Thank you for taking your time on this issue.
I love FMOD so much that I want to use FMOD for everything, so your efforts to make the API better like this make me happy 
Other than the noise issue, I noticed the AAudio mode (within FMOD) on my Samsung device (with Wi-Fi off) definitely worked better.
Especially when screen recording, I had to choose AAudio over OpenSL ES for much smoother results.
Thanks again, and have a wonrderful week.