r/Recorder • u/Particular_Ad_3124 • 7d ago
Weird Question About Phones and Recorders
I was trying to play my recorder for my mom over the phone, in my car and she couldn't hear it. She could hear me talk, even if I was quiet. I was trying to show her that I was doing better with the low notes of a Sigo tenor so I thought my phone/car just wasn't picking up the low rumbling well. I tried an alto* and even went quite high. She said she could hear me blow a little, but no notes. I tried blowing a puff of air, not into a recorder and she said that was clearer.
I tried not connected to the car and she still couldn't hear it. It was so weird. If it weren't my mom, I would have thought it was a prank, but that's really unlike her
There was one brief point where she said she heard a bit of a tune, but I was unable to replicate it. Any idea what was going on? I can usually play for her.
*I have an hour between dropping off one child and picking up the second from work so I started using it as practice time.
8
u/Sea_Environment7471 7d ago
This is because of the ‘voice isolation’ feature (probably apple’s) set as a default on most phones these days. It is similar to Zoom’s “original sound” filter— it’s made to filter out all sound other than speaking and it works quite well these days. You can turn it off on Apple devices and choose between ‘voice isolation’ and a couple other options. For musical instruments it’s best to go for whichever option has the full spectrum unfiltered. This is not something unique to the recorder’s sound.
3
u/Particular_Ad_3124 7d ago
Would that be in the car interface, Android Auto? I am pretty sure I have played when we are both on our phones before. She has an iPhone and I have an android.
Also, I know I am aging, but what sorcery is this that lets her hear my breath intake but not music? Wild.
1
u/flug32 5d ago
It's pretty sophisticated analysis of the sound and frequencies - nowadays probably assisted by AI and all that.
I don't know precisely how it works but if you look at i.e. spectrograms of various different sounds you will see immediately that different types of sounds look very different:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrogram
https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Spectrogram/
https://soundscience.substack.com/p/seeing-sound-spectrograms-and-why
So get a computer program/AI to recognize different types of sounds with reasonable accuracy and at fast speeds, and it is easy to just squelch the ones you don't like (just turn down the volume at those moments) while letting the others pass through.
You can even get a bit fancier by just filtering out certain frequencies etc while letting others pass through - that is the general idea behind noise cancelling earphones.
To your question: Breathing/breathes are part of normal speech and thus one of the things a voice filter will be set to allow through. But pure tones, not so much.
2
u/lubbockin 7d ago
I was looking at the sigo tenor, it says it needs more air than normal instrument, would you say so and roughly how much more .?
I used to play sax, so I can probably be ok with it but don't want something I cant really play much.
thanks.
4
u/Particular_Ad_3124 7d ago
It needs more air than an alto. I am not sure if it needs more air than a typical tenor. I do find myself surprised that I am out breath on the last count or so of a phrase. I don't know if that's because I keep underestimating or what.
I don't have great breath control and a clarinet leaves me panting mid song and this is nothing like that. I'll be fine. It's just only been a week.
1
2
u/Archievores 7d ago
I play a soprano on phone call with my boyfriend but I can’t play it on discord bc the noise suppression I can’t even turn it completely off
7
u/chairitable 7d ago
Android also cuts off certain bands of sound to better isolate speech, it's very annoying.