4 ms·

The TL;DR has as point 1: don't work in a place where babies crying or dish-washing or police sirens are an issue, and then as part of point 4: therefore, don't

The TL;DR has as point 1: don't work in a place where babies crying or dish-washing or police sirens are an issue, and then as part of point 4: therefore, don't mute. If you have a baby crying or police sirens, then yes, for the sake of everybody's sanity, mute yourself. For sure.

kazinator 6y ago
> don't work in a place where babies crying or dish-washing or police sirens are an issue I.e. don't work in the middle of a global pandemic. A headset mic will pick up your loud typing, sniffling, clearing your throat, and whatever. Even if you are working out of a sound-proofed office, and in a group call, mute your mic when not speaking.
- camgunz 6y ago
  I take your point—these are weird times. But one, hopefully they won’t last forever and remote work will be here to stay. Two, I’ve maybe never had a workplace that wasn’t full of distractions, including police sirens and dishwashing (but let’s toss in random political conversations, free lunch food, ping pong, doors slamming, etc etc). I’m on team Spolsky where everyone gets an office, but I’m also aware it’ll never, ever happen.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > A headset mic will pick up your loud typing, ... and whatever. Not necessarily. A cheap one will, since it acts as an omnidirectional microphone. A good one, however, will have a hypercardoid microphone and an externally directed second omnidirectional microphone hooked up to a noise canceling circuit that renders external sounds effectively inaudible. I can type on my keyboard with my Antlion mic on, and it's not audible to others (even though it's fairly loud to my ears). And yes, I tested this with a local recording first. That said, I agree that coughing, clearing your throat, and such are definitely mute moments.
  - LukeShu 6y ago
    I had a headset mic that worked fine as long as I plugged it directly in to my laptop. Then one day I plugged it in to the port on my laptop's dock, instead of the plug on the laptop itself. In the dock's port it was suddenly so sensitive that it was picking up the slightest sound out of the headphones (and immediately feeding back)! And a conversation going on in the neighboring conference room, that I couldn't even hear on my own! Unless you really focused on something it was just insane loud background noise. But, it was fine once I turned the mic volume down to like 2%. But also, my words could be made out even with the insane sensitivity--I guess that's pretty impressive dynamic range. So: 1. If you're picking up things on the mic you think you shouldn't, try turning down the mic's volume, it might be that your voice stays loud enough, but everything else drops off. 2. If you're getting background noise now, it might not be your new setting, it might be your computer hardware. If you're using different computing hardware maybe you need to fuss with the volume even though it's the same headset as before.
- xboxnolifes 6y ago
  > A headset mic will pick up your loud typing, sniffling, clearing your throat, and whatever. It won't if you spend 2 minutes setting your audio thresholds.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  This is just not true in my experience. A poor-quality headset mic and sub-standard audio software might. People dialing in on a phone should always be muted at all times, even when they have something to say, because phone quality with Zoom isn't good. But on my laptop, with my headphones, I can even chew and no sound is transmitted at all. I can see this on my real-time level monitor, and have confirmed it with others. I don't eat during meetings, but I could. Typing and sniffing sounds like people using a built-in laptop mic as a speakerphone, not a headset.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    > A poor-quality headset mic and sub-standard audio software might. In a conference with 10 people, 7 will be on Windows PC's with on-board RealTek, where the only mic control in the control panel is a basic gain and a mute checkbox, or else with some cheap USB headsets, 2 will be on the road with their phones, and 1 will be on a Mac. You will never get a conference with everyone having True Scotsman hardware and drivers, and so the general rule has to be for everyone to mute.
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      In conferences with 10 people at my company, it's 10 MacBooks, and more than half are using either AirPods or AirPods Pro. At least if they're all engineers. I don't usually get into meetings with accountants. Look, I'm all in favor of people muting by default, especially in larger meetings. But when I chat with my team, 2-5 people usually, the only person who mutes himself usually is the one Linux user.
- gomox 6y ago
  Not necessarily. I can vacuum my house with my Bluetooth headset and you can't hear it on the other end. Your issue is with people that use ambient microphones, more than with people that don't mute.
notatoad 6y ago
i'm not sure why you're getting downvoted because this is, as far as i can tell, the central point of the whole piece: the most important thing you can do for making a properly immersive, high-quality video call is to isolate yourself away from background noise. once you've done that, then go ahead start geeking out over the quality of your mic, your camera quality, your backlighting, and all the other details. but if you can't isolate yourself from background noise, then there's no point in getting fancy equipment for the rest of the stuff. just put yourself on mute and use your laptop's built in mic and webcam, because nothing you try will fix the background noise.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted either, but I guess many people find it hard to believe that not everybody has the same experiences they do? Like, I don't have a baby crying in my house because I don't have a baby. Or pets. If you do, stay muted. Where I live my environment is very, very quiet. Which the article says is step 1. If you can't do step 1, then yeah, this article isn't for you.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I think people were mostly reacting to the suggestion that you don't need to mute in a quiet environment. Which I sort of agree with in a small call where people are having back and forth conversation with each other. If I'm in a 1:1 I don't mute. But it's still a good idea on larger calls or even a smaller one where you're just going to be listening to a presentation. In general, there's not a lot of cost associated with going on mute.

