Original sound for musicians not working on laptops and tablets - both Mac and Windows/android

Hello,

Most current operating systems have their own noise reduction that can interfere with music.

If Zoom is still muting your instruments, your IOS device  might be enforcing its own system-level noise cancellation. Zooms settings and the operating systems noise cancelling need to be set up to work together.

Use Voice Isolation, Wide Spectrum, or Automatic Mic Mode on your iPhone and iPad

1. While actively inside the Zoom meeting, swipe down from the top right corner of your screen to open the iOS Control Centre.
2. Tap the Mic Mode button (usually in the top right).
3. Make sure it is set to Standard (or Wide Spectrum if available). Do not select Voice Isolation, as this will forcefully block out your music.

Use Mic Modes on your Mac

Go to an app that supports Mic Modes, such as FaceTime or Zoom

.
Click Video in the menu bar, then click Mic Mode.

Do any of the following (options vary by app):

• To filter out background sounds, select Voice Isolation.
• To include the sounds around you, select Wide Spectrum.
• To revert to the standard mic mode, select Standard.

I’m not an android person, maybe someone else will chime in?

Regards

Thank you very much for this helpful information about the iOS Control Centre, I will ask my Mac-using students to try this.

I’ve received some information one of my students found about changes in the latest version of Zoom, I don;t whether this is relevant, and whether anyone has any comments on this: Zoom version 7.2.1 includes technical breaking changes to core audio interfaces and raw audio send buffer constraints in the SDK/app framework (such as removing deprecated pre-7.0.0 audio APIs and updating send buffer size limits), rather than a specific new feature designed to block instruments.

Hello Kevin,

Thank you for the detailed description, and sorry for the trouble this has caused your lessons. To help us investigate, could you please provide the following:

1.Meeting ID and meeting time (with time zone) of one or more sessions where the problem happened, so we can investigate the problem.

2.The Echo cancellation setting from before, when everything worked: In Settings > Audio > Microphone modes > Original sound for musicians, was Echo cancellation checked or unchecked in the earlier lessons? For reference, see the attached screenshots:

Screenshot 1: Original sound for musicians enabled, with Echo cancellation checked (on).

Screenshot 2: Original sound for musicians enabled, with Echo cancellation unchecked (off).

3.The Echo cancellation setting this time: What was it set to before the problematic meeting started? During the meeting, did the students see a pop-up notification saying Echo cancellation had been turned on because echo was detected?

4.If it was turned on automatically, the student can uncheck Echo cancellation manually during the meeting so the setting matches Screenshot 2. Please let us know if that brings the instrument sound back.

At this point, we can't yet confirm what is causing the issue. The information above will help us find out whether it is related to a feature introduced in Zoom version 7.2.0. When Original Sound for Musicians is enabled with Echo cancellation turned off, Zoom will automatically turn Echo cancellation back on if it actually detects echo in the meeting. A pop-up notification is shown when this happens. We added this protection because some users had turned the option off by mistake, which caused severe echo for everyone in the meeting. It is designed to protect the meeting's audio quality and keep the conversation free of echo. On laptops and tablets with built-in microphones and speakers, sound from the speakers can leak back into the microphone and trigger this detection. Once Echo cancellation is on, sustained instrument sounds may be suppressed sometimes or not , it is not sure.

We'd also recommend that students use headphones during lessons. This stops the speaker sound from reaching the microphone, so echo is far less likely to be detected.

Once we have the meeting details and the answers above, we'll review them and follow up with you. Thank you for your patience.

Best regards