Using the live tab in a Zoom lesson

This is for teachers who give private lessons over Zoom, Meet, Teams or FaceTime and want students to see the live tab during the call. The simplest way is to make OBS your camera. Your OBS scene, with your camera and the live tab in it, then goes to the call as one picture. There are no streaming settings involved.

Before you start, add the live tab to your OBS scene as a Browser source. That is covered in Adding the live tab to OBS.

The steps

1. Start the OBS virtual camera. In OBS's Controls panel at the bottom right, click Start Virtual Camera. OBS now shows up to other apps as a webcam called OBS Virtual Camera, carrying your whole scene.
2. Pick it as your camera in Zoom. In Zoom, open Settings → Video and choose OBS Virtual Camera. In Meet, Teams or FaceTime, choose OBS Virtual Camera wherever the app picks its camera.
3. Pick your audio interface as the microphone. In Zoom's Settings → Audio, choose your audio interface, so students hear your voice and guitar straight from the interface.
4. Turn on Original Sound for Musicians. In Zoom it is under Settings → Audio → Advanced. Once you are in the meeting, click Original Sound at the top left of the meeting window. Without it, Zoom's voice processing squashes guitar tone and clips sustained notes.
5. Teach as usual. Press Record in Fret Beam, play the lick, and the tab appears in your OBS scene, so the student sees it in the call.

Start the virtual camera before you join the call, and keep OBS open the whole time. If OBS quits, Zoom's picture freezes on the last frame.

Common questions

Can the student hear the click, drums or backing track? Not by default. Zoom only hears what your microphone hears, so the app's sound stays in your headphones. To share it, use Zoom's Share Screen → Advanced → Computer Audio, which shares sound only, not your screen.

Can I record the lesson at the same time? Yes. Click Start Recording in OBS during the call to keep a local recording of the lesson at your own recording quality, whatever the call looks like on the student's end.

Can I start Record without touching the computer? Yes. Record can be triggered by voice, a key, a footswitch, or a phone or tablet used as a remote. See Setting up a footswitch and Using an iPad as a remote.

The tab box in OBS is blank. Fret Beam has to be running. See Troubleshooting.