kazinator 6y ago

> don't work in a place where babies crying or dish-washing or police sirens are an issue I.e. don't work in the middle of a global pandemic. A headset mic will pick up your loud typing, sniffling, clearing your throat, and whatever. Even if you are working out of a sound-proofed office, and in a group call, mute your mic when not speaking.

camgunz 6y ago
I take your point—these are weird times. But one, hopefully they won’t last forever and remote work will be here to stay. Two, I’ve maybe never had a workplace that wasn’t full of distractions, including police sirens and dishwashing (but let’s toss in random political conversations, free lunch food, ping pong, doors slamming, etc etc). I’m on team Spolsky where everyone gets an office, but I’m also aware it’ll never, ever happen.
falcolas 6y ago
> A headset mic will pick up your loud typing, ... and whatever. Not necessarily. A cheap one will, since it acts as an omnidirectional microphone. A good one, however, will have a hypercardoid microphone and an externally directed second omnidirectional microphone hooked up to a noise canceling circuit that renders external sounds effectively inaudible. I can type on my keyboard with my Antlion mic on, and it's not audible to others (even though it's fairly loud to my ears). And yes, I tested this with a local recording first. That said, I agree that coughing, clearing your throat, and such are definitely mute moments.
- LukeShu 6y ago
  I had a headset mic that worked fine as long as I plugged it directly in to my laptop. Then one day I plugged it in to the port on my laptop's dock, instead of the plug on the laptop itself. In the dock's port it was suddenly so sensitive that it was picking up the slightest sound out of the headphones (and immediately feeding back)! And a conversation going on in the neighboring conference room, that I couldn't even hear on my own! Unless you really focused on something it was just insane loud background noise. But, it was fine once I turned the mic volume down to like 2%. But also, my words could be made out even with the insane sensitivity--I guess that's pretty impressive dynamic range. So: 1. If you're picking up things on the mic you think you shouldn't, try turning down the mic's volume, it might be that your voice stays loud enough, but everything else drops off. 2. If you're getting background noise now, it might not be your new setting, it might be your computer hardware. If you're using different computing hardware maybe you need to fuss with the volume even though it's the same headset as before.
xboxnolifes 6y ago
> A headset mic will pick up your loud typing, sniffling, clearing your throat, and whatever. It won't if you spend 2 minutes setting your audio thresholds.
pwinnski 6y ago
This is just not true in my experience. A poor-quality headset mic and sub-standard audio software might. People dialing in on a phone should always be muted at all times, even when they have something to say, because phone quality with Zoom isn't good. But on my laptop, with my headphones, I can even chew and no sound is transmitted at all. I can see this on my real-time level monitor, and have confirmed it with others. I don't eat during meetings, but I could. Typing and sniffing sounds like people using a built-in laptop mic as a speakerphone, not a headset.
- kazinator 6y ago
  > A poor-quality headset mic and sub-standard audio software might. In a conference with 10 people, 7 will be on Windows PC's with on-board RealTek, where the only mic control in the control panel is a basic gain and a mute checkbox, or else with some cheap USB headsets, 2 will be on the road with their phones, and 1 will be on a Mac. You will never get a conference with everyone having True Scotsman hardware and drivers, and so the general rule has to be for everyone to mute.
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    In conferences with 10 people at my company, it's 10 MacBooks, and more than half are using either AirPods or AirPods Pro. At least if they're all engineers. I don't usually get into meetings with accountants. Look, I'm all in favor of people muting by default, especially in larger meetings. But when I chat with my team, 2-5 people usually, the only person who mutes himself usually is the one Linux user.
gomox 6y ago
Not necessarily. I can vacuum my house with my Bluetooth headset and you can't hear it on the other end. Your issue is with people that use ambient microphones, more than with people that don't mute.

notatoad 6y ago

i'm not sure why you're getting downvoted because this is, as far as i can tell, the central point of the whole piece: the most important thing you can do for making a properly immersive, high-quality video call is to isolate yourself away from background noise. once you've done that, then go ahead start geeking out over the quality of your mic, your camera quality, your backlighting, and all the other details. but if you can't isolate yourself from background noise, then there's no point in getting fancy equipment for the rest of the stuff. just put yourself on mute and use your laptop's built in mic and webcam, because nothing you try will fix the background noise.

pwinnski 6y ago
I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted either, but I guess many people find it hard to believe that not everybody has the same experiences they do? Like, I don't have a baby crying in my house because I don't have a baby. Or pets. If you do, stay muted. Where I live my environment is very, very quiet. Which the article says is step 1. If you can't do step 1, then yeah, this article isn't for you.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I think people were mostly reacting to the suggestion that you don't need to mute in a quiet environment. Which I sort of agree with in a small call where people are having back and forth conversation with each other. If I'm in a 1:1 I don't mute. But it's still a good idea on larger calls or even a smaller one where you're just going to be listening to a presentation. In general, there's not a lot of cost associated with going on mute.