Teachers Using Zoom video conferencing for Sax lessons

[MandyH]

Hi all,

in the present situation of "lockdown" i am receiving piano lessons and (in theory) saxophone lessons via Zoom video conferencing.

The piano lessons are great. My teacher and I both used an iPad today and I could hear him fine, he could hear me fine.

My saxophone lessons are, however, proving challenging. With the same set up, my sax teacher gets the first few bars of my performance, and then audio descends to zero at her end. (I am playing Bari sax, if that makes a difference)

I switched to PC with external mic at my end, but (for the moment) she hasn't got Zoom running on a PC or Macbook.

Yesterday our grand-daughter played Tenor Horn to us via Zoom - she on the phone, we on the iPad - and we had pretty much the same problem. When I switched to PC, I could "turn on original sound" which is supposed to help, but the audio still dropped to virtually nothing.
Am I missing something obvious?
Any suggestions?
thanks.

 

[Pete Effamy]

What's different about Zoom (to Skype/Facetime)? I've heard about a lot of teachers using it. I use Skype - no problems.

 

[MandyH]

I understand it’s the advised method for teaching minors, due to safeguarding issues. More than that, I don’t know, I’ve never used any of the other methods.

 

[Tenor Viol]

Reading elsewhere - I think it was for Zoom...

Quote:
As far as I understand, the problem is not the microphone but the way these platforms suppress certain sounds, as they are designed with speech in mind.

This should improve your sound quality without changing mics:

• Go to SETTINGS
• click AUDIO
• click ADVANCED (bottom right on the screen)

- click "Show in-meeting option to "Enable Original Sound" from microphone"

- DISABLE "Suppress Persistent Background Noise"
-DISABLE "Suppress intermittent Background Noise"
- Keep "Echo Cancellation' on AUTO
Quote

 

[MandyH]

Reading elsewhere - I think it was for Zoom...

Quote:
As far as I understand, the problem is not the microphone but the way these platforms suppress certain sounds, as they are designed with speech in mind.

This should improve your sound quality without changing mics:

• Go to SETTINGS
• click AUDIO
• click ADVANCED (bottom right on the screen)

- click "Show in-meeting option to "Enable Original Sound" from microphone"

- DISABLE "Suppress Persistent Background Noise"
-DISABLE "Suppress intermittent Background Noise"
- Keep "Echo Cancellation' on AUTO
Quote

Is that the students end, or the teachers end?

You can only do that on the PC versions not tablet/phone App. Those settings are not available in the App.

 

[Hammie 1982]

heres the fix that my teacher gave me.....

How to set up Zoom for music lessons on desktop or laptop:

• Open the Zoom app
• Click on the gear in the top right corner to open the settings menu (or go to ‘zoom.us>preferences’)
• Click on the audio tab
• Uncheck ‘Automatically adjust microphone volume’
• Click on ‘advanced’ at the bottom of the page
• Check the first box that says 'Show meeting option to “Enable Original Sound” from microphone'
• Change both the next options (’Suppress Persistent Background Noise’ and 'Suppress Intermittent Background Noise’) to ‘Disable'
• After joining each lesson, click ’Turn on Original Sound’ in the top left hand corner

How to set up Zoom for music lessons on phone or tablet:

• Open the Zoom app on your phone or tablet
• Go into settings (the icon in the top left hand corner of the screen)
• Got to the ‘Meetings’ menu
• Scroll down and enable the option to ‘Use Original Sound'
• After joining each lesson, go to ‘more …’ in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and select ‘enable original sound'

 

[TBay]

Had similar problems to the OP, we did the above fix and it has been fine since. There are still certain elements of the sound that don’t travel as well but it makes a big difference.

 

[MandyH]

Since my original post, the Zoom app for tablet or phone has been updated to include the “original sound” option as mentioned above. It didn’t exist 10-12 weeks ago.

 

[Nikki]

Hi Mandy. I don’t have any helpful information whatsoever. Your piano lessons sound awesome and I hope you find a solution to your communication problems. I thought I’d just say hello