How To Play Music On Zoom Meetings to Kill the Wait Time?

Ever been in a Zoom meeting, waiting for the presenter to begin while there is an awkward silence in the room? You could converse with other members, but small talks are not everyone’s cup of tea. In that case, your favorite songs can be a great way to kill the silence as you wait for the work to begin.

So, in this blog post, I will explain how to play music on Zoom while waiting for your meeting to start. We will be going over the different methods of playing music, depending on whether or not you’re sharing your screen. Let’s begin.

How to Play Music on Zoom Call While Sharing Screen

You can share audio and correlative video with your users over a Zoom meeting. The audio will be high-fidelity and will contain minimal distortion along with reverb. However, I recommend using headphones while broadcasting audio so that your mic does not catch it, causing weird echoes. Here’s how you can broadcast superior-quality audio to your attendees:

1. Open Zoom and log into the meeting where you wish to broadcast the audio. Even though the steps will be the same for both the host and attendee, you will have to ask for screen-sharing permissions if it’s not global.

2. Click the Share Screen icon at the bottom of the window. A pop-up window will appear.

3. Select Share sound and turn on Optimize for video clip from the footer of the pop-up window. Also, select Stereo for a high-fidelity audio experience for your peers.

4. Click Share. Your screen will start broadcasting you screen, alongside any music you play on your desktop. It is to note here that audio levels will be individually controlled, i.e., the volume levels on your attendees’ system will be according to the audio on the player you are using and not your system’s master volume level.

5. You can also toggle the sound-sharing settings. Click More and configure settings as necessary.

How to Play Music on Zoom Call Without Sharing Your Screen

Zoom also lets you share any audio from your desktop to the Zoom meeting. It is a dedicated feature that transmits audio (be it Spotify, an audiobook, a recording, etc.) without having to share your screen. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open Zoom and log into a meeting. 

2. Click the Share Screen icon at the bottom of the window and select Advanced on the top header of the pop-up window that appears.

3. Here, select Computer Audio from the options available. Click the downward arrow to open a drop-down window. Select Stereo for superior audio quality.

4. This will transmit any audio playing on your system to the Zoom meeting, and you will see a speaker icon along with the disclaimer “You are sharing computer sound.” To stop sharing the sound, simply click the Stop Share button.

How to Play Music on Zoom in the Waiting Room

You can also play music while patiently waiting for your meeting to start. Here’s how you can enjoy some tunes in the waiting room:

1. Visit the Zoom web client and click My Account on the top right header.

2. On the next window, navigate to Settings.

3. Go to Waiting Room under the Security tab.

4. Here, enable Waiting Room and click Customize Waiting Room.

5. A pop-up window will appear. Here, you can choose what participants in the waiting room will see until you admit them into the meeting.

6. Click Video from the options present and upload the video you want to be displayed.

7. The video will be added alongside any music and will be displayed to participants. You can also toggle the waiting room on or off through Security > Waiting room.

4 Best Settings To Play Music On Zoom

Zoom has a bunch of basic and advanced settings, all tailored towards enhancing your audio experience while using their platform. While simply sharing the audio can affect its quality and make the sound distorted, use the following settings to tweak and optimize your audio output: 

1. Enable Stereo Audio

By default, Zoom compresses audio streamed over the meeting to mono channels. This helps them save on server resources, though they allow users to switch to stereo audio. 

It is to be noted here that stereo sound over Zoom takes up a lot of RAM, so make sure that you do not have unnecessary windows running in the background, as that may considerably slow your system. When you are sharing your screen, you can easily toggle between mono and stereo audio:

When sharing your screen, locate the controls panel on either the top or bottom of the screen.

2. Click More and select Stereo (High-Fidelity) from the sound mode options in the drop-down that appears. 

Your audio will switch to stereo sound and will be of proportionately better quality to listeners.

2. Disable Automatic Volume Adjustment

While the automatic volume adjustment feature on Zoom is remarkable in ensuring error-free audio interaction between participants in a meeting, it is not suited for playing music over Zoom. It works by dampening any audio that crosses a specific decibel threshold. In the case of music, it is important that all the instruments are audible for a superior experience.

So, I recommend disabling this feature if you wish to play music over Zoom. Here’s how you can disable automatic volume adjustment.

1. Open the Zoom app on your desktop.

2. Here, click your profile picture on the top-right of the screen and click Settings.

3. In the pop-up window that appears, click Audio from the left sidebar menu and untick the Automatic Volume Adjustment checkbox. 

3. Enable Original Sound

Zoom utilizes an array of specialized features and audio editing systems to enhance the audio in a meeting, as well as suppress any background or redundant noises. This pre-curated setting preference gets disabled when you enable Original Sound. 

It is important to enable the original sound as Zoom’s various audio enhancement processes may distort the quality and tone of the music. Here’s how you can toggle the original sound in a Zoom meeting:

1. Open the Zoom app on your desktop.

2. Click your profile picture on the top-right of the screen and navigate to Settings.

3. A pop-up window will appear. Here, select Audio from the left sidebar menu and tick Show in-meeting option to enable “Original Sound.” Now, you will be able to toggle the original sound on and off in a Zoom meeting.

4. Log in to the meeting you wish to broadcast audio to.

5. On the top-left of the meeting screen, You will see a toggle labeled Original Sound. You can use this toggle to turn the feature on and off as required.

4. Adjust Background Noise suppression

Background noise suppression dampens any redundant or otherwise unintended sounds that may be present in your (or a participant’s) background. It is a useful feature when you have a meeting full of multiple participants who are talking. Sounds like the creaking of chairs, typing sounds, et cetera, get muted out. 

Although, when you are streaming sound over Zoom, it may distort the audio, which may degrade the music quality. Here’s how to turn off background noise suppression for your Zoom meetings:

1. Open the Zoom app on your desktop.

2. Click your profile picture on the top-right of the screen and navigate to Settings.

3. Navigate to audio on the left sidebar. Here, You will see the Suppress background noise menu. Select low to allow the most original sound to be transmitted to your peers in the meeting.

Frequently Asked Questions