Recording room audio from only one side.

[stevenmogle]

This might be an esoteric question, but I'm going to be conferencing calling with some friends present in my home and some over the internet. My solution to this (rather than having everyone get their own computer and laptop even though we're in the same room) is to have a room microphone picking up everyone's voice. The issue is, I'm going to be playing music as well and don't want that to be picked up.

So, on one side of the room I have all my friends who need to be heard, and on the other side, I have my tv where I want music to be heard by people in the room, but not conference callers over the microphone.

I'm a little stuck as to how to make this work, exactly, if it is even possible. Would a sound dampening divider between the microphone and tv work well enough? The music isn't going to be too loud, I want people to be able to have a normal conversation in the room, after all.

 

[americanaudiophile]

The music will be heard by the conference callers. A sound dampening divider will reduce but not eliminate the music.
If the room mic were at least somewhat directlonal that would help. You maybe able to block parts of the mic to do that.
If each participant had their own lapel mic that would reduce it too.