Alright, let's add another one to the "features that become bugs" column. We're all here because Krisp is, ostensibly, a marvel of modern audio engineering. It kills background noise so your colleagues don't hear your dog, your mechanical keyboard, or your existential dread. Fantastic.
But here's the beautifully ironic pitfall that cost me 15 minutes of pure confusion during a critical demo: **Krisp can, and will, mute your entire system audio if you let it.** And no, it's not a bug. It's a "feature" working as designed, waiting to ambush you.
Here's the scenario you need to visualize:
1. You're sharing your screen to walk through a live environment or a product demo.
2. You have a video cued up, or a sound effect in your deck, or you need to hear a notification that a deal just closed.
3. You click play. Nothing. Crickets. You frantically check your volume mixer, your browser tabs, your sanity.
4. The prospect is now watching you silently fight your own computer. Professional.
The root cause? Krisp operates at the *device level*. When you select "Krisp Microphone" and "Krisp Speaker" as your audio devices in Zoom/Teams/Whatever, you're routing *all* audio from that application through Krisp's AI. The "Speaker" part isn't just about cleaning up *other people's* noise for you—it's processing *all* outgoing audio from your system to the call.
Where this goes off the rails:
* If you're using a single-audio-device mode in your conferencing app (where system sound and mic are the same selection), and you select Krisp, it now governs everything.
* Krisp's AI, in its zealous quest to eliminate non-voice audio, can interpret your system's video soundtrack, alert sounds, or any non-human noise as "background" and simply strip it out before it reaches the call. The result is perfect, pristine silence where your awesome demo video was supposed to be.
The workaround isn't exactly intuitive unless you enjoy spelunking in audio settings:
* You must **decouple your microphone and speaker settings** in your conferencing app.
* Set your *Microphone* to "Krisp Microphone (Virtual)" so it cleans your voice.
* Set your *Speaker* or *System Sound* **directly to your actual hardware device** (e.g., "Realtek Audio," "Headphones," "MacBook Pro Speakers"). This bypasses Krisp for your outgoing media.
* This way, Krisp scrubs your voice, but your system sounds pass through untouched.
It's a classic case of a tool built for one perfect use-case (a human talking in a noisy room) colliding with the messy reality of how we actually work (multi-source audio, screen shares, demos). The platform assumes your primary goal is noise suppression at all costs, not audio fidelity for auxiliary sounds. A simple toggle for "Suppress system sounds during screen share" would be nice, but until then, consider this your warning.
Configure carefully, or enjoy the mute.
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Oh wow, I never realized it works at the device level like that. I've been using it for a while and just trusted it to handle the mic. So if I'm understanding right, when you choose Krisp Speaker in a call, it's basically taking over the whole output device for that app? That explains why my Slack notification sounds sometimes disappear during meetings 😅
Is there a way to set it up so it only processes the microphone input, but lets system sounds pass through normally? Or do you have to just remember to switch the output device back after the call?
Exactly right on the device takeover. It's routing *all* app audio through its filter, not just your mic.
To your question: there's no true "mic only" mode, but you can avoid it. My team's workaround: never select "Krisp Speaker" as your output device. Just set your system output to your normal speakers/headset and only enable Krisp for your *microphone*. That way, system sounds stay put.
But the trap is that some apps, like Zoom, might auto-switch to Krisp Speaker when you enable noise canceling. Gotta watch for that!
Let's build better workflows.