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Audio cutting out for musical instruments

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 18, 2023
12 replies
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I run a music school in Lagos, Nigeria and we teach clients across the world on zoom. Since the most recent zoom upgrade, we have been experiencing a serious degredation of audio with regards to instruments that is threatening the viability of our online lessons.

We can hear the speech of our students very clearly but the minute they start to play on their instrument, there is no sound at all. It's like the sound settings are optimised for speech and not for instruments. We have tried adjusting the settings on both our end and the students end so we are not compressing background noise and original sound for musicians is on, to no avail. In fact, switching on original sound appears to make things worse.

Weirdly, this issue only seems to afflict laptops but not mobile devices.

In my most recent class last night, In my most recent class last night, BOTH my student and I had to connect our mobile phones to the call AS WELL as our laptops and use the mobile for audio. Without that, she could not hear my piano, and I could no hear hers.

Anyone else experiencing this issue and how are you dealing with it?

Audio

Best answer by Martin09

This very same issue frustrated me for weeks, and I have been

searching the internet far and wide for the cure - finally, on a Facebook group "Zoom for Musicians" we had some people saying that the problem is not so much with Zoom, as it is with the internal audio settings for the computer, as accessed in Windows Control Panel (sorry, I don't have info for Mac's); See the attached screenshot; In the Sound settings, Microphone Properties there is a setting for "Signal Enhancements" that you can enable or disable; Mine was enabled, so I unchecked the box so that no internal processing of the incoming mic sound was being applied before going into the Zoom application; And Voila! It worked! I believe this is the key to fixing this and why it is so frustrating, because we are all looking at the Zoom audio settings and not the computer audio settings; I hope this helps

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Brian10

Newcomer

I have just bought a new HP computer with Windows 11, and I take piano lessons using Zoom. My piano teacher can hear my voice clearly, but cannot hear my piano. I've done several Zoom Tests toggling several different features, and nothing works. I've already lost 2 lessons because of this. I see from the community that this is a very common experience, and Zoom has NOT provided any solutions that work. My piano teacher lives 700 km from my home. This means I will need to stop lessons if a solution can't be found. Can anyone shed light on the solution to this problem?

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kunbiosinoikiAuthor

Newcomer

Hi there,

A violin teacher suggested this solution on a similar thread . I haven't been able to test it yet, and I think we need to get our students to change their settings also. Fingers crossed!

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Brian10

Newcomer

Greetings Kunbio,

Thanks for your suggestion. I've done what you have suggested and have not had any success. When doing the sound test on the microphones, my speaking voice comes through, but when I play the piano, still nothing at all comes through. At this point, I have no other remedy or solution other than to try Skype or WhatsApp. Too bad, as Zoom has been good so far. I can't understand why the Zoom development team has not provided a solution that works, as dozens, if not hundreds of Zoom musicians are experiencing this problem. If someone at Zoom head office is reading this, please respond.

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revh

Newcomer

I have had this happen, even with noise suppression off, there is NO MUSIC. I can hear the taps against the instrument, but zero sound of the actual music! WHY is this off?

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bdp

Newcomer

This worked for me and students on laptops during piano lessons: On a computer /PC screen, At top left section of your Zoom screen, next to the green security shield, you should see "Original Sound for Musicians: Off." Click on the box with those words. You should then get a Pop-Up window that says: "Original sound for musicians is On. Noise suppression is disabled." Notice that the box at top left will now read, "Original Sound for Musicians: On." Every time you launch a Zoom meeting, you will need to click that box to turn on Original Sound. (At least, I have not found a way to keep it on as a default.)

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mstbops

Newcomer

" Original Sound ON" does not solve my problem. It's something to do with the latest version of Zoom.

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VPianoStudio

Newcomer

Based on their most recent update (see latest article related to original sound), it looks like users will need a paid account to access the original sound feature. It's not extremely clear and there are thousands of music teachers/students who are frantically searching for other options/alternatives to Zoom this month.

If this is not the case, then Zoom Support needs to clarify the update.

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BenjaminPiano

Newcomer

what a disaster

we have same issue as well

what we have noticed is problem is iphones and ipads.

win 11 laptops with external cams work best

you can't blame windows, even when session is transferred from windows 11 to iPhone 11 that is using different internet provider connection with original audio and sound enabled same problem, certain notes filtered.

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u0093253

Newcomer

Benjamin,

and with all of this you have to be on the $200.00/month business plan in order to get any technical phone support. Zoom technical support is next to non-existant. What a joke!

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mstbops

Newcomer

I have a brand new laptop with the latest Zoom version and Windows 11. I can hear others' voices clearly but cannot hear once they play music. Zoom, please fix this. It's frustrating.

I'm an advanced computer user, so dont' tell me to set Original Sound to On. It already is. It's something to do with Zoom background noise cancellation. Zoom really messed up here.

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Martin09Answer

Newcomer

This very same issue frustrated me for weeks, and I have been

searching the internet far and wide for the cure - finally, on a Facebook group "Zoom for Musicians" we had some people saying that the problem is not so much with Zoom, as it is with the internal audio settings for the computer, as accessed in Windows Control Panel (sorry, I don't have info for Mac's); See the attached screenshot; In the Sound settings, Microphone Properties there is a setting for "Signal Enhancements" that you can enable or disable; Mine was enabled, so I unchecked the box so that no internal processing of the incoming mic sound was being applied before going into the Zoom application; And Voila! It worked! I believe this is the key to fixing this and why it is so frustrating, because we are all looking at the Zoom audio settings and not the computer audio settings; I hope this helps

S

Sat3

Newcomer

Thank you so much this is the only thing worked

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Martin09

Newcomer

I'm glad it worked, thank you for the reply

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bdp

Newcomer

Thanks for sharing this approach with a Windows device. Screenshot is helpful, too! I can try this on my end, as the teacher, as I use a Windows PC with a connected Plantronics headset as my mic. Only a few of my students use a Windows laptop with mic, though. Most are using iPhone , iPad , Android cellphone, or fire tablet as their mic +camera. May suggest that iPhone folks try an earlier suggestion above @BenjaminPiano that references iPhone settings. The best workaround I’ve found for consistent quality piano sound on Zoom is using Internet MIDI software (Time Warp Technologies), although both student and teacher must have a digital keyboard with MIDI and a PC or Mac for it to work.

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TontoC

Newcomer

This is ridiculous. I'm testing an entirely different platform this weekend. It's so frustrating and I do not want to lose students over poor sound quality. It's disappointing to see that Zoom hasn't responded yet to the issues we're having.