Database Users

Sound Distortion with recording software

Hi!
I got a Touch dual a few weeks back, and have been trying out different sound recording software. The sound seem to come out alright when the source is at very low levels, but the moment you speak a little too loud - or record a guitar for instances, the sound peaks, and then distorts making it unlistenable. Does anyone know if there excists a patch of some sorts that let's you control the input volume so you avoid this kind of horrible distortion?
This is pretty important to me as im a musician and need to record small demo snippets. This problem seem to be in every recording software i've tried - even the built in one. The phone is brand new and i actually had it for a repair for another problem, and the problem residues.
By the way - this Wifi business, is it ever gonna work on the NIke? is it even physically possible?
Thanks alot,
Psych

im in the same boat, as a guitarist.
i asked this question long ago and never got a definitive answer so i came to the conclusion it wasnt possible with the hardware.
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Sound Recorder Bible
if you can find anything in there that is helpful please let me know.
wifi is possible. when? i dont know. how long is a piece of string?

Hardware fix for internal voice recording

Many guys are looking for a method of recording both sides of voice during a call. But it seems that HTC mobile phones including X1 Xperia don't support internal voice recording. Someone said that's hardware limitation. The only way to recording both sides voice is by turning on speaker.
I got an idea about fix this issue by adding simple circuit to X1 Xperia. Please see the attached file. It's a circuit diagram. As illustrated in the diagram, the signal of other side is introduced by a capacitance. Two voices, one from you, the other from the participant of your call, are mixed together and go to the ADC(analogue/digital converter).
Someone may be concerned about the self-excitation by the feedback. I think the phone works well even if you turn on the speaker, that would introduce the feedback. So the phone will work well if you introduce the signal via electronic form.
I haven't implemented this idea. Guys, please help to review this idea, and make the solution more applicable.
Thanks All!
(Diagram updated, potentiometer added.)

Lol
Maybe implement it and let us know I have a feeling that even with the decoupling capacitor it's still going to cause horrendous feedback. The speaker output will probably still excite the microphone and since the microphone is going to be d.c. shifted into the positive because of the lack of a negative supply. And that's without even knowing for certain the circuitry used here.

It's very interesting idea to make a fix for internal voice recording for X1. Usually speakerphone handsets are factory equipped with some circuitry which avoids unwanted feedback. I doubt that X1 doesn't have one.
You can always experiment with any cheap old phone to check if your idea has a chance to work. Maybe some potentiometer should be used to adjust depth of the feedback.

alias_neo said:
Maybe implement it and let us know I have a feeling that even with the decoupling capacitor it's still going to cause horrendous feedback. The speaker output will probably still excite the microphone and since the microphone is going to be d.c. shifted into the positive because of the lack of a negative supply. And that's without even knowing for certain the circuitry used here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't quite understand what you mean. The capacitor between the speakerphone and microphone isn't a decoupling capacitor. It's a coupling capacitor for audio signals. It let audio signals go through and blocks direct current.
And could you explain more about negative supply? As far as I know, symmetrical power supply isn't common in nowadays electric appliance with battery. It seems that self-excitation has nothing to do with negative supply.
Thanks neo and Macko for your reviewing. Experimenting on an old phone is really a good idea! But it is still difficult since we don't know the exact circuitry inside X1.
It's really necessary to have potentiometer to control the amount of signal to be introduced. Thanks Macko!

so phones which cost nearly as much as a laptop cant do smthg that cheap phones can do?
this is a very necessary feature and learning that its hardware limitation is quite disappointing.
what about presenting this idea to htc so they can learn smthg

