect external mic (fe. headset) sound is still disorted. There's no way 2 microphones will be broken. This is the same headset which is shipped with Samsung Wave and that phone has no problems with build in and headsets microphone.

uberberben said:
Construction of built-in microphone is not a problem... The problem lies in software. If you connect external mic (fe. headset) sound is still disorted. There's no way 2 microphones will be broken. This is the same headset which is shipped with Samsung Wave and that phone has no problems with build in and headsets microphone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point !
But in my case there was 50% better quality with headset ..
Now that I have some of yours attention - why don't I see more post
of video jerkiness, stuttering problems ?
In my phone After every 1 sec. the video recording stutters slightly.
I saw this we saw this all ready in first galaxy test video.

My main problem with the mic is the distortion... It's so bad you can't even record a clip in the car with the radio on. It already gets distorted, something to be ashamed of samsung.
Nice to have HD recording, too bad the only thing worthwhile is the picture since the audio is utter crap.
(Yes, a bit frustrated )

Is it still this bad with the JPK Froyo firmware?

Moved thread to Q&A section

Never noticed this before. I hope this is software related. More and more bugs keep on appearing, almost wishing I picked another phone. The Galaxy S has downright amazing hardware, yet Samsung choose to let it down with all the bugs
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I've just bought the Galaxy S for my other half and have noticed exactly the same problem . Went back to the shop and tried the test phone they have in the shop. I only noticed a very marginal improvement (guy in the shop didn't notice any difference).
Anyway I would be interested to know if anyone has swapped the phone since noticing this problem and had an improvement - i.e. is it just a dodgy batch of microphones from Samsung?
Thanks all!

Is there still no fix for the microphon problem? 5 million items sold and each owner of it cannot take a proper video from a concert or on a fair or even on a birthday party, where there are louder surroundings. Annoying.
Please, devolopers, have an eye, ups, ear on that!

I've been complaining about this since July... no response
Sent from my GT-I9000M using Tapatalk

ranjib said:
Is there still no fix for the microphon problem? 5 million items sold and each owner of it cannot take a proper video from a concert or on a fair or even on a birthday party, where there are louder surroundings. Annoying.
Please, devolopers, have an eye, ups, ear on that!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most smartphone will get crappy sound when using built in microphone on High volume environements. Basically, it's hardware limitation with the built in microphone.
I've done some test (see in the accesorie sections for result with video) and you can use an external microphone with an adapter for theses type of recording.

So, the delivered headset does nothing better than the onboard mic.
It is definitely a matter of the hardware?
Asap I'll give an external mic a try....(using the Nokia-made TV-cable...)

Grashoper said:
yes, there absolutely a known issue. I purchased two of these phones, and both had the exact same thing you describe. It was absolutely horrible!! I received two replacements, and the sound quality is MUCH MUCH better... BUT, it is still no where near where i think it should be. all my previous HTC devices had far superior sound quality than the Samsung GS. The Galaxy picks up voices 100 feet away... and noises from other crap that none of my other phones ever did... I'm hoping that it is in fact a software thing, and once 2.2 is released, it has better canceling technology built in. Will see..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pls reply to other forum messages showing that u also have the same problem after replacing the phone (it only solve part of your problem), because I see your msg from another post that u were saying that u have no problem after replacing the phone. And that is not totally correct, u still encounter some problems

My problem is slightly different
Hi,
I got a sgs early 2011 and I quickly noticed that the voice recorder gives a very bad sound when listening back. I started to be afraid I would be as bad when calling someone. The problem I have is a horribly distorted sound with a terrible noise in the background. The recorded sound is simply useless.
later I was very happy when I did the call test as the use of the embedded microphone to call is alright. I even rang a friend beside asking what he thought about the sound qualify and he said it was ok. Then we swapped phones and I too thought the sound was fine.
But we tested again a recorded sound & video with my friend and it was awful.
After finding this thread I decided to try again and to compare with the head set microphone. For me it makes a huge difference ! The noise disappears and the distortion too.
first I thought the problem came from the compression rather than the microphone and now I don't know what to think...
My phone is on Froyo 2.2.1 (thanks to this website).

My problem is slightly different
Hi,
I got a sgs early 2011 and I quickly noticed that the voice recorder gives a very bad sound when listening back. I started to be afraid I would be as bad when calling someone. The problem I have is a horribly distorted sound with a terrible noise in the background. The recorded sound is simply useless.
later I was very happy when I did the call test as the use of the embedded microphone to call is alright. I even rang a friend beside asking what he thought about the sound qualify and he said it was ok. Then we swapped phones and I too thought the sound was fine.
But we tested again a recorded sound & video with my friend and it was awful.
After finding this thread I decided to try again and to compare with the head set microphone. For me it makes a huge difference ! The noise disappears and the distortion too.
first I thought the problem came from the compression rather than the microphone and now I don't know what to think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLZbz6KXLso
I have the same issue.
Check the comments, there is a guy who says how to fix it, but he is not very precise, so i asked for more info.
We'll see
Πάνος

Try out Speedmod by Hardcore in the dev section. Includes fixes for the mic and headphone output.
No need for Audio boost or any hacks. Sound is the way it should be now
A lot less background noise on mic now and no more EU regulations degrading the audio quality anymore.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

[Q] audio distortion when video recording

i was at a concert.....was recording one of the songs.....however on playback, it had an awful audio quality....too much of distortion like the speakers blew up or something......my friend had an iphone 4 and another had the n8.....for them audio was perfect.......i only encountered this problem at concerts......my other normal videos are fine
i am very pissed at this!!!
is this a hardware problem or software????

