Audio sound when recording a video.

FORGET IT. This does not solve it either. I’m utterly perplexed. I’ll be reaching out to Apple engineering to see what is up. I loath to load yet another beta on my phone but maybe 14.2 addresses it. Idk

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I believe I’ve discovered what the **** may have been causing this for so many users across so many iPhone versions and OS versions. Researching this has been affecting many users for YEARS!

So here it is. You need to clean the speaker/microphone grills on the iPhone.

Each model has the mics and speakers in slightly different locations. There are three on the iPhone 11 Pro Max for example.

One mic is next to the ear piece speaker above the screen, where the face unlock and selfie cameras are at.

Another is on the bottom (where the holes are next to the lighting port.

And the last is on the back where the camera array is. (Looks like a black dot / hole on the bottom right of the square.)

Here is exactly what I did to fix the audio gain using stereo.

I first used a “mild” soap to wash the exterior and rinsed it very well. I then blew into the holes and grills to get as much water out as possible. I then used a hair dryer very quickly and gently to dry out any remaining moisture.

DO NOT use the maximum setting on the hair dryer and do not cook your phone with it. You only need some heat to evaporate the water. If you wish to be ultra cautious just let it dry overnight.

Lastly, and this one is probably the singular more important thing I did:

I used an alcohol pad (the sort used to sanitize and area before getting an injection or drawing blood) and carefully cleaned the grill on the front (top) of the iPhone where the earpiece and face cameras are at. I rubbed back and forth a few times using my fingernail to push just enough of the alcohol pad in to clean the grill.

You will want to avoid getting alcohol on the screen as it can wear out the oleophobic coating and then fingerprints and other stuff will become far more challenging to clean.

once done I wiped the few drops of alcohol around the grill area and tested the camera.

and boom. It worked.

why is this happening you may ask?

As we use our phones we may sweat or get other natural oils and residue that deposit in these grills and holes. They obviously block proper sound conduction and as a result cause the mic to be totally off calibration. This is why the video starts quiet and gradually ramps up.

frankly, this should be part of the basic user maintenance manual for all iPhone models. Especially those with water protection because the grills on those are also coated with a thin veneer of plastic which makes them more sensitive to residue collection.

If this process is too intimidating for you to try and your phone is under warranty just take it in for service or replacement. They will be able to resolve it by replacing the speaker / mic arrays.

PS: I’ve been writing and recording music for 29 years. I’m embarrassed this wasn’t the first thing I thought of. LOL

@emmy2017

Actually this is an incorrect conclusion. The iPhone's native camera app uses automatically adjusting dynamic gain. And the way they have implemented it is at a very low baseline (likely a choice with a few technical justifications from an audio engineering perspective, I won't get into those now).

So when you start a video recording the audio is analyzed in realtime and as the camera app detects the peak gain or what ever the defined threshold is not being hit it slowly increases gain.

The result on a less technical level is a somewhat more refined "fade in" on the start of a video.

You could install and use a third party camera app like Filmic to record video and it does not have this algorithm so the audio recording sounds pretty much "normal" from beginning to finish.... but.... the occluded / obstructed grill is still there and still causing loss of fidelity and unnecessary compression of the acoustics due to the gain being set so high. (Sorry I know it's a bit technical but I am musician and can't help it.)

99% of people would never notice the difference in quality, but regardless the practical impact right now is that the iPhone cannot know it's microphone is occluded and so it starts with the usual minimal gain and uses it's algorithm to adapt, which takes ten seconds to get to peak with an occluded microphone.

The funny thing is, not only does cleaning the grill properly result in video with proper audio from the start, but the fidelity of that audio will be greatly enhanced, as will likely the speaker in the same location. You may hear a noticeably clearer quality of audio coming through on calls (especially VOIP like Facetime Audio, WhatsApp and so on) and when on speakerphone your listeners will be able to understand and hear you in more dynamic settings.

The activity of cleaning the grill should be included in the basic user guide for the iPhone and Apple needs to address it directly. God only knows how much money has been wasted on hardware replacements, not to mention each poor user's time and effort lost on a restore.

I have an iphone 11 and have always had the issue of the first 8 - 10 seconds of audio in my video recordings being low. If I turn off the "record in stereo" the problem goes away. But I want to record in stereo. The work around seems to be turning your phones ringer to "silent mode" Once in silent mode you can record in stereo with the volume of your vids high from the beginning. I gotta believe that Apple can fix this easily.

Ok. To everyone experiencing this issue. The likely solution is a full wipe and restore from iCloud or another backup (iTunes if you still use that).