Nocturnal310 said:
so phones which cost nearly as much as a laptop cant do smthg that cheap phones can do?
this is a very necessary feature and learning that its hardware limitation is quite disappointing.
what about presenting this idea to htc so they can learn smthg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
X1i is far more expensive than most laptops in discount stores and yes, seems that X1 can't do what SOME of cheaper phones do.
Dear HTC and SE: this is very very ugly dysfunction that XPERIA can't record calls properly! My wife's Nokia E51 does it perfectly. SHAME.
BUT caution please!
I've just done some research and found quite good working software solution of this issue. The problem is that signal from speaker isn't directly provided to DAC, so X1 just records what the mic "hears" from speaker, but if we use headphone or bluetooth headset, then recorded speech volume is far too low. But by applying some dynamics filtering on signal we can achieve desired gain of low volume part.
Here are instructions for volunteers:
- download and install some audio editor, for example CoolEdit
- download your recording from phone, open it in editor; low parts of wave are words of interlocutor
- apply a dynamic filtering as shown below:
- here are the results; as You see, low volume speech is gained by lots of dB, while your speech is almost untouched
My idea is to write some application working in background (as a service) which automatically applies such dynamic filtering DURING recording of a call. This is the best approach, but of course the same results can be reached by postprocessing.

Macko:
How is the voice quality after processing? I think it has some limitations.

sunshaking said:
Macko:
How is the voice quality after processing? I think it has some limitations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both sides are a bit distorted, which is unavoidable (dynamic processing distorts spectral envelope of signal) but acceptable. Of course all background sounds from opposite side are also gained, so do not talk to somebody who's mowing grass in the backyard

very interesting macko....if u can make such an app for X1..it ll be very useful and popular

Just downloading SDK and getting to work.

makro it is impractical to be forced to process all records. very bad for HTC

sunshaking said:
I don't quite understand what you mean. The capacitor between the speakerphone and microphone isn't a decoupling capacitor. It's a coupling capacitor for audio signals. It let audio signals go through and blocks direct current.
And could you explain more about negative supply? As far as I know, symmetrical power supply isn't common in nowadays electric appliance with battery. It seems that self-excitation has nothing to do with negative supply.
Thanks neo and Macko for your reviewing. Experimenting on an old phone is really a good idea! But it is still difficult since we don't know the exact circuitry inside X1.
It's really necessary to have potentiometer to control the amount of signal to be introduced. Thanks Macko!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly my point. Sorry I wasn't clear. As you say, no negative supply because we are running off of a battery. The signal itself is still an A.C. signal, so, in order to fit it within the confines of our supply it has to be DC shifted into the positive region yes? My point was that this DC level shift will be filtered by the capacitor for the reasons you gave, and so distorting the signal.

http://www.aray.cn/archives/3246
Studying how to disassemble X1.

I've disassambled my X1, but I can't find the microphone.

Here are two photos that might have micrtophone. I guess the microphone is attahed on the right side. But I really can't find it.

Haven't taken my X1 apart yet, but from the outside, the microphone is in the small hole/dent under the "OK" hardware button.

Anyone?
Has anyone found a solution to this hardware problem yet? I've been trying a hundred things with no success.

[Q] Increase volume, sound level on Wildfire (headphones)?

Hi,
I'm a 50+ old punk/new wave musician and rock fan. I don't have any greater hearing problems, but the sound level, playing media files from whatever source, with my (wired) headphones on my HTC Wildfire is TOO LOW. Especially when I'm in the underground/metro, or in other places with a quite normal to loud background noise.
I think there ought to be at way or possibility to increase the sound volume permanently, after my own standards and requests, without having to root the phone or buy software.
I found some hints in this thread, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=884188, but that is only supposed to work until you restart the phone, then you have to do it again. I haven't tried this on my Wildfire yet, since I'm not sure how well it turns out.
Any ideas, solutions or best shots, anybody?
Best wishes,
Goran, Stockholm (otherwise quite satisfied with my Wildfire)

Search for dsp manager. Not sure it works for stock/sense but we have it on cm7 and works a treat.
Hope this helps
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

Try getting some noise isolating earphones/headphones. A good quality pair will make so much more difference.

