Let participants *individually* adjust heard volume of Shared Computer Sound (or of others' voices)

[PeterDW]

Hi

*Background:*

I participate in Zoom Meetings where someone else - the host - teaches a movement class where they play background music (via Share Computer Sound) and at the same time they speak verbal instructions via their microphone (call it 'microphone audio'). I find it difficult/impossible/stressful to hear spoken words amidst some kinds of background music (auditory processing disorder). So, often I need to reduce the volume of the *Shared* audio (music) - but keep the 'microphone audio' louder - so that the 'microphone audio' (spoken words) is more clearly 'foreground' (much louder than background music), so that I can understand the words. But, I can't do this - on my side, I can only adjust total volume, of shared music and microphone audio combined. The person sharing computer sound could adjust volume of the audio they share, relative to their mic volume, by adjusting volume in the app they're sharing music from and/or their mic level - but that would *not* help because other people in the class have different needs than me (they often want the background music louder, whereas I want it quieter, relative to the microphone audio).

*Need:*

In a Meeting where someone else is Sharing Computer Sound, I need for each participant to be able to make their own individual adjustment to the *ratio* of the volume of Shared Computer Sound to the volume of sound from others' microphones. This would be a key accessibility feature to allow those of us with Auditory Processing Disorder to participate in meetings that use Shared Computer Sound (such as music) while also having someone speak at the same time - which is a large 'use case' (huge numbers of online classes - yoga and many other kinds of movement classes, etc.) So this is a key need for many people who teach such classes using Pro Zoom accounts - this feature is needed for them to make their classes accessible to people with Auditory Processing Disorder (as well as being needed by those of us who try to participate in such classes).

*Request:*

To meet the above need, I see two options:

A) Add an in-Meeting volume control (ideally under the audio menu that pops up by clicking at top of microphone button) for Shared Computer Audio Volume, which lets the participant adjust this *relative* to the volume coming from other participants' microphones - for themselves, not affecting anyone else in the Meeting. This could be a slider that -

 * defaults to 100% (= the relative volume of the Shared Computer Audio as set by the person sharing it, which is how it currently always is);

 * and ranges down to 0% (which would mean that participant wouldn't hear the Shared Computer Audio at all but would still hear microphone audio; or an intermediate level of e.g. 50% would make the Shared Computer Audio half as loud relative to microphone audio; again, this would only affect sound as heard by the participant making the adjustment);

 * and ranges up to say 200% (which would mean that participant would hear the Shared Computer Audio twice as loud, relative to microphone audio) - I would never use this >100% option but I know others who have the opposite needs from me would, the people who ask the teacher to 'turn up the music' because they can hear the teacher's words but not the music.

OR

B) Implement the granular audio control (in Meetings) that's in the Zoom web SDK (https://developers.zoom.us/docs/video-sdk/web/audio-advanced/) so that I can adjust the volume of the speaker's audio (as I hear it) while also adjusting my overall speaker volume; as long as adjusting the speaker's audio only changes the volume I hear from their mic (and not from Shared Computer Sound also coming from their computer) - and as long as I'm able to *increase* someone else's mic volume as I hear it (not just decrease it) - then this will achieve about the same thing as option A. It wouldn't be my preferred solution (because if multiple people talk while audio is shared, I'd need to adjust relative volume for each of them), but it would work! Note that this option is similar to this prior request - 

https://community.zoom.com/t5/Zoom-Meetings/How-can-I-boost-reduce-volume-for-specific-participants/...

*Bonus request:*

I'd also love it if an equivalent feature could appear in recordings - if the shared audio could be in a separate track from the microphone audios, and one could adjust the volume of the shared audio relative to the microphone audio during playback via the web player for cloud recordings. (I know one can record separate audio files for each person so I imagine one could import all those files into a video editing suite and independently adjust levels of each audio source, but that's not accessible to most people.)

Thanks, Peter