Zoom has made many advances since we started to use it for our Open Mic back in March 2020. One of those early advances has been something called Original Sound. Turning it on will disable all signal processing and give you a few new options that will help you (and us) enjoy your music more.
Enabling Original Sound comes in two parts: one part you need to do every time you install or reinstall Zoom, and the other part you need to enable every time you join our Zoom meeting.
This guide assumes you have already installed Zoom from https://zoom.us/download. Original Sound is not available in the web client, ChromeOS or on Linux as of this time.
Part 1 – Enable Option To See Original Sound
You will need to do this only if this is the first time you are joining us or have freshly installed Zoom.
- Open Zoom on your device.
- Open Settings -> Audio Settings
- If you are not in a meeting, click on the gear in the top right of the Zoom Window. Then select Audio from the left side.
- If you are in a meeting, go to the bottom left next to the Audio button and you will see a ^, click it to open the audio sources list and select the last option, called Audio Settings.
- In the windows that pops up, navigate down to the section called Audio Profile, if you do not see this, you likely are on an older version of Zoom and should update the client first.
- Check the circle labeled Original sound for musicians.
- Once checked, you will see the following three new options:
- High fidelity music mode: Turn on only if you have good, stable bandwidth.
- Echo cancellation: Turn on if you are not using headphones or if asked by us.
- Stereo audio: Turn on if you want to play to us or listen to people in stereo. If your mic/interface is mono, this only affects how you hear people, not how they hear you.
- Close the Settings dialog box.
Note: Some interfaces (like Scarlet) will divide the two main inputs across left and right channels. If this is the case, your microphone and guitar (or other instrument) will come to us on different channels. This is highly likely not what you want. If you leave Stereo audio off, it will merge them into one channel. If you are unsure, make sure to join during our sound checks and we can let you know very easily.
Part 2 – Enable Original Sound In Your Meeting
You will need to do this every time you join us over Zoom.
- When you join our meeting, you will notice a button in the top left of the window labeled Original Sound for Musicians: Off. If you do not see this, check to see if Part 1 was done correctly
- Click on the button until it changes to Original Sound for Musicians: On.
Remember to do this every time you reconnect or change audio sources.