Original Sound by Default

[PRM-KS]

Hello - just updated zoom today (11.02.22) and it seems like Original Sound needs to be turned on manually every time now.

For the last few months it was already always on once I did it initially ... and this was so amazing. No more messing up meetings where I share audio or workshops where we're working on music things and I just know its going to sound amazing from the beginning without the extra awkward "wait let me turn on original sound".

Is there a way for me to turn original sound on and let it be that way forever on the newest version? If not...can this become a thing please?

[Rayco]

Totally USELESS.  

 People don't want to give over control of their computers and music tutors dont have the time. 

We do a lot of Music Sessions online where the Participants may be retired, one lady was 90 years old.  She enjoyed the session but is not technical. 

A lot of musicians don't know how to install scripts etc, and if Windows do an upgrade your buggered. 

It was fine, working perfectly, in VERSION 5.11 

[Keyosuke]

How to I start a DM within this community page?  I tried clicking your name, viewing your profile, etc.  I would be happy to get on a call.

[puddleduck00]

So it's now 2024 and this still hasn't been fixed. It's an absolute nightmare for myself and students having to always remember to turn on original sound on when starting each meeting. Why would you need the option available to you if you didn't want it on by default? If I'm using the same input/output device as I did in the previous meeting, why would I want original sound to default to OFF? 

[MuffledPastor]

Look, all we want, and desperately NEED, is a checkbox on the Audio Settings page that says "Default to Original Sound ON." You can leave it unchecked and let us decide whether we want this or not, that's fine. But we need the ability to place a check in such a box so that we don't have to deal, over and over, with multiple Zoom operators, week after week, forgetting to turn on Original Sound until a parishioner, halfway through the service, says in the chat that they can't hear the congregational singing.

What is most frustrating is that we HAD this ability when we created our Zoom installation, and when we realized it was going away tried to retain it by disabling updates. But eventually, Zoom ignored that and updated anyway, and it became a whack-a-mole problem that we couldn't keep up with.

So, Zoom Developers, ye gods of interactivity, how about it? Can you give a little love back to all the folks who truly love (and pay for) your service, use it every week religiously (so to speak), and desperately need this already-exists-but-just-needs-a-checkbox feature to get its well-deserved appearance on the audio settings page?

[puddleduck00]

The funny thing is that it used to default to on.  I use Zoom to give guitar lessons. If a student doesn't show up, I just record the lesson and send it to them. I use a Rode NT1000 for my dialogue and an SM57 on my guitar amp, which is all routed through an interface and the into Zoom.  The result is pretty awesome quality in terms of audio. If I forget to enable original sound, the guitar on the video is completely inaudible, which renders the entire recording useless. Imagine doing a half hour recording and having to do it all over again. I absolutely HATE Zoom for removing this option and I have no idea why they're not listening when so many people are annoyed.

[MuffledPastor]

Just noting that it happened AGAIN this week. The Zoom operator forgot to turn on original sound at the beginning of the service, and someone had to put this in the chat to trigger it: "Music not coming through." (I have a screenshot, but apparently not permission to post it here...)

I'm sorry to say it, but we've had to start investigating the audio capabilities of Zoom competitors.

[Keyosuke]

They provided a way to turn on Original Sound permanently.  They just made it difficult enough that it takes a competent IT person with knowledge of application packaging.

Are you on Windows or Mac?  I'll happily help you install it in such a way that O.S. is locked to On, all the time if you let me know how to connect with you.  Or, we can go back and forth and I'll tell you how right here.   My email address is moc . liamg@ekusoyek  but you need to reverse it, because I'm not putting an email address on a chat forum.  I'm joseph . kennedy . 137 on Facebook, but that's even more difficult to use for initial contact.  And I'm not aware that making contact outside this forum is against any rules, but if it is just let me know and I'll stop.


I'm not saying it's OK that they gave us two choices of "No" or "IT Expert", but that's where it stands and it is a concession.

[SimonDM]

I am presently trying to fix this problem in a church, where elderly members are simply leaving because of this. Zoom operators are getting the blame when it's not their fault.

So monitoring this far-too-old thread with interest...

[Rayco]

Thanks but already have mine set.  I continue to campaign for Zoom to listen to its customers and provide an EASY way for customers to switch OS on by Default.  If you are wasting time teaching your Students how to do this and continually repeating yourself you are wasting your time and theirs which they are paying you for.  Come on ZOOM just do the right thing. 

