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Zoom & Skype work much better for music if you quickly tweak a few settings. Here’s how to do it! (last updated: Dec 2020)

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Zoom

As of late 2020, Zoom is the best online music lesson platform out there. These setup steps will give a clearer sound and image quality, and generally improve the whole experience:

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• Download Zoom here (better than using the web player), install it, and create a free account.

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• Once you’re logged in, open Zoom’s ‘Preferences‘ menu:

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• Go to ‘Audio‘ on the left sidebar. Untick ‘Automatically Adjust Volume‘ – then, adjust the sliders for ‘Output Volume’ & ‘Input Volume’ up to ~85% of max:

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• Then, click on ‘Advanced‘ at the bottom of the window (^). Tick the ‘Enable Original Sound‘ box, and set the Audio Processing options to ‘Moderate’, ‘Disable’, and ‘Auto‘ (we may adjust these again down the line, but this is a good starting point):

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• Also, you can explore the ‘Video‘ menu from the left sidebar, and change other visual/camera settings. Navigate there, tick ‘Enable HD‘, and untick ‘Mirror my video‘:

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• And in the lesson itself: remember to turn on ‘Original Sound’ in the top left corner (I’ll go over all this again so no worries if you forget). And if you’re using an external webcam or mic, you can check that Zoom is picking it up via the drop-down input menu (check Zoom isn’t defaulting to your computer’s inbuilt cam/mic).

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Skype

Skype is a little more basic in its audio/video configuration options, but is still an effective option for online music sessions. Try this:

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• Download Skype here (better than using the web player), install it, and create a free account. n.b. If you’re on Windows 10, Skype is pre-installed.

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• Once you’re logged in, open Skype’s ‘Audio & Video Settings‘ menu (available via ‘Preferences’ on some Skype versions):

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• Go to ‘Audio & Video’ in the left-hand menu, and disable ‘Automatically adjust microphone settings’. Also, move the blue bars for ‘Microphone’ & ‘Speakers’ to around 9 on their sliders:

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General

A few general tech tips to maximise quality, reliability, web connection etc:

• Equipment: Use a laptop rather than an iPad/iPhone if practical (though not essential) – computers have more processing power, ability to change program options, etc. And avoid wireless tech, which can confuse things.

• Internet: Connect to your router with an ethernet cable if possible, and check that nothing heavy is uploading/downloading. Run a speed test to see what upload/download you’re getting.

• Give me a shout with any issues, or if you want setup instructions for other platforms (FaceTime, WhatsApp, etc).

Equipment

Not essential to buy any extra kit – inbuilt laptop hardware is definitely good enough – but here are some suggestions for cheap tech that will enhance the overall experience. Excellent quality even compared to a few years ago (n.b. these are pure recommendations, not affiliate links etc):

• Webcam: Dericam USB – HD 1080p, 30fps, wide viewfield, privacy shutter, good in low light conditions (~£20)
• Microphone: TONOR TC30 USB – picks up voice & guitar tones evenly from the right tabletop distance (~£30)
• Guitar oddments: my biased choices for easy capos, hard plectrums, bottleneck slides, solid thumbpicks, fabric mutes (tell me your guitar model / sonic inclinations and I can recommend good strings – I have bendy Martin FX Cores on my acoustic)

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(Other teachers: please feel free to use anything in this guide, just link back to this page somewhere)

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