Connecting your Rodecaster Pro to a camera or an ATEM Mini makes a
lot of sense, but unfortunately it's not as simple as it should be.
So today I'll explain the best way I know how to solve this problem,
along with why I DON'T recommend it, and a few ways to use great sounding
Rodecaster Pro audio with your camera footage or your ATEM Mini.
And other than a few very specific settings, everything I'm talking about
applies to both the original Rodecaster Pro and the Rodecaster Pro II.
Both Rodecaster Pros have quarter inch audio outputs, but most cameras
have 3.5 millimeter audio inputs, so that means in order to connect
them, you'll need to use a Y cable.
Y do you need to use a Y cable?
Because it takes the two left and right quarter inch outputs and turns them
into one single 3.5 millimeter stereo
connector thingy.
The tricky part, unfortunately, is that not all cables are created equal,
and that's why I've waited so long to make this video.
I've literally spent the past four years since I originally got the
first Rodecaster Pro trying to find a reliable solution to this problem.
And this is as close as I've gotten.
And things get very tricky because see this cable here, it's a y cable.
Quarter inch, 3.5 millimeter.
See this cable here?
It's a Y cable, quarter inch, 3.5 millimeter.
They have the exact same specs.
They were even the same price.
Everything about these cables should be exactly the same,
but they don't work the same!
And that's the problem I've run into.
This red cable, as cool as it looks, does not work.
It does what most cables do, and it introduces a ton of noise and
interference, whereas this black cable is the only one I've ever found
that actually works somewhat reliably.
And here's actually what I'm talking about.
So everything you've been hearing so far has been audio recorded from the
Sennheiser MKH 50, right over here
into the Rodecaster Pro internally and then synced in Final Cut Pro.
And that's typically, when I'm using the Rodecaster Pro to record a video,
this is how I'm doing it most of the time, is just recording
separately and syncing the audio.
But if I didn't want to do that and I wanted to run the Rodecaster audio
into my ATEM Mini here, what I can do is connect that cable there,
run this into the microphone input.
Now I'm using that red cable connected to the ATEM Mini and I'm just recording
into QuickTime on my computer.
And from what I can hear, this actually sounds okay.
The ATEM is way more prone to clipping, which is frustrating, but
this sounds okay until–wait for it...
I'm going to open up Ecamm. (weird interference begins)
And now just depending on which application you have open, you
may or may not get some kind of interference in your signal.
Why?
I don't know.
It doesn't make sense.
And this, honestly, what I'm hearing right now is the least amount of
interference I've ever heard because of course I'm recording this, so
it's going to completely go away.
Kind of like when you take your car to the mechanic and then it
never makes that sound that it was making every time you drive it by yourself.
Sort of what's happening now. And right now, the only thing I've changed
in this setup is switching from the red cable to the black cable.
I've still got Ecamm,
everything I was doing to cause interference and
distortion is still happening.
Nothing else has changed except the cable I'm using, and this is
why I found the black cable to be significantly more reliable.
So the thing to emphasize here is that this cable is the only cable
I've ever found that has reliably worked to give a clean signal
output from the Rodecaster Pro into a camera or an ATEM.
So I'll put a link to this specific cable in the description, and I really
encourage you not to use anything else.
Don't use another cable unless you know for sure somehow that it's
definitely going to work for you.
And now I've been back on the internal audio from the Rodecaster Pro II.
So since we have this cable that works really well, let's talk about how to connect
this to a camera.
Fortunately, that's a very simple process.
All you need to do really is run the cable into your camera. On the Rodecaster Pro II
you do have the option to go into your output settings and change
your monitor to a fixed output level.
I think this is a very good idea because what that's going to do is give a
constant signal level to your camera and that way on your camera, which
is the audio you're hearing now, all you need to do is just the gain until
it is the level that you want it to.
on this Sony a7IV.
I have found that turning my audio gain to about 6 or 7 gives me
the levels that I want, and we're still using the Sennheiser MKH 50 running
through the Rodecaster Pro, running into the a7IV. With the Rodecaster
Pro I, which I have over here,
you do not have the option to do a fixed line output, or if you don't want to use
that on the Rodecaster Pro II, that's actually totally fine because then
you can just use the monitor volume
on the Rodecaster to adjust the output level.
It's just one more thing to keep track of because then you have to
keep track of your camera's gain and the Rodecaster's output gain in
addition to your mic input gains.
And the best rule of thumb with this stuff is to keep your
camera's gain as low as possible.
You don't want to boost it up because then you're going to get
a lot of noise and interference.
So try to let the Rodecaster handle
most of the input gain and then just put it in your camera and keep
it as low as possible while still getting a level that you want.
Again, everything you're currently hearing has been coming from the
a7IV, even when I haven't been looking directly into the a7IV.
Magic.
The magic of video editing. (shameless plug for my Final Cut Pro course, Rought Cut to Final Cut!)
Well here, actually, this is internal audio on the Rodecaster Pro, audio you're
hearing that's being recorded directly in here through these amazing preamps.
And now this is audio that's coming from the a7IV, the
Rodecaster running into the a7IV.
Hopefully they sound pretty similar.
Depending on your sound system and the volume that you're watching this, you may
be able to notice a bigger difference.
But the good news is this is definitely enough to get the job done if what
you want to do is connect your Rodecaster
to your camera, and now we're back on the internal audio here.
So what about running this Rodecaster Pro into the ATEM Mini?
Well, earlier when I did that quick example, it's kind of the same thing.
If I just take this cable out of my camera and then connect it to the mic
input of the ATEM Mini, the only other thing I need to do is make sure that
my mic channel is turned on and then I can use my up and down buttons to
adjust the gain level of the microphone.
The tricky thing is that some ATEM models also have headphone outputs,
and now that's one more thing to keep track of.