Yes, it's a known issue and it doesn't look like Samsung is going to do anything about it... You can try going to a service department and go for a repair but if it's the mic itself another one isn't going to fix it.
It seems that some other apps (can't remember the name now) are able to record more properly so hoping for a software fix in the future (and more in the way of CyanogenMod then a fix by samsung).

Bump - remains a problem. I have all latest froyo/updates, Galaxy S.
Have recorded video alongside a friend with iPhone. His phone = great audio, mine = solid hash of distortion, unrecognizable original sound.
Has ANYTHING been done about this????
Call quality is ok - definitely not the same problem.
To be clear - I am not looking for an audio-only recording solution, but one that fixes the quality of audio in video recording.

Hi,
i found something by installing voodoo sound kernel and the voodoo control app.
You can change microphone recording settings to "Loud enviroment -with DRC"
MfG

Camera app doesn't record audio - no sound!

I'm having an issue with my Nexus One, it doesn't seem to record audio when recording video through the Camera app, all I can hear is a little mechanical noise. The weird thing is, the camera records audio fine when I install another camera app such as UCam Ultra Camera... meaning it must be a software problem right? However, this problem started last week on my N1 with stock ROM (never rooted), and since I started having the problem I thought I would root and flash with CM7.2 but that didn't solve anything.
I hear the phone has 2 mics, one by the charging port and one on the back by the camera. The one on the back by the camera works fine when I use speaker phone or play music, and the one by the charging port works fine because I can make and hear calls. So the microphones seem to be fine to me, but the camera won't record audio!
Anyone have any ideas? Could UCam be using a different mic than the camera app leaving it still a hardware problem? I'm open to DIY, I would like to replace the mic on the back actually because I feel thats the problem, but I can't find one and don't know how to replace it, if anyone has any resources it would be appreciated.
I've searched around, there are many people with this problem, but no answers. Here are three threads that attempted to find solutions, I hope this will be more successful.
http://www.nexusoneforum.net/forum/nexus-one-audio-video/8707-no-sound-when-recording-video.html
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1068547
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/46683-no-audio-when-recording-video/

I have this problem too, but I have a Samsung Galaxy S3. I flashed a few roms, and somewhere along the line, my camera app has no audio and all I hear is some constant white noise in the background. Exactly as you describe. Other apps' audio and mics work fine. I can't find a solution.

Same issue here with the edition of the mic not working when in speaker phone mode.
I was rooted 4.1.2 tried unrooting relocking and flashing stock but no joy. I think this is a hardware issue

[Q] Bad sound quality (calls and music) with external speakers. You too?

Hello,
I am noticing problems in the sound of my Z1, mostly only with its external speaker (I mean, not when using headphones). So I am pretty sure it is not a software problems, or it should be through the headphones too.
I have played some songs to test it well, disabling all the clear audio, normalizations, jingles and bells. Also the eq disabled, xLoud disabled. All the sliders of the eq at min (-10). Then I have put the first slider (400hz) at 0, and moved it between 0 and +10, adding later also the 1khz one.
This way I was able to track the problem. Can you please confirm if you too, with some different songs, can hear from the speaker a somehow distorted cracking sound? You can play also with the volume, normalization and xLoud to make it more evident to your ears.
I also have noticed this problem using some free apps to make music. So I would like to invite you to try it too, with any app you may have to make music, or try the one I used, which is SphereTones. With this app I can clearly notice that the sound is perfect through the headphones, bad through the speaker.
Then I tried an app called Springs (if you search for it you find many and I cannot post link because this is my first post, so, well, it is an app whose name is simply "Springs", with a white icon with black spheres. Developer bérenger recoules, category "music & audio"). With this app the sound is very bad also through the headphones. The developer has got no idea why and the reviews are good so I am curious to discover with you if the problem is in every Z1.
I also have noticed that the quality of all possible audio recordings (audio notes with any note app, also the mini app of the Z1, and also the apps to make loops with your voice) is very bad.
And finally, the phone calls quality is not so good. In this case there is no difference between headphones of speaker, so I have no idea why.
I discovered that in the call settings there is an eq and setting it to smooth is a good idea, also by disabling the speaker voice enhancement the problem is reduced, but not completely. Basically, the sound is somehow buzzing/crackling/scratching.
So.
Do I have a faulty phone?
THANKS

Well mate you skip important part.
If you suspect it's software fault - could you tell us which firmware are you using?
Are you on 4.3 or 4.2.2?
I don't have that problems, I found XZ1 very good, clear and loud (I'm not even using my bluetooth handsfree anymore - in the car - I just flip to speaker and I hear other side loud and clear).
Also, even I'm not that much into music - I'm very satisfied with sound (YouTube or walkman)...
Sent from my Z1

Mine sounds fine too, back on 4.2 and still in 4.3
Sent from my C6906 using Tapatalk

Ah, right, sorry
So, 4.2.2, because the 4.3 is not yet available in Germany.
All the apps and system, all is updated to last version.
I did a factory reset and also a software repair with the pc companion, but nothing changes (apart the lost of time and some problems while recovering the backup, damn it..).
Ok, faulty phone then?
Did you try with this spheretones app? I am curios because with that app (which well, the only problem is that sometimes it is kind of difficult to create the sphere) the distortion is very clear, while with music it depends on the music, some make it more obvious...