[Khirschmann]

And of course, still no response from Zoom in over 3 months.  I'm afraid they will never fix this issue.  It's clear they don't really care about our concerns.  And now they took the Meeting tab away from the app, and will probably gaslight us with that for the next two years too.

[YaBoiB]

Hello All, 

We are working on a statement. Please standby. 

[Rayco]

A 'statement' is long overdue, what we need is an easy and simple switch to put Original Sound on and keep it on. 

You are ignoring your paying customers. 

Plus your 'engineers' have failed miserably in implementing a fix to a problem that did not actually exist.  The OS switch worked perfectly in version 5.11 then was broken by YOUR own staff. 

[MGSR]

Thank you for following this thread.

We understand your frustrations and we’re sorry for the inconvenience. Zoom's audio team made a change to the Original Sound feature so that it automatically turns OFF between meetings. They did this to help avoid situations where users mistakenly turned it on when they shouldn’t have, which caused bad audio for everyone. For example, a music student might enable Original Sound for their music class, but then forget to turn it off for history class, leading to echo problems that disrupt the meeting. It’s tough when something that works for some people creates problems for others and it has been decided not to change the current settings.

To help with this, Zoom has released an app called Remote Settings Control. This allows the host, like a teacher, to manage settings—including Original Sound—for everyone in the meeting or webinar. This means a teacher can enable Original Sound for all their students at once or choose individual settings.

If you’d like to use this tool, you can find it in the Zoom App Marketplace. For more details, check out the support article.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, and we’re committed to supporting all the different ways people use Zoom!

[Khirschmann]

This is great for those who need to support others in controling the Original Sound setting.  But some of us just want to leave it on all the time because there are multiple users on the computer and we use original sound for every meeting.  There has to be some sort of compromise here where you can minimize the issue you describe but still provide us with the option.  We had mentioned burying the setting deep in the settings controls so only someone who actually wants to use the feature will find it.  In the previous UI, the default settings were set in-meeting and I can see how this could easily create problems.  But if there's a checkbox in the audio advanced settings, it would be much more difficult for someone to accidentally leave that feature on.

[Keyosuke]

Thanks for repeating this for the people who keep showing up at the end of the thread and raging against the final answer.

At the same time, please understand that a workaround was offered at some point that allowed people to download the IT Administrator version of Zoom and configure it via commandline switches or a .plist file to locked that Original Sound setting on, which gave us back what so many of us need who aren't in a history class.  We're doing online karaoke or many other uses.  The problem with this IT Admin workaround was that the users who are using it aren't IT Admins, so they often do not know how commandline parameters work, or even what a plist file is, so in the case of a LARGE karaoke group of probably 50 people, we rely on the few of us (like myself) who are IT professionals, to voluntarily and freely offer support to get this configured on each user's machine, but the default is for the IT Admin installer to DISABLE automatic updates, because just as Zoom goes with what's good for the history class demographic, they also go with what's assumed for the IT Administrator, which is that they will manage their own app updates via something like MECM, SCCM, etc.  And so then I was forced to do more research and found some commandline parameters to turn automatic updating back on for the IT Admin installer and that's what we are now doing.

BUT there are no clear and current instructions on how to do any of this, and how hard would it be for Zoom to write a little document and post it?  God Bless the person at Zoom who kept reading this thread and whoever at Zoom decided to even allow the IT Admin installer to bypass the constant resetting of the Original Sound Feature, but please consider that unlike your school customers who have a shared Zoom account, we karaoke folks all pay for our own accounts, and that doesn't come with the same kind of volume discount, so writing a document or providing a pre-configured alternate installer that defaults the same as the standard one except without the Original Sound Reset shouldn't be a very difficult or expensive thing for Zoom to do.  If some IT employee of another company can whip up such instructions and hand them out over Zoom to allow his friends to get Zoom to behave in a way that isn't screwing the the common use of those friends, why aren't you pulling me into a meeting and finding out how to add one tiny branch to your deployment process that solves this perpetual outcry by having separate links for "Zoom for school" and "Zoom for Musicians" or whatever you want to call it, in addition to "Zoom for IT Admins", and just have that third, new Zoom installer default to not resetting the setting.  

"We have decided and we aren't going to change our mind because other people like it this way" says, "Just stop paying for our application if you aren't the lion's share of the customers, which are schools, by the way", is going to cost you more than offering a third download or making it possible for teachers to force off original sound even if the clients remember it, but leaving that option in the client software.

