Zoom, the video conferencing software brand, has announced Professional Music Mode.

In a blog post posted by them on August 20th 2020 they say;

Use advanced audio for professional music mode

Performing arts and music teachers — enjoy crystal-clear, professional-grade sound for your virtual lessons and performances. This option in Advanced Audio will enhance “Original Sound” mode, allowing you to disable echo cancellation and post-processing and get rid of compression. Not to get too into the weeds, but this setting will also raise audio codec quality from 22kHz to 48kHz, 96Kbps mono/192Kbps stereo for professional audio transmission in music education and performance applications.

Note: This mode will require a professional audio interface, microphone, and headphones to allow you to offer high-quality private lessons. You will also be able to stream group performances from the same physical location — with higher-quality audio than most streaming platforms!

Look out for more information as we roll these features out through the end of August and September.

Zoom software became a popular choice for those needing to work from home during the pandemic and it seems they have recognised the growing use by audio professionals.

However, Zoom has also had some question marks placed over it when it comes to security. Many top organisations have instructed employees to remove it from their computers and do not allow it to be used, citing security concerns. Read more about Zoom security concerns here.

It is for these reasons that we advise anyone working on commercially sensitive data for record companies or TV and film production companies to notify and get permission from them before using Zoom on one of their projects.

More on the upcoming Zoom Professional Music Mode here

High Fidelity Mode Mode Now Available With Version 5.2.2

Zoom rolled out this new feature publicly on September 1st, 2020, with the 5.2.2 update.

The high fidelity music mode can be enabled in Zoom Settings > Audio > Advanced > Show in-meeting option to “Enable Original Sound” from microphone > High fidelity music mode.

Enabling this setting will disable Zoom’s excessive compression and gating, it also allows Zoom to use a higher quality data compression than with the setting off, up to 192kbs for a stereo feed.

In a practical sense, this will mean that if you’re routing audio from your scoring or audio application into Zoom, listeners on the other end of the conference will benefit from being able to hear a much improved dynamic range. Teachers will be able to talk much more easily alongside music without Zoom ducking out the other source playing. Even something as simple as playing back recorded content for approval without resorting to an external service should be much better with this new audio setting.

It is suggested that whilst you’re tweaking these settings, you might also want to turn off Automatically Adjust Microphone Volume and turn on Disable Echo Cancellation, both of which can also cause issues for professionals.

David MacDonald on Scoring Notes says…

“In their initial blog post in August announcing the new music mode, Zoom noted that “This mode will require a professional audio interface, microphone, and headphones to allow you to offer high-quality private lessons.” In my initial tests, this didn’t seem to be a requirement in turning on the feature (technologically, I’m not sure there’s a way for Zoom to know the properties of my microphone and audio interface). However, I did notice that any imperfections in the setup, like background noise or hums, became much more apparent.“

However, as with all things you don’t get something for nothing. The ‘tooltip’ in Zoom for this new feature warns that enabling high fidelity audio “can increase CPU utilization and consume greater network bandwidth,” and that for “best results, an ethernet connection (not wifi) is strongly recommended.”

If you’re running Zoom to broadcast, then the increased load may tip your system over the edge.