High-Quality Audio for Zoom: Inter-App Routing with Ableton Live and BlackHole

Case Study

Zero-Latency Mic Effects and High-Quality Music Sharing in Zoom

The Client’s Challenge

I recently worked with a client, a breathwork teacher, who needed to elevate the technical quality of their online sessions. They were using a professional setup for production but struggling to translate that quality to Zoom.

The client wanted to facilitate sessions in Zoom by routing their microphone through Ableton Live (via their RME Babyface Pro FS) to apply vocal effects and share high-quality backing music simultaneously.

The immediate issues were twofold:

High Latency: When monitoring the microphone through Ableton Live and into Zoom, the delay made speaking and facilitating impossible.
Poor Audio Quality: The music shared via Zoom’s default settings lacked the clarity and depth required for a high-quality meditative experience.

The core challenge was how to create a reliable audio pathway between Ableton Live, which handles the processing, and Zoom, which handles the broadcast.

Session Setup

I connected remotely via AnyDesk to the client’s macOS system. This was crucial for managing the fiddly, multi-step process of installing a virtual driver and configuring both the macOS Audio MIDI Setup and the internal settings of Ableton Live and Zoom.

Diagnosis

The client already had a professional, low-latency setup for personal recording, but the chain broke down when trying to route the signal out of Ableton and into another application (Zoom).

The Solution: We needed a virtual audio loopback driver to act as a digital “cable” between the two programs.

The Problem: There is no standard, reliable way for one application (Ableton Live) to hand off its main mixed output to another application (Zoom) as an input source as an included feature within OSX.

The Fix

The solution required configuring three distinct elements: a new driver, an Aggregate Device, and new routing in Ableton Live.

1. Installing the Virtual Driver

First, we installed BlackHole, a free virtual audio driver, to act as the digital patch cable between the applications.

2. Creating an Aggregate Device

Next, we opened Audio MIDI Setup in the macOS Utilities folder and created a new Aggregate Device, which we named “Babyface + BlackHole.” We enabled both the physical Babyface Pro FS and the new BlackHole driver within this device. This step allows Ableton Live to see both devices as one single interface.

3. Configuring Ableton Live

Audio Device: In Ableton Live’s Audio Settings, we set the Input and Output Device to the newly created Babyface + BlackHole Aggregate Device.
Routing the Output: To send the entire mix (Mic + Effects + Music) to Zoom, we needed to loop the main output of Ableton back onto an audio track.
- We created a new Audio Track and named it “Send to Zoom.”
- We set the track’s Audio From to Main (or whatever the main output bus is named).
- Crucially, we muted the track and then set its Audio To output to BlackHole’s output channels (in this case, channels 15/16 of the Aggregate Device).
- Finally, we set the track’s Monitor to In to ensure the main mix was always looping onto this track.

4. Configuring Zoom

In the Zoom audio settings, we made two key changes:

Microphone (Input): We selected the BlackHole driver as the microphone source. This feeds the processed, high-quality mix directly from Ableton Live into the Zoom session.
Audio Quality: We activated the “Original Sound for Musicians” setting. This bypasses Zoom’s built-in compression and noise-reduction algorithms, ensuring the music and voice clarity are preserved.

Result

The client was now able to adjust the microphone gain cleanly using the RME TotalMix software and have that signal, with effects, routed to Zoom with no noticeable latency, alongside their high-quality backing tracks.

Reflection

This setup is complex, but it demonstrates the power of creative inter-app audio routing. When software isn’t designed to communicate, a virtual driver can bridge the gap. The solution allowed the client to maintain a professional audio chain that maximised quality, proving that reliable, broadcast-ready audio is achievable even through common conferencing platforms.

Closing Thoughts

I help musicians and producers worldwide solve problems like this every day. If you’re struggling with inter-app audio routing or getting high-quality sound into Zoom, I’ll help you fix it and get back to creating.

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