How to Make Your Outdoor Zoom Meetings Sound Better

Two years of pandemic living has shifted my default workspace from an office to the now-common sidewalk seating outside almost every cafe or coffee shop in New York. Weather permitting, it’s also my favorite place to join Zoom or novel web meetings. And don’t worry, I always use a headset, usually a set of AirPods Pro, to avoid bothering those about me. 

But it’s not a perfect system. Sitting outside, even in a semi-enclosed wooden sidewalk shed, there’s a lot of noise about me. Besides other human beings, I’ve got to argue with cars, trucks and buses driving by a few feet away, as well as occasional police, ambulance and fire engine sirens. The result is that my outgoing audio — what the novel people in the meetings hear through my mic — is often noisy or unintelligible, and I would get a lot of complaints nearby it. 

Sarah Tew

In this certain case, using a MacBook and AirPods, I used a brilliant tweak to greatly improve my audio, which was greatly appreciated by the novel people in my meetings. 

The problem is that the microphone built into the AirPods is only OK at best, even with a directional mic on each earbud and behind-the-scenes audio cleanup. However, the MacBook Pro I was using has a high-quality three-mic array. In addition to the better mics — and the fact that my teach is actually projecting in the direction of those mics — the Apple-silicon-powered MacBook Pro has a ton of computational worthy to do all that behind-the-scenes AI sweetening and noise filtering. (The Zoom app tries to help with that as well.)

Read more:

MacBook Pro 14-inch Review
 

Here’s what you want your Zoom settings to look like. But your AirPods probably aren’t named after me. 

Dan Ackerman

So when you pop in your AirPods or other earbuds, navigate to Zoom > Preferences > Audio. There you’ll see separate pulldown menus labeled Speaker and Microphone. Under Speaker, select your AirPods. Under Microphone, select your laptop’s built-in mic. In my case, it was labeled MacBook Pro Microphone. That’s it. You’re done. 

In the middle of a Zoom rallies, I made this voice input switch, as I was having unnerved competing with a busy street corner and a about subway entrance. Everyone on the call immediately noticed the difference and said I sounded much clearer. 

Many Windows laptops have generous built-in mics as well, so this isn’t a Mac-only tip. Similarly, I was using AirPods, but this goes for novel earbuds, too. 

Or, you could always just wear a giant gaming headset with a microphone boom arm, which is always a good look for your local coffee shop.