Shared Audio too loud, cannot hear me talking on MIC

[Ayazag]

Hey hey!  

I'm a dance fitness instructor, using ZOOM to teach virtually during my in-person classes.

I start my meeting, share my computer audio (Spotify) (which is also connected via bluetooth to an external speaker).  I mute everyone in the zoom meeting, including myself, and teach my class.

Everything is perfect so far!

At the end of class, I do a stretch/cooldown portion, where I need my zoom participants to hear me.  I have an external mic headset, that is connected to my laptop, I unmute myself in Zoom, and I turn down the music on my laptop (which is still connected to my external speaker), and begin my cooldown, while walking participants through the motion

The problem:
The music from the shared audio is still too loud for my Zoom participants and they can barely hear me speaking in the microphone.

Question:

Can I control the shared audio volume to only affect the Zoom participants, and not my in-person folks?  (ie: turn the music down for the zoom participants)

Can I turn up the volume for my microphone? (I checked microphone settings, and have the mic already turned all the way up, but it's not loud enough because the background music - shared audio - is still at 100%)

please help 🙂

[storyhub]

Audio is very complicated and not easy to manage when trying to use the built-in hardware of a laptop.  What you are trying to do is best managed using an external audio interface such as https://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Scarlett-4i4-Audio-Interface/dp/B0C5JMFX6S and using OBS Studio (so you can add switching, compression, limiting). Learning how to properly use these tools also has a learning curve you may need help with to get the system properly configured.

Even on the laptop there are multiple volume controls including a separate control for audio from the browser, but there are not the multiple channels you need for best (and easiest) management of the audio going to Zoom separate from the audio you are using in your room.

Also, Spotify's terms and conditions  state that the music is for personal use only (https://support.spotify.com/us/article/spotify-public-commercial-use/). Your use is commercial and is not authorized by Spotify or by Zooms acceptable use guidelines. You may want to consider using royalty-free music or the Zoom music app (https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0061859) which is legal without fees (to avoid account termination for copyright infringement). In addition, playing local files will sound better and have better control of the audio levels.