I tested this on my own devices and it has thus far resolved it for stereo recordings. Mono recordings were not impacted by the issue.

This process should be done as a matter of routine when updating major revisions of the OS. And a settings wipe will not sufficiently cleanse rogue or legacy and conflicting settings. Only a full wipe will do it.

Just FYI I’ve been a registered Apple Developer since the program began for iOS and this process has been a necessary evil for nearly every OS release, especially when moving from beta to golden master.

Now that many of you participate in the public beta tests this should absolutely be something you do at the conclusion of a beta. And with major OS revisions like going from 13 to 14 beta 1 etc. you should do it right at the beginning before testing (I.e. a full wipe after installing a beta profile and downloading beta and updating the OS.)

Sadly it’s not ideal to have to do this but it’s been a fundamental necessity for beta testers from the beginning and now that updates are released so much more frequently is highly recommended for users who update through the regular release cycle.

NOTE: Remember to ensure you have a recent backup before doing this to ensure you do not lose any crucial data.

Ok apparently I Spoke too soon. I cleaned the earpiece grill more vigorously with alcohol this time and then dried it with the hair dryer.

alcohol evaporates quickly so this is just a quick pass with the hairdryer.

now it works as intended.

just an FYI. I swear a lot. And often have challenges with that grill getting clogged with debris or fluid which requires me to switch to the speakerphone when on calls.

again. This should be part of the user guide for the iPhone.

Hello Guys

I have had this issue since July.have iphone 11.did full restore, did everything what was written here but nothing helped. Even called apple and they did diagnosis.everything showed up fine.

Few days ago, I took the phone to authorized service provider. They were surprised to hear about this issue.

After few hours they called me and said that the speaker grills and microphones were cleaned and the issue has been resolved.since then everything has worked just fine.

Same problem iPhone 11Pro and my colleague iPhone XR. Work around Turn of Stereo in Camera settings and for me also helped to remove phone from the protection case. Same fix for 11Pro and XR. No case, No 10 seconds low sound level problem.

I got a new iPhone in exchange from apple store. It had iOS 13.6 and there was no sound related issue.

After installing iOS 14.4.1, front camera is not recording properly. Sound is low for a few seconds after that record very well.

When I recorded a video through Clips app then no such problem occurred. But don’t know that app records stereo or mono sounds.

It is definitely an issue with iOS 14.x.x.

I am testing it for rear camera and update you shortly.

Nacho, I researched the same question and apparently this issue has been going on since iPhone 6. Here is another posting of a similar issue: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/376543/Sound+up+&+down+when+recording+video

It seems that what worked the most was turning off stereo setting:

Heather said (07/08/2020): "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."

Another person said (05/07/2020": "Shutting off record stereo sound in preferences for camera fixed the issue for me. I think its is a software glitch-hopefully on e apple will solve, since so many are having the problem".

There is a lengthy discussion of the number of microphones that the iPhone has and how they can interfere with each other when recording, how a tripod could be covering one of the mikes, and how in some cases the glass anti scratch cover could also interfere with sound.

I had almost the same problem. When I played a recorded video from my iPhone X. The video was a bit muted at start and then the sound goes up and later down again especially when music was playing in bacground. I used sewing needle to clean the microphone (the camera one) and it worked.

i've been suffering with this for a long time now. The silent switch made no difrerence, it was always low for the first 10 seconds. i updated to 14.7 about a week ago and it fixed this now for a week. It records sound fine on both cameras and the volume is fine from the very start. I'vea been shooting a music video for 2 months now and it's been a pain in the a** the whole time. I've had to hit record, wait ten seconds for the volume to kick in before I could shoot the scene. I;ve had to slice off the first 10 seconds of every freakin clip or use Final Cut Pro's LOUDNESS feature and try to adjust the first 10 seconds of sound. When you shoot a music video it's helpful to hear their voice to matchit up with the voice on the recorded song.

I had this issue and initially believed it to be a software glitch. However it turns out it was due to stuff stuck in the front facing speaker. Although on initial inspection the speaker appeared to be clean and free of anything obstructing it, I used a piece of duck tape and cut it to size and stuck it onto the mesh and then peeled it off. This took off a layer of grease that was obviously causing the problem. All audio/microphone issues were fixed after doing this to my surprise.

I had the same problem

as well! try going to settings > camera > disable stereo record sound - it worked, the audio for the first few secs when recording a video is loud and clear now

Omg alcohol make it worked!!! Thank you so much!! I remember i spilled a coffee nad it got stucked probably in the holes!!! I rubbed ot with a clean cloth with alcohol and now it works!!!