Thanks for the suggestion, f0xy, but it seems like I have too root the phone and I'm already messing enough with my computers, so I've at least had the intention not to mess with my Wildfire as well... ;-)

There is an app on the market called volume boost that is supposed to increase the volume level on wildfire headphones.
I think the volume on the phone itself is way too low. When playing videos etc i find i'm constantly putting my hand behind the phone speakers to deflect the sound to my ears. I think there is a health and safety regulation being enforced to deliberately lower the volume levels on phones. I read that somewhere concerning Sony Ericsson walkman phones. There was a way to extract the file from the phone, modify it on pc and restore the modded file. Not sure if the same sort of thing is possible on htc phones.

poweramp for example has an equalizer that allows you to boost treble, midd and bass, so making the sound louder overall... But there may be better solutions

This works for me: http://www.appbrain.com/app/volume-boost/com.kiboweb.android.desiresoundunlock

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Increase mic volume

Has anyone found a way (or an app) to increase the mic volume? When I am google video chat with someone they say they can hardly hear me.

Snap! I was just about to post the exact same question. I've hunted aroudn and found a fair few people asking the quetsion in various threads but can't seem to find an answer, I know it can be done as I've had it too loud on other phone and they've tweaked it and altered the volume so surely it's fairly easy tweak (if you know what to tweak) to do it the other way. Probably just altering a register somewhere.
We got my mother in law a transformer and she calls us on Google talk. She can't hear us very well and we can only just hear her too. I know the speakers are very quiet but Google talk is just silly, even at full volume it's still very quiet.

I would also be very interested in learning if there is a way to increase mic volume.

Thus far I'm not aware of a way, but I too have the same issue. Mic is ludicrously quiet, only picks me up reasonably well if I turn the tablet so the microphone points directly to me (and hence, I can't see the screen).
Short of Asus fixing it, or a third-party making a fix (which will likely need root access to apply), the only solution is to use an external microphone.

Similar experience with Gtalk.. however not much of a problem with Skype.. heard that the pinout is similar to iphone.. so any iphone compatible headset should do the trick.

when speaking to my mother in law my father in law iss often there as well so headset is not an option.
Yet another thing we need a fix for! This fix list is geting longer Poor sound at the best of time to having quiet poor sound makes it almost unuseable!

i have the same problem with Fring

lets hope one of the clever bods can fix it for us
I am rooted and this was one of the reasons I did it.
Rooting is very easy to do on here now with the pure root package and I can't really see any downside to it other than it doens't update OTA but thats hardly a killer.

The microphone is bad on the Acer A500 as well. Trying to use the google voice to text is rather frustrating because it affects the accuracy of the translation. I was hoping the asus would be better in this regard, but if it's not then there's no point in switching tabs. I guess I will just have to speak LOUDER!
Rob

nobody worked out a way of fiing bad mic volume then?

The sad thing about the mic's location on the TF is that it is facing the wrong direction to pick up any voice. I too, am having issues with the TF not picking up my voice very well. I was hoping that there is a fix by now, but guess not.

voodoo
For rooted users you can install the voodoo kernel which improves audio including micropone volumes. From what i read I am tempted to root my device just for this.
Search on the market for voodoo, (and then show me how you did it

iansykes said:
For rooted users you can install the voodoo kernel which improves audio including micropone volumes. From what i read I am tempted to root my device just for this.
Search on the market for voodoo, (and then show me how you did it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't aware voodoo had any effect on mic? Plus it has not effect on speaker volume, only volume / quality on headphone output (can connect external speakers to it via that) I may be wrong though. I already have voodoo but use volume+ to increase built in speaker volumes. Mic is still terribly quiet

[Q] Best ROM for Audio/Video/Mic Quality

Folks,
I am experiencing low mic volume output after installing cm-10.1-20130411-EXPERIMENTAL-p5110-M3 on a Samsung Galaxy Tab p5113. The application we are testing is video and in this case the mic volume is really low. This is a tablet to tablet skype like video session. Here the other end perceived very low Audio coming from the Tab with the CM-10.1-20130411-EXPERIMENTAL-p5110-M3. Stock ROM mic levels were fine. I read through a bunch of the forum and saw some folks noting this issue with other older CM builds.
I was able to install the Alpha Widget app and it has a mic gain control function. Does anyone know what this gain control actually manipulates within the Android OS/Kernel? It would be great to manually manipulate this mic gain at OS / CLI level.
Is there any file/value that I can modify at the OS level to manipulate the Volume output of the Mic?
Any other ROM's that you might recommend that handle mic volume/Audio/Video better than the ROM mentioned above?
Thanks in advance.
-red