Banana/Zoom: "echo" from using multiple microphones

[buckyswider]

Hi there, I'm using Banana with Zoom to host an in person & virtual meeting (monthly meeting of my volunteer fire company) in a medium sized room (usually 30-40 live participants). In order to make sure anyone is heard while speaking, I employ 3 USB microphones are various places in the room. 2 are omnidirectional (JLab Talk Go) and one is the mic built in to the USB camera. They're set up in roughly a triangle with 20 foot (6 meter) legs.

For the first two years, I struggled through Voicemeeter without much research- and it was horrible. Hey, I used a physical mixer enough in my life- this is the same, right??! Then I finally found the video which explains how to use Banana with Zoom, and set up my inputs and outputs properly, using the virtual ins and outs and changing my default devices in the windows sound mixer. A 1000% improvement.

One thing I can't seem to tame is the echo caused by the multiple in-room microphones. It's slight, but annoying enough that some online participants say they can't really understand the people in the room. Other than active mixing- i.e. muting all but the microphone closest to the speaker at the time- can anybody suggest a way to solve this? I do record and I definitely notice this in the recordings, too. If it helps, I can put a snippet of the meeting up on youtube with a private link so you guys can see (hear) what I'm talking about.

Thanks!

[Vincent Burel]

did you watch our video tutorial: https://youtu.be/nIpt3jF0Nds

[buckyswider]

did you watch our video tutorial: https://youtu.be/nIpt3jF0Nds

Yes, that's the video I was talking about in my second paragraph! Is there something in there you think I may have missed that could be causing my echo? I did make sure that the mics are only route to the virtual outputs that are appropriate...

[Vincent Burel]

assuming the echo does not come from the caller...
if you have several MIC, you can get sound with different delay from each MIC, that can create echo effect (usually < 100ms)
so you may use Gate FX to prevent all mic to capture all sound source in the same time.

[thpe@eadania.dk]

Dear Vincent if there a tutorial on FX Gate use?

[buckyswider]

assuming the echo does not come from the caller...
if you have several MIC, you can get sound with different delay from each MIC, that can create echo effect (usually < 100ms)
so you may use Gate FX to prevent all mic to capture all sound source in the same time.

Thanks Vincent. Not coming from callers- 90% of the audio is in the room. And it's very evident in the zoom recordings.

I'll try to play with the gate- next monthly meeting next week.

[buckyswider]

Just to close the loop on this- that did the trick! I used a moderate gate setting of around 2.5. I still noticed just the slightest of echos, so I'll experiment with going a little more aggressive next month. Thanks for the tip!