Zoom was originally created as an app for business video conferencing. Nowadays, it is a very useful tool for educational institutions and for many people thanks to all its features that provide many possibilities to all kinds of users. One of these features is to play background music in Zoom , which is just what we will see how to achieve a little further down..
We're going to show you step by step how to play music on Zoom without your voice cutting out. In addition, we will explain everything you need to know about audio settings. Before you begin, please note that this feature is only available for the desktop app. Therefore, you will not be able to share the device's audio from the mobile app or from the web page on your computer.
As we already know, Zoom allows us to share your screen during a meeting. But how do we go about sharing only the audio? The truth is that it is quite simple and it is only about making some adjustments in our configuration. With this, we can make some improvements and prevent the background sound from interrupting what we want to say..
How to play background music from your computer on Zoom
- To get started, sign in to the Zoom desktop app, then create a meeting.
- Next, hover over the video and click on “Share Screen”. This option is at the bottom of the screen.
- You will notice that a pop-up window has opened. Once here, click on the "Advanced" tab located at the top right of the screen.
- For the next step, we just have to click on “Only music or sound from the computer”.
- Finally, click on the “Share” button and that's it. When you return to your video call you will see a green bar indicating that you are sharing audio from your computer.
Once you've completed all the steps above, you'll be able to play any music in the background on Zoom, whether it's from the browser or app you want, and it's playing on your computer. This way, everyone in the meeting you created will be able to hear the music playing on your computer.
Now, when you no longer want to share your computer's audio, just click on the “Stop Sharing” button. As you can see, it is quite simple to share music in a Zoom meeting with excellent quality..
You can even adjust the volume of the broadcast to leave it in the background so it doesn't drown out your voice. To do this, simply go to the application or website where the music is playing.
Then set your volume down or up as much as you like. This way, you can speak freely over the background music without fear of your voice clipping.
The best sound settings for Zoom
The best sound settings for Zoom will depend on what you specifically need for each meeting you host. Luckily, we can change the settings and access them much faster during a meeting.
stereo audio
If you're looking to share music you're producing yourself on Zoom, the default settings will make it difficult for you. Please note, this app compresses the audio from your microphone to a great extent by removing background noises. That is why, when we play an instrument, these options are not very helpful, but rather the opposite.
Also, it is important that you keep in mind that the microphones of laptops or those that are already built-in, are quite good for a conversation. However, they are not 100% optimized to pick up a lot of base, as an external microphone would, for example.
The solution to this problem is quite simple: enable stereo audio. Zoom compresses the audio to a mono channel, reducing audio quality and using much less RAM. In this way, before opting for this configuration, make sure that all unnecessary applications are closed.
auto volume
Another thing that Zoom does for us is to automatically stabilize the volume of our microphone during calls, muffling the sound above a specific threshold. Thus, it ensures that, even if the volume of a participant's microphone is very high, it does not deafen anyone during the meeting.
Now, following the previous example, if we are playing an instrument, we want everything to be heard well, even the loud parts. To fix it, perform these steps:
- Sign in to Zoom Desktop and click on your profile picture.
- Once inside, go to “Settings” and then “Audio” in the left panel of the screen.
- Next, uncheck the “Automatically adjust volume” box and you're good to go.
Disable phono noise suppression
Disabling background noise suppression can be very useful for those who do fitness or teach musical instruments. With this we can improve the quality of the audio, making it possible for the other participants to clearly hear your voice and the music.
- Making this configuration is quite simple and we only have to enter the Zoom Desktop configuration as we have explained before.
- Once inside, go to the “Audio” tab located on the left panel of the screen.
- Then click on the “Advanced” button located at the bottom of the screen.
- Here, we need to choose to turn some features on or off as we need. In this case, it will be as follows:
- Suppress persistent background noise: disable
- Suppress intermittent background noise: disable
- Echo cancellation: auto.
Return to default settings
When we go back to the default audio settings in Zoom, we're turning off all the sound enhancements we've made previously. This is a good alternative when what we want is to eliminate background noise so that our voice is not overshadowed.
- To return to default settings, log in to Zoom Desktop and click on your profile picture.
- Next, click on “Settings” and then on Audio in the panel on the left of the screen as we did before.
- Once inside, look for the “Advanced” option at the bottom of the screen and check the box “Show option in meeting to enable original sound from microphone”.
Finally, every time you start a new meeting, you will see this option in the upper left corner of the screen with the legend “Enable original sound”.