change/bug in "Original Sound for Musicians" feature?

[LorB]

Hello Community,

During the first week of June 2025 I conducted audio check-ins with several different groups of singers slated to sing in three-part harmony for a Zoom event held last Saturday.  We had good success with each group when they toggled  "Original Sound for Musicians" to the "on" setting on the device they used to join the Zoom.  We could hear all three parts and the sound quality was decent for Zoom! 

Fast forward to Saturday June 21 - same groups, same devices, same use of "Original Sound for Musicians" and the quality was significantly degraded. When singing in unison the quality was okay, but when the singers went to three parts, we could rarely hear the parts.  All of us had made sure to install the lastest version of Zoom....  Was there something that changed?

[storyhub]

As an audio and broadcast engineer I can tell you that computer audio can be very complicated. "groups of singers" should not be using "Original Sound for Musicians" for best results. Instead all participants (up to 5 concurrently) should be using "Live performance audio". Remember that after it is selected in settings > audio > audio profile it must be turned on during each meeting in the upper right area of the Zoom window.

If this works please click accept as a solution.

[LorB]

Hi Story Hub, thanks for writing!  Our Zoom account only has a Beta version of "live performance audio" setting - and I understood it was most useful if your musicians were Zooming in from different locations.  For our event, the persons singing live were all gathered in one location and Zooming in on a single device.  What is most frustrating is that the Original Sound for Musicians setting did a fine job for us  when we tested it in early June - all the harmonies came through just fine.  But starting with the final sound checks on June 19, quality was poor.  We did try the Live Performance setting, but without any better result.   We do understand that both of these audio settings need to be selected each time for a meeting as they are not Zoom defaults.  Thanks for trying to help me sort this out.  What would be the best way for me to follow this up with Zoom to ask/report about this change in the way the setting functioned?