Playing Music on Zoom – Sharing Music in a Zoom Meeting

For many people, the word Zoom also has to be one of their most-uttered words of this year. If it’s an office meeting, online class, a chill-out session along with the homies, or a full-blown virtual party (since that’s a thing this year), Zoom’s been the place to go to. In this article, we are going to talk about Playing Music on Zoom – Sharing Music in a Zoom Meeting. Let’s begin!

Zoom also makes it really easy to have virtual meetings too. However, when you try to add some Quarantunes to the mix, things can also get a bit tricky. If you’re someone who’s just trying to play some songs or also you’re a professional who needs to play an instrument as well. Also, know how to do it right can save you from a world of pain.

Playing music on Zoom

We all know that Zoom permits you to share your screen during a Zoom meeting. This enables each and every on the call to view your screen. However, what if you wanted to share your audio only? Fitness classes amongst others, need users to be able to see what is being done on camera. In addition to hearing the instructor, as well as having some motivational music going on in the background as well.

Now we also know that you could simply play music via a speaker in the background and keep talking on the call. But, Zoom’s audio enhancements will cause not only your music, however, also your voice to clip to a great extent due to the background music.

These three aspects of the call can actually be managed via Zoom’s ability to share only the audio from your computer. This function allows the user to utilize their camera and also microphone, and simultaneously stream music from their PC.

Follow this guide in order to play background music during your Zoom meeting.

Steps

• Open the Zoom desktop application and start a meeting.
• Hover over the video feed and tap on the ‘Share screen’ button at the bottom of the app.
• In the pop-up window, choose the ‘Advanced’ tab, then tap on the ‘Music or computer sound only’ button.
• Tap on ‘Share’. When you return to your video call, you guys will see a green indicator bar stating that you are sharing your computer’s audio. In order to stop sharing the audio at any point tap on the ‘Stop share’ button on the bar.
• Use any music streaming website or app of your choice and play the music on your PC.

Everyone on the call can now hear the music being played on your device as well. In order to adjust the volume of the music, you must head to the music streaming website/app and then change it. Adjusting your pc volume will only affect the music volume for you. You can speak freely over the background music without even fear of your voice getting choppy.

Note: The ‘Share Music or computer sound only’ function is just available in Zoom’s Desktop client. You cannot share device audio from the web client or the mobile app as well.

Sharing Music in a Zoom Meeting

Trying to find the right balance so just that the attendees can hear you as well as the music clearly itself is going to drive you insane actually. And add to the mix the dilemma of what to do whenever you have to go on mute to let someone else speak.

However, all that is nothing when compared to the problems Zoom’s audio enhancement features will actually create for you. Zoom would detect the music playing in the background as noise and attempt in order to suppress it to the best of its abilities. So the music other attendees will also hear would be choppy.

There are just too many variables along with just playing the music in the background. That’s why you have to do it the right way!

Everyone knows that you can also share your screen in Zoom; it’s old news. Most of you also know that you can also share your computer audio along with the screen. This is what lets you watch movies and videos together actually. However, there’s another aspect of screen sharing not everyone’s aware of and you guys can also share only the computer sound without even sharing your screen as well.

Performing music on Zoom? Here’s what you should consider

If you are a music instructor or learning an instrument via Zoom, the default settings will make this really difficult. This is because Zoom actively compresses the audio from your microphone to a great extent as well. In addition, Zoom applies audio enhancements in order to suppress background noises. That is not what you need when playing an instrument. Except for Original Sound, these settings can only be managed on Zoom’s desktop application as well.

If possible, then get yourself an external microphone. Your laptop microphone is fine, however, they are not mostly optimized for picking up much base. External microphones are way better if compared to your inbuilt ones.

Enable Stereo audio

With default, Zoom compresses audio into a mono channel. This decreases the quality of the audio. Luckily there is an option to turn on Stereo audio on your Zoom calls. When enabled, the setting will appear in your Desktop client. You can select whether to turn it on or not.

Stereo audio utilizes a lot more RAM on your PC as opposed to mono, so you guys might want to make sure all unnecessary applications are shut down. When again, check out our article to learn how you can enable Stereo audio and use it in a Zoom call.

Disable Automatic volume adjustment

The zoom automatically stabilizes the volume of your microphone during calls so that even if a participant’s microphone is all set to the highest, and it won’t deafen anyone on the call. It does this via dampening the sound over a specific threshold.

Whenever playing an instrument, however, we want all parts of the sound to be heard, also including the loud one. For this reason, we are going in order to disable the Automatic volume adjustment function in Zoom.

Just follow this guide to disable the Automatic volume adjustment function in Zoom.

• Just log in to the Zoom Desktop client.
• Tap on your profile picture in the top right corner of the app and choose ‘Settings.
• Choose the ‘Audio’ tab in the left panel and then untick the ‘Automatically adjust volume’ box.

Turn on Original Sound | playing music on zoom

This setting turns off Zoom’s audio enhancements that suppress background noises. The reason we actually turn these off is that Zoom tends to confuse music tones as background noises and tries to suppress them.

