Sound up & down when recording video

Hey everybody, I’m not sure of what the actual material is that you are recording but I’m wondering if you are recording music?

Are you shooting video of live music?

If you’re hearing audio discrepancies in this situation, it might be related to the automatic compressor/expander function that is built into the audio system of the video camera. This is actually A FEATURE designed to help avoid distortion in your audio. But as well intentioned as it is, certain signals are not treated so well, bass heavy music in particular. You can’t turn this off BTW.

If you’re shooting a music act that is playing soft music, the audio on your iPhone camera will sound natural. But if this music is punctuated by loud LOW FREQUENCY energy, aka BASS & DRUMS, the phone’s compressor will kick in to prevent distortion of low frequency energy and all the upper frequencies above 200-300 Hz will suddenly sound SQUASHED. And yes, this can be maddening.

Professional video cameras don’t have compressor/expanders built into their audio recording systems, or at the very least it can be switched off and on at will. The pro camera would then basically have a “volume” control to set the camera input sensitivity to record a signal that is way too loud. If there are soft moments in the video sound, you would fix it in video editing software during the “post production” phase of your project by raising up those portions manually when editing.

But the iPhone video camera is not a professional video camera, it uses this audio compression/expansion system to try it’s best to be all things to all people in almost all situations with minimal thought involved. Most other video apps are the same, you can’t turn off the automatic compression/expansion system.

Making this feature switchable would be a problem for most people. They would forget wether it’s off or on and wonder why their sound is ruined when recording something with varying loudness.

The only solution (and you’re not gonna like this) is to have a separate audio recorder with a recording resolution of 16bit @ 48kHz with it’s input adjusted for the varying sound, then sync the sound to the video sound in “post production” afterwards within video editing software.

What normal everyday person has time to get involved in this process? Only experienced professionals and hobbyists. That’s why the audio compressor/expander function always stays on, in your iPhone video camera app.

I’m trying to figure out a way to UNDO the effects of the audio compression/expansion in video that I record at music events. That’s how I found your post. I’m looking for answers. But this is very difficult and time consuming to do. Professional multi frequency EQ compressor expander software might be the fix… The results may improve the sound, but nothing is better than just having an adjustable input for the microphone sensitivity and setting it to low, with no automatic compression/expansion, then fixing the volume in post production afterwards.

FYI, this problem is sometimes also known as “companding,” a mashup of the words compression & expansion.

You can hear the problem in this video that I shot, There are moments where the drum and bass kick out. Suddenly the music level opens up and sounds fuller and richer, then when the bass and drums return, it gets a bit squashed down. The sound was mostly very good at this show and wasn’t too bass heavy in the mix. This is why the video sounds mostly pretty good. But it is still slightly squashed, and you can’t really tell till the bass and drums come in and out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8PMp1OW...

Sorry, I know this is really no help. But it just might be the proper explanation.

If you have a spare old iPhone, you can convert it into a professional audio recorder using the SHURE MOTIV microphone in addition to the iPhone that you are shooting video with. This has the features I discussed above. Compression & Expansion that can be switched OFF or ON. It employs a mic that can be plugged into the lightening port of the phone. You only have the control options of changing compression & expansion when you have the mic plugged in. It’s app is separate from the Video App. I’ve never tried running the camera and the Shure mic App on the same phone, imaging it would be too taxing on it’s CPU. Maybe that is worth a try, but it will still result in two separate files that will need to be synced in post using edit software. I’m not sure how well a really long file will sync, but starting with a 48kHz resolution preferably 16bit is important to the process.

http://www.shure.com/americas/motiv/over...

Best of luck.

The reason this happens is related to the iPhone software (firmware), not the internal microphone hardware.

The iPhone is getting confused as to the location (direction) of the sound source, which is why it is constantly switching microphones during recording. The software tries to determine the location of the sound source and thus switch to the most appropriate microphone.

If if you are using a stand (tripod, case, etc) that covers one of the microphones (usually the rear), then this could be causing a problem. The sound vibrations off the stand/tripod are causing the iPhone to think the sound is coming from a different direction, hence the switching of mics during recording. This is especially true when using the selfie camera during recording, with something covering and vibrating against the rear mic.

The best, and possibly only, practical solution is to plug in an external microphone into the lightning (charging) port of your iPhone. You can use a camera adapter (or other AV adapter) so that you can plug in a USB microphone and charge your phone via a lightning cable at the same time.

