Noisy Background

[Brenda0170]

I live in a condo that is undergoing major upgrades and it's very noisy.  By this I mean Jackhammer noisy all day long.  I am self-employed and a major part of my business is conducted over zoom.  Are there any suggestions to reduce the noise my callers/attendees hear?  Also, suggestions to make it easier for me to hear the calls?

[bstrelko]

Been there.

If you're unable to change your environment or take calls somewhere else, here are some recommendations to improve calls in a minor way.

Reduce noise from your connection:

• Always practice good VTC muting etiquette (everyone should always do this, always, but Zoom has engineered it's algorithms to allow more and more bad habits to become the norm).
  • Mute when not speaking! Think of the mute button like your mouth; when you're done speaking, you close your mouth - when you begin speaking, you open your mouth.
  • This ensures that no construction noise will ever leak into the call when you aren't speaking.
• In Settings->Audio, set 'Zoom Background Noise Removal' to 'High'. This will set Zoom's built-in noise reduction to a more aggressive level than where it's set by default.

Improve sound of remote participants in your space:

• Use headphones - preferably a pair that blocks noise acoustically/passively.
  • Note that headphones that are marketed as 'active-noise-cancelling' or 'ANC' are not going to be tremendously effective here. These are designed to detect static noise floors (humming, consistent sounds, engine noise, plane ambiance) and invert the phase of the waveform to 'cancel' the noise. They will not work for sporadic sounds like hammering, drills, etc.

Hope these suggestions are helpful!

[CarlaA]

Hi @Brenda0170 thank you for posting your question in the Zoom Community!

Did you find @bstrelko response helpful? If so, please don't forget to make it an accepted solution. Thank you!