Free high quality audio recording on Android

published May 11, 2015 07:35   by admin ( last modified May 11, 2015 09:24 )

Conclusion

Hertz the WAV recorder, Record That Note and PCM Recorder had the best recording quality.

  • Hertz is open source and stays on my phone.
  • Record that note has a VU meter which is quite useful, and you can play and share sound files from the app so it might also stay on my phone.

The contestants

The 6 free apps below for Android claim to record high quality audio in uncompressed form such as WAV or PCM. Apps only briefly tested by me at this point in time, with an LG G2 with its factory headset, and me counting to twenty. Lots of white noise in all recordings and no possibility to adjust recording levels.

  • Hertz, the WAV recorder Hertz is open source software licenced under Apache 2.0. The source code is available, not that many downloads, sounds better than Urecord I think in a crude preliminary test
  • Urecord - Urecord is open-source via the GPL: https://bitbucket.org/thomasebell/urecord, not that many downloads, sounds a bit worse than the other ones I think (or imagine).
  • Sound Recorder + , not that many downloads, only one to go up to 48 KHz (the other ones go to 44.1 KHz) good sound quality, but it skipped samples at 48 KHz so that a whole number is missing in my recording test of counting to twenty. I have not tested with lower sampling frequencies, but I will not use this app.
  • Record That Note Can delete silence (not what I am looking for but can be good for those who want to cut out pauses automatically), not that many downloads, sounds on par with Hertz I think in a crude preliminary test
  • PCM Recorder, 8k downloads, sounds on par with Hertz I think in a crude preliminary test
  • Recordoid Dictaphone Lite Claims high audio quality, does not specify format, 1,6K downloads, wants rights to send SMS, there may be a point to the SMS permission, but I'm avoiding the app

The apps where found through this useful page: 10 Best Apps for Uncompressed Audio (android) | AppCrawlr

 

A better microphone is the obvious upgrade from here. I wonder if the noise comes from the phone or the mic+wire. Furthermore, if the noise is generated by atmospheric noise, would it be possible to mix in a real time noise source in anti phase? Would a low impedance output amplifier help between the mic and phone?