After having the same problem and reading around the issue on the net, I’ve realised that this is what I have to when making tutorial videos.

Hope this helps.

Tony UrbanSmash

Shutting off record stereo sound in preferences for camera fixed the issue for me. I think it is a software glitch-hopefully one apple will solve, since so many are having the problem.

Having the same issue I’m afraid. When recording on the selfie camera the sound dips in and out. very quiet in parts, and always quiet for the first few seconds of any video.

Very frustrating and not sure how to overcome the issue.

Some people recommend going to settings - camera — turning off ‘record stereo sound’ however this is not an option on I phone 7 plus.

Any more help would be appreciated!

To solve the problem of your volume going “up and down” or going “in and out” during playback of a video on the iphone:

Go to Settings > Camera > Toggle off “Record Stereo Sound.”

I posted this resolution months ago in the comment section of one of the answers provided above and it seemed to work for many people having the same problem.

hopefully this will help you out too!

This problem only happens when I record video. Not voice memos and it only recently started happening, maybe 6-7 months ago. That is a LOT of audio editing post filming. It is clearly switching mics as the sound is loud then soft then loud with zero consistancy. I have tried covering the mic(s) and it still doesn’t work properly. At $1000 a phone, I am not willing to run out and purchase a new one when it seems it was an update that caused this to start occurring. It seems the giant has found another way to force users to buy new products. Also, I am a lefty. Read some stuff on that but I don’t think that has anything to do with it. ??

I solved my phone issue, had this exact same problem. Testing all the mics, my lower mic was fuzzy, my selfie mic volume level would go up and down, and my front camera mic would work perfectly. I changed the bottom mic first because I was having issues talking on the phone with people. But it didn’t change. Then John my phone doctor changed the netting on the top selfie mic (did not change the mic), problem solved!

My phone is having the SAME issue! Trying to film reviews of products and it keeps doing this but no issue on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, voice memos, etc! I’m going to try the above solution to try and save my already filmed video but am going into the Apple Store on Sunday so hopefully they can tell me how to fix it. Soo annoying!!

Hi

This problem generated for silent mode. If you actiavte silent mode the recorder videos are normal sound. If you desactivate silent mode the videos audio is down in intial 10 seconds then sound is normal.

The test is was done in stereo mode

Trash and disappointed with iphone

No! Turn of the record stereo sound then you will have mono recording. That is not the way to solve the issue. iPhone has added the record in stereo since iPhone X , it’s a great feature in addition to mono.

I have the same problem. No problem in voice memo but In video the sound comes and goes

Same issue. Only happens when recording video. iPhone 8+

My phone is having same problem sound not hear me some time up and 0% down and ceeeee sound in video recording time

I have restore to factory settings, restored my iphone from backup, reset all settings, cleaned all microphones, spoken to Applecare (who know less than this forum on the issue), waited for hours at a Genius bar, and they kept telling me to do all the things I’ve already done again. Nothing has fixed it. The mic only fails for the first ten seconds of Camera app. All other apps work fine.

I’ve got the same issue in an iPhone 7 Plus. Is this an issue on all iPhone 7 Plus handsets???

if you place your iphone on desk, the issue cannot be solved.

you should hold your iphone with hand to record video and the issue will be solved.

I thought I was the only one with this problem. It started after updating to ios 13.5 on my iPhone 7 Plus. It’s really annoying that now I can’t record front camera videos coz the volume keeps changing. I even restored my device, the problem is still there and worse I lost 3D touch for good. I wish I hadn’t updated my device. Now clearly there’s nothing to be done to solve this.

I just changed my tempered glass and, apparently, my previous tempered glass came with an anti-dust mesh that covered the ear speaker, thus affecting the audio quality. After changing my tempered glass (since it got cracked after a drop) and removing the mesh, the audio works completely fine when I filmed on camera!! I could even hear music and voices from the ear speaker clearly now!! Turns out the main prob was just the anti-dust mesh which I wasn’t even aware of til I checked the box of my previous tempered glass.

I have the same issue, the answers in here havent fixed them. I need to record for work. My iphone is X Plus

Guys i had the same prob and here is the fix. Settings>Camera>Turn off record stereo sound. You are good to go.