Music played on Zoom Clipped unrecognisably (USB Mixer input)

Hi all,
I have a technical issue that I just cannot solve. After many discussion with Zoom, it seems it is not a Zoom problem. My guess is the problem lies with MS Windows but I'll explain and look forward to any genius answers or suggestions.

My wife runs dance classes online using Zoom with the following setup.:
Wireless head mic, mp3 player for music, headphones for me to monitor, ext speaker to play the music in the room.

All these connected to Behringer XENYX Q1002USB mixer which in turn is connected to usb port of Windows laptop, connected to the internet using ethernet cable. So, a combined digital signal into the computer and out via Zoom to our dancers.

Now, I need to turn on "original sounds for musicians" so that noise cancellation is disabled. If I don't do this the sound is clipped dramatically and is totally unusable. No problem so far. All works well. However the laptop is old and creaky (Lenovo 4th Gen i5) and has to be switched on about 30mins before we start, so one day it's going to pack up completely. Now I have tried at least 4 better/newer/faster laptops and in every single case the sound on Zoom is clipped terribly exactly like it would do if I hadn't turned on "original sounds for musicians". One of the laptops is a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with a 4th gen i5 processor same as the working Lenovo laptop. My new laptop is a 12th gen i7 processor and that doesn't work, so it's not to do with laptop age or slow processor or insufficient memory. I've tried as many different settings as I can find in the audio settings of the laptops but nothing I do works.

Microsoft are clueless and don't even understand the question so I can't get any help there. All I can think is there must be some noise cancellation applied to the usb audio somehow with perhaps a hidden setting. If anyone has any ideas I'd be really grateful as it is a frustrating mystery to me.
Thank you

Hi Snowgoose,

Welcome to Eleven Forums.

Just a couple of things to check come to mind... Are your bit depth and sample rate match between Windows and your mixer (see circled in yellow below)? Also, do you have Enhancements enabled (see circled in red below)? That's all I got at the moment.



Kind regards,

tecknot

Hi,
Yeah not sure I'm understanding why you use a laptop for source of music plus... and not just a normal receiver and ipod or something for music :/
Might be as just suggested a sound setting issue.
But typically laptops have horrible sound.

ThrashZone said:

Yeah not sure I'm understanding why you use a laptop for source of music

Click to expand...

I didn't say that I was using the laptop for music source. The music source is an MP3 player (perfectly adequate for the job) mixed using a USB mixer with a head mic and then feed digitally into a USB port on the laptop. The laptop is merely a method of getting the digital sound out onto the internet cos Zoom. How else could that be done?

tecknot said:

Just a couple of things to check come to mind... Are your bit depth and sample rate match

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try those tomorrow although I'm sure they only refer to the mic input. I'm not using analogue stuff on the laptop at all. Any settings that would affect this are likely to be usb settings I would think.

Snowgoose said:

Thanks, I'll try those tomorrow although I'm sure they only refer to the mic input. I'm not using analogue stuff on the laptop at all. Any settings that would affect this are likely to be usb settings I would think.

Click to expand...

Actually, Snowgoose, it is the relationship between your laptop (or Windows) and your mixer.

Kind regards,

tecknot

Hi Tecknot, I tried those settings but no difference. The bit rate/sample rate was already set to that of the mixer, but I recorded a sample of music on each setting. There was no noticeable difference.

Enhancements were unticked by default, but of course I tried with it on and off. With it on, virtually no music was recorded, just the odd half-second of something unrecognisable with the rest silent. With enhancements off, the song sort of plays but it's like the music has been stripped and the singer appears to be singing with no music. Weird, although that would be the aim of Zoom to strip out everything except voice. There must be something somewhere that is causing this but it isn't Zoom app (all the settings are off regarding noise cancellation), and it doesn't appear to be the usb digital sound either.

The really strange thing is that my old laptop is et up exactly the same way and this works absolutely perfectly. All my other laptops cut out the music and make the songs unusable.

I'm completely at a loss.

Hi Snowgoose,

This is really stumping me too. Are you running software between your PC and mixer such as a DAW?

Kind regards,

tecknot

Hi,
All laptops come with a driver in my case it's realtek
So you may need the app for the newer laptops so you can look at those settings seeing all the new ones acting the same it's likely a clash in the driver apps.

I was saying before try playing the music normally phone/ receiver/ speakers/.. without laptop connection
Music will be heard through your microphone same as your voice and cancellation settings won't block it still.

tecknot said:

Hi Snowgoose,

This is really stumping me too. Are you running software between your PC and mixer such as a DAW?

Kind regards,

tecknot

Click to expand...

Nope. The only software running is Zoom.

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
All laptops come with a driver in my case it's realtek
So you may need the app for the newer laptops so you can look at those settings seeing all the new ones acting the same it's likely a clash in the driver apps.

I was saying before try playing the music normally phone/ receiver/ speakers/.. without laptop connection
Music will be heard through your microphone same as your voice and cancellation settings won't block it still.

Click to expand...

The sound quality is awful playing it all through a mic, or did you mean just as a test to see if the noise reduction is still applied? Not understanding what you mean regarding the drivers. Clash between which drivers? All the laptops I have tried are using realtek drivers.