Sound over Zoom meeting

[jklotz]

I've been doing some gigs for a group that gets me to play a few tunes at their zoom meetings before they get started with their meeting, mostly as folks are joining. Warm up music I suppose?

Anyway, they recorded the last weeks meeting and I got to hear playback today. It sounded horrible! What can I do to get better sound for a zoom meeting? Everybody else is muted when I playing, or at least they are supposed to do that. Should I be going through an audio interface with some mics? Are there setting in the zoom app that can make it better? As it stands now, I'm just sitting in front of the computer with my acoustic. As silly as it sounds, I didn't give it a second thought until I heard the playback.

[kego]

Make sure your original sound is on. The mouse over window at the top left (at least on a PC) should read "Turn off Original Sound".

That should help. It's also possible that you were having bandwidth issues, not sure how to fix those!

I do several open mics from around the world every week and that's the best advice I have other than basic setup. I use a couple condenser mics (one vocal, one for guitar) into a Yamaha mixer and then to the computer. My mixer has a USB out, but I use the headphone out into the computers input jack. Had to get a $5.00 cable, but I'm told my sound is really good.

[MikeBmusic]

Well. yes, an audio interface and a decent mic or 2 will give you a better sound than the tiny mic built into a laptop.
If you sing and play, you should be able to position one LDC (large condensor mic) to pick up your voice and guitar in balance (you can record yourself in a zoom meeting to try out the sound), I know quite a few people who plug their guitars into the interface (or sometimes a USB mixer) and then use a regular dynamic mic like a Shure SM58 for vocals, just like a live set up.

Then once you've got the gear, go into your Zoom audio settings menu (not the Windows menu), you will need to a click the option to 'Enable Original Sound' - this will be either on the first page of the audio settings menu, or the 2nd.
Also, set the echo cancellation on 'auto' or 'low'. Then click out of the audio menu, and you should see an option up at the top that says 'Turn on Original Sound' - click it, and it will change to 'turn off original sound'. Stupid way to do it, they should say 'original sound off' and 'original sound on'.
It also helps if you turn off your speakers (or use earbuds/headphones) when playing which prevents any kind of 'feedback' loop happening of your input coming out the speakers and getting picked up by the mic with a slight delay.

[shufflebeat]

It's pretty straightforward to incorporate external soft/hardware into zoom. Even when things are quite complex there are other programmes like OBS and Voicemeeter which do a lot of the donkey work then pipe a simple stereo output for zoom to latch onto.

All depends on what you have available.

"Original Sound" is deffo #1 piece of advice as described above.

[Methos1979]

Taken directly from the AGF Open Mic FB page: (we used ZOOM for our open mics)

Audio setup:
It is helpful to test your system using the ZOOM app to make sure you can get good audio. The easiest way to do this is from within the ZOOM app, in the lower left corner you'll see a little mic or headphone icon for audio - click on the little up arrow then select Audio Settings. From this pop-up box select Advanced in the lower right corner. Over to the right there are three statements. The middle one says Suppress intermittent Background Noise - click on the box to the right of that and select Disable. Now close this box. In the upper left hand corner of the Audio Settings box it will either say Turn On Original Sound or Turn Off Original Sound. You want to use you Original Sound so click on the box until it says Turn Off Original Sound at which point you'll be using Original Sound (a little confusing). This will give you the best sound from either the internal mic or any external mic you've selected to use. Most internal mobile phone or iPad mics work very well. Laptops tend to sound just okay at best.

[jklotz]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

[ChuckS]

I play at the AGF Open Mic occasionally. The sound of players has improved over time as folks started understanding how to optimize Zoom for music (versus speaking).
The advice above was very good ("enable original sound" and minimize echo and noise cancellation). Also, I don't know if it's been said but you will need to disable Zoom's automatic level for the audio. Different versions of Zoom have different 'labels' for these features so look around under Zoom's audio settings (including the advanced settings).

I use a mic and an audio interface versus my laptop's built in microphone. I also use in ear monitors for listening.

When you use a mic you will have to adjust your preamp gain for a large enough signal yet not clip (use a bit of compression if your audio interface provides it). This may take some experimentation to set it up well (because you've disabled Zoom's audio auto level control as well as the auto level control that is provided by the OS for you computer microphone).

Also, sometimes playback of a Zoom recording is not as good as the sound during the meeting.

You could consider joining the AGF Open Mic and try out your new setup there.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by jklotz

I've been doing some gigs for a group that gets me to play a few tunes at their zoom meetings before they get started with their meeting, mostly as folks are joining. Warm up music I suppose?

