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I wrote an app that records audio. Everything works. However, I am going to be using this app to record class room notes. How can I boost the input of the microphone to better capture all the noise? I wouldn't mind using root if I must. But wasn't sure if there was an API to do this.

Thanks all for reading!

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If you are asking how to make the microphone more sensitive, I'm not sure. That would involve either operating the microphone at a higher voltage and/or hacking the drivers, neither of which are doable programatically, AFAIK. However, you could try amplifying the output by multiplying the output by some value (say 1.1 for 10% volume boost). Of course, the more you "amplify" the output, the more you will saturate the speaker (aka distort the audio). There are some signal processing techniques you can try to remove background noise and to isolate the paticular audio of interest, however, these things are merely processing improvements, not hardware upgrades. You can always try plugging in an external microphone into the headphone jack and using that to record the audio.

I know this isn't the answer you were hoping for, but I hope it helps.

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Thanks for the reply!! I noticed that some (Volume+ Sound Boost) uses root to boost the volume of the MIC in voice calls. I do not have any idea what they are doing to accomplish that. I was gonna boost the file as a last resort if i couldnt increase it programmatically. However, is there a way to boost the volume in the file programmatically if not, i can just use my laptop once i get home. Thanks again for the reply. –  Seth Apr 11 '13 at 20:29
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