It can increase CPU utilisation and consume greater network bandwidth. For High Fidelity Music Mode it “Optimises Zoom audio for highest‑quality music. The help text that accompanies the new options are revealing. Screen 2: The Original Sound option has been joined by a new High Fidelity Music Mode, which promises improved sound quality but places greater demands on your network connection. The options to control this are on the Advanced audio settings page and are shown in Screen 2. On the 1st September, release 5.2.2 came out with the headline feature of ‘High Fidelity Music Mode’. But the really revealing thing was the accompanying comment to “Select the default noise suppression level (low) to optimise for music” (see Screen 1). It was possible to bypass this noise suppression but the option was somewhat hidden away the new release just made it easier to find and use. Music was particularly affected by background noise suppression, as Zoom always assumed that music was noise and tried to eliminate it. Then in release 5.2.0, the background noise suppression options were reorganised to make them simpler to use.

The ability to access that had been in the software for a couple of years but had only just been added in April 2020 for iOS and Android devices.

Security has been the main focus but, along the way, they’ve found time to introduce enhancements specifically to support music and musicians.īack in the Summer, the major feature for musos was Original Sound, Zoom’s name for audio that hadn’t been compressed or otherwise mucked about with by their software. Since I last wrote about Zoom (SOS June 2020 see /techniques/how-make-zoom-work-music), the company’s user base has expanded at an amazing rate, and their software has had a number of developments. The hugely successful teleconferencing platform Zoom has had some small but significant updates, making it even more useful to musicians in lockdown. Screen 1: The background noise suppression option is now easier to find.

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