This blog post is going to look at how to improve your video and audio set up with Zoom for teaching dancing/fitness online. A previous blog covers the basic set up which you can find here: https://swamphen.co.uk/new-blog/2020/3/19/how-to-optimise-zoom-for-teaching-dancingfitness-classes There are a few additinal things you can do to improve your set up, but they do all require additional purchases. I have linked some of the items I use to record my online tech learning courses as they are the ones I’ve tried and tested. I spent yesterday re-modelling our spare room into what is now called the ‘activities’ room. We removed the bed, put softbox lights up, created sound dampening, added external speakers an external monitor etc so there is a good place for me to go and do my dance classes that are moving online.
My new activity room looks like this. Note the sound absorbing matress and laundry (they make a huge difference to your sound quality!).
and looking the other way where the camera, monitor, speaker, lights and laptop are:
WHERE TO SET UP
If you are struggling to see everyone on your laptop you could look at connecting your laptop to an external monitor or your TV with a HDMI cable. This gives you a bigger screen to see everyone on, and therefore each student’s images will not be quite so small.
If the speakers on your laptop are not great you could consider connecting your laptop to an external speaker. Don’t do this via Bluetooth though, make sure you use a cable. If you use Bluetooth you get a few seconds delay added in between the sound your laptop is giving out and the sound the external speaker is giving out. You will look like you have dreadful timing and confuse everyone! The speaker I use as shown above is a Tribit StormBox and you can get it from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3bysGtl
In addition to finding somewhere big enough to set up flooring could be an issue. In this kind of situation, you can cope with carpet for most things, tap does not fall into this category. So, you could dismantle your table or get some plywood, but I would suggest a tap board form the amazing folks at Tap Dance UK. I’ve had one for a couple of years now and it is easily storable and sounds amazing. Size 6 tap shoes for scale. Get yours at: https://tapdanceuk.com/resources/practice-boards/
Although, having just done an online ballet class on the carpet in my new activities room I am very tempted to either rip it up and dance on the floorboards, or buy some harlequin dance floor to put down. It will be great training for my feet as I don’t think they have ever worked so hard.
WHERE TO PUT THE WEBCAM
You can consider using two webcams and swapping between them. You could set one up for distance so all of you can be seen when demonstrating, and one for a head shot when you are looking at students on your laptop. Or if you can’t get all of you in on one shot, you could set on up for your head and arms and another for your feet and swap accordingly. There are several options and Zoom allows 2 webcams with no problems. My external web cam is a logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 (seen ontop of my external monitor) available from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3agent3
If you do use an external webcam, there are a couple of additional settings needed in Zoom to show it properly. Click the up arrow to the side of ‘stop video’ on the bottom left hand of the screen (where the curser arrow is in the below image) and choose ‘video settings’ then ‘original ratio’ and ‘enable hd’.
HOW TO PLAY MUSIC
Playing your music is best done through the laptop you are using for Zoom, this set up can’t be improved but you can improve how you are heard by using a lavaliere (or lapel / throat) radio microphone. This is a microphone that you wear on your top and it transmits over radio frequencies to a receiver which you plug into your laptop’s headphone port. This will give you much better vocal sound quality on your recordings and you will be able to increase the music volume. I use a Rode Wireless Go mic for my online courses which you can get from Amazon: https://amzn.to/33Jwwx2 I have found this to be an excellent mic. The good thing about this one for teaching dancing is you can easily unclip your mic from your top and put it on the floor next to your tap board so the taps can be heard even more clearly!
If you want to connect both a speaker and a mic to your laptop, then you will need to get an audio splitter as you will probably only have one headphone input.
One more thing to consider is the acoustics of your room. If you have a lot of flat hard surfaces you are going to have a lot of reflections. You could put up some sound absorbing sheets if you are going professional, or I find my clothes horses full of clothes excellent at sound absorbing. As the bed in our new activity room has been dismantled and put in the loft we now also have a mattress leaning on the wall, which has drastically improved the acoustics in the room.
VISUALS
If you want to improve how your set up looks then you could consider using a backdrop or some lights. A backdrop may be one stage too far (but that is why I have a giant whiteboard on the wall as I use it as the backdrop for my tech courses), but excellent lighting makes a huge difference to how you look. You can get professional soft lights incredibly cheaply these days and they make a big difference. The ones I have are Neewer Softbox and you can get them from Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2xY0elQ
Before the Softbox, picture taken with the web cam set up:
With the Softbox showing the correct colouring of the room, still taken with the webcam set up:
Good luck everyone and I hope your lessons transition online smoothly. I’m off to go and do a tap class now.
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