How Can I fix echoing audio during meetings?

[mariacleh7]

Hello there,

I am working as managing directors in multinational organization and conduct many meeting online via zoom. But I am facing an Issue of Echoing sound during meetings and I hear my own voice after speaking. Can anyone guide me why it happened and also give me better solution to overcome this problem.

Thanks in advance.

Regards: Maria Cleh.

[Rupert]

Hi @mariacleh7 

Do you have more than one device connected to the meeting - like a laptop and desktop, or a laptop and mobile device? That might be one cause.

Or - one of your other participants may have open speakers, and an open (un-muted) microphone, and either their Echo Cancellation off, or their "Original Sound" ON. That would mean their microphone is picking up your voice and sending it back to you. But likely everyone else would hear an echo of themselves also. You could test for this by ensuring everyone else is muted, then see if you get the echo (with yourself un-muted).

Are other participants noticing an echo? How many participants do you have?

Or the other possibility is there is some sort of loop in your actual audio device locally. What are you using - built-in speakers/microphone, external headset, wireless anything?   

[Tkelsey52]

I use Zoom to broadcast our Sunday church services. I manage it remotely from my home. I have bought 2 sets of 2 lapel mount microphone for priests and lectors. In the past few weeks I have a horrible echo form the system in the church.  Any ideas on how to suppress the echo?

[SL5]

Same issue -- happening in one-on-one zoom meeting, where I hear my own voice echoing back, with about a one second delay. This happens with only this one person, who says this has not come up as an issue with any of her other one-on-one zooms. She also does not hear any echo (of herself or me). The echo also doesn't occur if I say one or two words, but does if it's a longer phrase / whole sentence. The only mitigant that seems to work -- but just a little (the issue is still there, it just isn't as bad) -- is lowering my computer speaker volume, and speaking softly. Issue occurs also when I use an external mic, and whether original sound is on or off. Tried having the other person go on mute, but the echo still occurred.

[WendyKP]

I'm having the same issue while teaching voice or piano lessons one-on-one.  My students don't hear an echo but sometimes I hear myself coming back through their devices. I am on a MacBook Air. Did anyone ever find a solution?

[Jennife]

Hi, your case sounds like there is a problem with the echo cancelation on the student's side.

We suggest the student not use a loud out speaker which means prevent the your audio from being played into his environment, so your audio will not be re-captured by student and pass to the meeting.

[KaneZhu]

Hi @WendyKP,

Since you are the only one hearing the echo in the lesson, it's most likely your student's microphone picking up your audio from their open speakers.

I assume you are using the "original sound for musicians" setting for music lessons, can you please make sure you both (especially your students) have the "Echo cancellation" checked?

Hope this helps.

[veruska38]

Hi, I have a similar problem. I take piano lessons online. I use headphones and a microphone connected to the keyboard. My piano teacher has to turn on Original sound for musicians everytime I need to hear his piano, otherwise I can not hear his piano, and while he has this feature on, I hear my voice and my piano with an echo. We need to constantly interrupt the lesson asking to turn on an off this sound for musician feature and it is annoying. We tried everything, all settings combination on Zoom and on our computer. I have connected my mic to the keyboard and I use headphones. I have connected the piano to an interface and to a desktop. Any advice?

[Gregory-Eaton]

I have the same issue when using headphones. Tested this with one other person attending via cellphone and their speaker and mic were both completely off and muted. When speaking, I hear my voice duplicated exactly as I hear it when speaking, with the duplicated voice echoing loud and clear  from anywhere from a half second to one second delay. I've tried all combinations of the included background noise and other audio settings as well as the beta settings made available for performers, musicians, etc. All my other audio devices are completely disconnected, so this is obviously a Zoom software issue. Any advice? 

[SL5]

In my case, it turned out that this was occurring only when the other person was doing a screen share. We tried just about everything (including various suggestions from online searches). Finally, it was solved by disabling sharing of audio -- there's a box on the lower left corner of the share screen page. (While I was trying to solve the issue, I was told from various tech types that your hearing the echo of yourself likely relates to the other person's system -- it is picking up your audio and not properly processing noise cancellation and so it sends your voice back to you. I'm guessing in my case, the share audio feature had some additional driver enabled that was not properly processing the voice and canceling it -- it was inappropriately processing it as audio coming from its side and transmitting it back to you. Perhaps test with the person using a different device, say a laptop instead of cellphone??)  I hope you get your situation fixed -- hearing the echo drove me crazy, and this problem did not want to be solved.