Anyway, they recorded the last weeks meeting and I got to hear playback today. It sounded horrible! What can I do to get better sound for a zoom meeting? Everybody else is muted when I playing, or at least they are supposed to do that. Should I be going through an audio interface with some mics? Are there setting in the zoom app that can make it better? As it stands now, I'm just sitting in front of the computer with my acoustic. As silly as it sounds, I didn't give it a second thought until I heard the playback.

Agree with the others
#1sound from Zoom is marginal at best and will cut in and out depending on actual internet connection speed .
# 2 Yes in general better if you use audio interface and even a single mic',,,, or possibly USB mic (IF) your computer has a good sound card.

Definitely for Zoom audio settings as per ChuckS post, and also (maybe goes without saying ) when you first open zoom you want select "use computer audio " or something like that.

After that is more or less in the hands of your actual internet connection, which you have no control over .

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by ChuckS

You could consider joining the AGF Open Mic and try out your new setup there.

How does one do this ?

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by KevWind

# 2 Yes in general better if you use audio interface and even a single mic',,,, or possibly USB mic (IF) your computer has a good sound card.

This may be a small, pedantic point but it may be important for somebody.

An internal sound card takes an analogue signal and translates it to a digital signal for further processing.

An external audio interface takes the place of the internal card and presents the signal to the computer as digital, usually via USB

A USB mic does the conversion within the mic and sends a digital signal via USB so does away with any need for audio interface or sound card.


For audio recording on a mid-range PC the external audio interface is usually the best option as you can connect a variety of mics via XLR but analogue/digital (and vice versa) converters are pretty good and the technology is relatively mature so (rare) problems with particular units have been well publicised.

Audio latency has been a problem in the past but is now usually dealt with by monitoring the input from the interface pre-conversion and the playback (obviously) post.

[Mbroady]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Taken directly from the AGF Open Mic FB page: (we used ZOOM for our open mics)

Audio setup:
It is helpful to test your system using the ZOOM app to make sure you can get good audio. The easiest way to do this is from within the ZOOM app, in the lower left corner you'll see a little mic or headphone icon for audio - click on the little up arrow then select Audio Settings. From this pop-up box select Advanced in the lower right corner. Over to the right there are three statements. The middle one says Suppress intermittent Background Noise - click on the box to the right of that and select Disable. Now close this box. In the upper left hand corner of the Audio Settings box it will either say Turn On Original Sound or Turn Off Original Sound. You want to use you Original Sound so click on the box until it says Turn Off Original Sound at which point you'll be using Original Sound (a little confusing). This will give you the best sound from either the internal mic or any external mic you've selected to use. Most internal mobile phone or iPad mics work very well. Laptops tend to sound just okay at best.

Originally Posted by KevWind

How does one do this ?

Been meaning to join the AGF open mic but have not seen the invitation in my Facebook feed lately. Is this still happening?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by shufflebeat

A USB mic does the conversion within the mic and sends a digital signal via USB so does away with any need for audio interface or sound card.

Good point I don't use a USB mic and did not think about it doing the conversion

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by KevWind

How does one do this ?

Originally Posted by Mbroady

Been meaning to join the AGF open mic but have not seen the invitation in my Facebook feed lately. Is this still happening?

I'll let the host of the AGF Open Mic know about this thread, and the requests on how to join it.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mbroady

Been meaning to join the AGF open mic but have not seen the invitation in my Facebook feed lately. Is this still happening?

Do not know if it still active
Actually I just looked up the AGF Open Mic on FB which is where you have to request to join the group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2545310019089736

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Do not know if it still active
Actually I just looked up the AGF Open Mic on FB which is where you have to request to join the group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2545310019089736

Hello folks. Yes, the AGF Open Mic group is still VERY active. We generally have open mics every other week on Sunday evenings, 5 PM EST. In the summer months we hold them a little later, usually around 7 PM EST. They typically run about two hours with each person performing up to 4 songs. To join, click on the link down in my sig to take you to the AGF Open Mic Facebook page or just click here: Join us on the AGF Open Mic Facebook Group Please don't forget to ANSWER THE QUESTIONS! People requesting to join that don't answer the questions are declined. This is for security purposes as it's a private group and only members can watch and/or participate.

I stopped posting the open mics on here because they need to be posted in the Events and Releases sub-forum where almost no one goes and we weren't getting anyone joining from there. If you have questions, reach out to me on PM. I'm also happy to do private one-on-one 'test runs' on ZOOM to help people dial in their tone. People who join the FB page can go back and listen to all the open mics that have already occurred. It's a great group of people and we've become friends. There are all levels of skill and all different types of setups that work very well once you make some minor adjustments in ZOOM.