Using the guide above, head to the Advanced audio page in the Zoom desktop client by going to Settings > Audio > Advanced and then tick the ‘Show in-meeting option to Enable Original Sound from microphone’ box at the top of the page.

Now, whenever you start a new meeting, you will see an option in the top left corner of the screen. In order to ‘Turn on Original Sound’. Select this, to avoid Zoom from trying in order to enhance your audio.

In order to enable Original Sound on the Zoom mobile application, go head to the ‘Settings’ tab in the bottom right corner, and tap on ‘Meeting’. Scroll down to ‘Use Original Sound’ and click to turn on it.

When you guys are in a meeting tap the three dots in the bottom right corner of the screen and tap ‘Enable Original Sound’.

Use High fidelity Audio mode for professional audio

Zoom audio is optimized for verbal discussions actually. If you’re a music professional, then Zoom lets you improve your audio game via stepping up the quality of your original audio via the High fidelity Audio mode. Along with this mode enabled, you can enhance the “Original Audio” mode via uploading audio at 48Khz, 96Kbps mono/192kbps stereo codec quality as well.

This can be helpful for those of you who wish for professional audio transmission during video conferences like for performance and music education as well. Keep in mind that for this High fidelity Audio mode to work, you guys have to be using professional audio equipment, headphones, and microphones as well.

To turn on the High fidelity Audio mode, open the Zoom desktop client. Click on your profile picture, and head over to Settings > Audio as well. Inside the Audio screen, and tap on the ‘Advanced’ option at the bottom.

Make sure the ‘Show in-meeting option in order to “Enable Original Sound” from the microphone’ box is checked. That’s because you guys can only enable the high fidelity mode whenever this option is selected.

Now, just check the box that read ‘High fidelity music mode’ under the ‘When original sound is enabled’ section. In order to finalize the new audio setting for your Zoom meetings.

Further | playing music on zoom

Zoom also wants you to consider the following things in order to make the most of the High fidelity music mode:

• Use professional-grade audio equipment also including microphones and headphones
• Connect to the internet through Ethernet rather than WiFi
• Expect Zoom to consume higher CPU usage as well
• Make sure your internet connection is unmetered like the High fidelity music mode is bound. In order to take up a large chunk of your bandwidth

Turn off Background Noise suppression on Zoom

Zoom audio is optimized in order to create clarity in speech, and remove unwanted background noise. This becomes problematic for users that are conducting fitness classes or teaching musical instruments or anything. That needs music to be played via a Zoom call.

In this case, your audio needs to be optimized in order to pick up not only your voice but also your music. Even without clipping the sound. Zoom’s audio enhancement settings permit you to disable audio suppression and enable Original sound as well. This means that whatever sound enters your microphone, also will be transmitted to your listeners, even without any optimization.

Just follow the simple guide to set up your Zoom audio for music.

Steps | playing music on zoom

• Just log in to the Zoom Desktop client.
• Tap on your profile picture in the top right corner of the app and select ‘Settings’.
• Select the ‘Audio’ tab in the left panel and then tap on the ‘Advanced’ button at the bottom of the page.

On the Advanced Audio page, you guys will see the following settings. Then change them as follows to optimize your audio for background music.

• Suppress Persistent Background Noise: Disable
• Then suppress Intermittent Background Noise: Disable
• Echo cancellation: Auto

For a more detailed summary of the audio settings available, then check out our article below.

How can you play Spotify music in a Zoom meeting

If you want to have some background music during your Zoom game night, or just want to show your friend your new Spotify playlist. Then you can play your music right from the Spotify desktop application via your Zoom call.

Spotify is one of the most widely used music streaming applications along with some truly well-curated playlists. So why wouldn’t you guys stream your Spotify playlist on a Zoom call? Follow this simple guide, in order to play music using the Spotify app on a Zoom call.

• Open the Spotify application and leave it minimized. Then open the Zoom desktop application and start a meeting.
• Hover over the video feed and then tap on the ‘Share screen’ button at the bottom of the app.
• Here you can select what you would like to share. If you guys want to share your Spotify music along with the cover art, choose the Spotify application window. At the bottom of the screen tick the ‘Share computer sound’ box then tap on ‘Share’. Switch to the Spotify app and start your playlist as well. Everyone on the call will now be able to see and also hear your Spotify playlist.

If you guys only want to share your Spotify music without even sharing your screen. Just choose the ‘Advanced’ tab, then tap on the ‘Music or computer sound only’ button. If you only guys want to share your Spotify music without even sharing your screen. Choose the ‘Advanced’ tab, then click the ‘Music or computer sound only’ button.

Conclusion

Alright, That was all Folks! I hope you guys like this “playing music on zoom” article and also find it helpful to you. Give us your feedback on it. Also if you guys have further queries and issues related to this article. Then let us know in the comments section below. We will get back to you shortly.

Have a Great Day!

Also See: What Does Invalid Parameters Mean on TikTok