And another thing: That feature to let teachers manage the setting does not solve this issue for anyone, because it's still based around the mentality that the teacher or corporate meeting host has the right or is even trusted by anyone to engage in changing settings, and those of us using this in a private setting don't want to trust our settings to a random karaoke host or music teacher, because we don't all have the same audio hardware are our settings aren't all "original sound on".  Plenty of us have use cases where Original Sound isn't a fit, and plenty of room hosts are IT Incompetents who cause more problems than they solve when given control of all users' settings, but it seems logical that your addon app would solve this problem because you're still imagining a bunch of teachers or other professionals who know what their clients need, which isn't the case for all the pandemic uses of Zoom that cropped up and are still going strong after the pandemic ended.  Karaokes, choruses, dinner parties, and so on and so forth.

Meet with me and I'll explain this better in person.  I represent a large group of people who individually pay for your product and have no sub-users,  no corporation, no school, and use this app as a passport to their social life.  This includes
• Differently able / handicapped people who cannot walk to go out to an in-person social life.
• People with social disabilities that make them feel vulnerable in person, so they watch movies together via Zoom. 
• People who engage in private broadcasts of club-like DJ entertainment via Original Sound, because they don't have the time to go to a club while they raise kids.
• Elderly people who find it difficult to drive to a physical engagement.

These folks aren't a school and deserve some support.  They paid for support when they paid the bill.  And they still do.

[Khirschmann]

Well stated.  And I would add that I believe this IT Admin workaround would have to be redone with each subsequent update which is not a tenable solution for anyone.   It also removes the option to turn OS off, if a user desires.  So it's not a perfect solution.  It's a workaround, and not a good one.

[Keyosuke]

No, once you install the IT Admin version with OS locked on and then ALSO enable auto updates via other commandline switches they haven't told us about in this thread, it just auto updates and you don't have to do this stuff again.  I've been on the same install for months and so have my friends.

You're right about not being able to turn OS off, which is why only some of use do this.  The others just live without OS being saved as ON, because they need the ability to vary their audio hardware and OS isn't always workable for their solution.  They did take away flexability with this route.

[Rayco]

It's time to swap over to Webex. 

Have been using it for a while now, does the job and they listen to customers. 

[Rayco]

What a stupid solution to a problem that did not exist before Zoom broke it.  It worked perfectly in version 5.11

Now you are asking us to ask every single Participant to trust us (the host) with control over their computer. 

Are you MAD ? 

[Rayco]

Because we certainly are. 

[operator]

Dear Mark,

Thank you for this update.  Many have been following this thread for the last 2 years.  In my case, we are a church.  The hosts of the Zoom call are volunteers with various levels of technical competence.  The attendees are not tech experts.  The request that we take over their computer is scary (to put it mildly) for some of those people.  The hosts are reluctant to deal with anything more than starting the call.  Some have noticed that the Original Music request has reappeared on the screen (now on the right although the documentation still says it's on the left).  We have requested the hosts be alert to turn it on. But they forget or do not notice.  

Earlier this year, there was a setting that worked for several months. I thought it was fixed.  Probably at the time you issued this, the Original Music prompt started to appear.  I was notified by attendees that music was no longer audible.  So I came back here to get an update.

Zoom and your message is giving its paying customers little choice but to find an alternative.  That will provide challenges of its own.  Patiently waiting for Zoom to restore a function that Zoom removed has not benefited this Zoom user and, from this message, I understand you to say, "that's how it will stay." 

This was not on the agenda for a meeting my church is having tonight but I am sure it will be discussed.  I will be recommending a change.  A vote will decide.  Webex provides a reduced cost version for non-profits via TechSoup.

[operator]

Dear Mark,

We have been using Zoom for church services since early 2020.  After the recent reappearance of "Original Music" switch on the right top of the screen, we discovered (by mistake) that things have deteriorated.

When OM is on, the music sounds great.  But any speaking is almost inaudible.  With OM off, music is eliminated but speaking voices are clear.  My volunteer operators cannot be expected to turn OM on and off multiple times during the service.  They are present to be part of the service, not to fight with vacillating technology.

We have signed up for WebEx so I will no longer be commenting on this.  

Thank you Brandon for advocating for this community with your fellow employees. 

[bdp]

We tried adding the "Remote Settings Control" app. During the trial, my husband was logging in with his iPhone. He received a notice from Zoom that the app doesn't apply to "mobile devices." Probably 75% of my remote piano students use 2 mobile devices to join lessons: mobile phones and a tablet (iPad or Fire Tablet).
Not a viable solution for most of my students. : (

[YaBoiB]

Hello @bdp, 

 Unfortunately, the remote control settings app only works on desktop clients at this time. 

https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0073891

Regards,