I have to keep track of what's happening in the actual Rodecaster Pro.
I have to keep track of the mic level going into the at and my headphone level.
Each of those is a chance for me to make a mistake and have something sound
not as good as I would like it to.
And so, like I mentioned earlier, one thing that I found about the
ATEM Mini is that it is more prone to easily distorting the audio.
And since you have zero visual feedback on the actual
device itself,
if you are running your ATEM into a computer, I definitely recommend
using the ATEM Software Control so that way you can have a better
idea of where your levels are.
Because if you go to the audio page on the Software Control, now we
can see my microphone one input.
I have a level here that I can control.
I also have a gain so I can really boost things up or bring it down.
If I bring up the gain you hear it gets noisy
very quickly.
It gets very, very noisy, but we don't need it that loud.
We'll turn this all the way down, and then we've got our master
output here along with our headphone volume here. But I think this
does get the job done. Right now
let's go back to the internal audio from the Rodecaster Pro II, so
you can hear what that sounds like.
This is going to be the highest quality possible, and now you're
hearing the audio from the ATEM Mini, the Rodecaster running into the ATEM.
Extreme ISO, but the audio handling the preamp is the same one
that's in any of the ATEM Mini models that have a microphone input.
Now that we're back on the internal audio from the Rodecaster Pro II,
you may have noticed a potential problem with this setup: this cable,
the one cable I've ever found that actually works, is three feet or one
meter long, which is not very long.
That might not be a problem if you have a setup like this where your Rodecaster is
really close to your ATEM and you can reach pretty easily, but reaching a
camera, I can't even reach the camera
that's just an arm's length away from me right now.
It won't reach there.
And I know what you might be thinking, "Tom, that's not a problem at all,
I'll just use a 3.5 millimeter extension cable and then I can
run the audio wherever I want."
That's what I thought once when I was a sweet summer child and I
didn't know any better.
But many years and many tears later, I have found that to be
very unreliable and something
that's probably not the best thing to do.
Unfortunately, I've never found an extension cable.
It doesn't introduce a significant amount of noise and interference when
trying to extend the output from either of the Rodecaster models, and that
includes everything from super affordable basic Amazon Basics cables like this.
To really nice high end cables like this one from Rode, which I've used
both of these with great success for instruments and headphones and
other microphones with no problems.
But in this specific situation, they're so frustrating to use.
So here's what I mean by that.
I'm going to connect this cable to an extension, run this into
the ATEM Mini, and now here we are again with more interference.
You can kind of hear a
buzzing sound that's coming from the ATEM.
A lot of times in my experience, it's also been a high pitched wine,
like kind of like an "eeeeeeeeee" sort of sound, like a mosquito is stuck in the line
and that is incredibly frustrating.
So this is what that sounds like.
Let's see if I can switch over to the Rode cable, which is a higher quality cable.
This is now with the Rode cable.
I think that interference is a little bit less, but it's still
there and it's still definitely not something that I would call usable,
because this is incredibly annoying, versus what you're hearing now, which
is just the internal audio from the Rodecaster, and it sounds fantastic.
Now, what I was really hoping to do for this video was provide a concrete
solution to say, "Hey, buy this cable and this extension, and then
you're going to get amazing results."
But unfortunately, that's just not something that I'm able to do.
So if you have a solution to this or you have any recommendations, feel
free to share them because I think that will be helpful to other people.
I know there are ways to get it done and to make it happen, but I haven't
found anything that is consistent and reliable, and I never want
to recommend anything if it's not going to be consistent and reliable.
I want to say, "Buy this, buy this, and then you're going to get these results for
sure," and I can't do that in this case.
The only thing that I think is pretty reliable is that this
black cable does work pretty well.
It's just super short, but this all leads into my last and probably my
most controversial point, which is why I DON'T think you should try
connecting your Rodecaster to a camera or an ATEM at all to begin with.
Aside from the frustration you've seen here, I think it's important to understand
the difference between camera preamps and something like the Rodecaster Pro.
Something like a camera or an ATEM Mini is designed to do so many different things.
My camera right now is recording 4K video.
There might be image stabilization.
It's processing all these colors.
It has so many super advanced, crazy things happening inside of it.
It's sending an HDMI signal out of the camera.
That audio quality on cameras
is usually a pretty low priority.
Same thing for the ATEM Mini.
It's an important feature to have.
That's why the ATEM has it.
That's why cameras have microphone inputs.
But this is doing so many other things.
Eight HDMI sources, keying, transitions, all this crazy stuff that having high
quality audio is just something that kind of ends up being lower on the priority.
This might not necessarily apply to things like cinema cameras or broadcast
cameras that have XLR inputs, and they are designed from the ground
up with audio production in mind.
But for most cameras, the preamps are pretty weak.
And for most things like the ATEM, the preamps are pretty weak.
They can definitely be usable and sometimes things like video mics and
stuff, or the absolute best solution.
But with a tool like the Rodecaster Pro.
the preamps on this thing are so good and it's so quiet.
Unlike the cameras and the ATEMs that are trying to do a
whole bunch of different things.
With this, every feature in it is designed to create high quality audio, and that is it.
So personally, the last thing that I would want to do is take that super high
quality audio from these really great preamps, and then run that into a weaker,
smaller, noisier preamp in a camera
or an ATEM, because I feel like there's no way that that's not going to degrade
the audio to at least some degree.
So what I recommend you do if possible, is to not even worry about using any
of these cables, but to rely on the internal audio from the Rodecaster Pro.
And there are a few ways to do this
and fortunately, they're all pretty simple.
The first one, especially if you're using the ATEM Mini and you're
using it with a computer, is just connect the Rodecaster Pro to your
computer through USB.
That's what I do most of the time.
And then in your streaming software like Ecamm or OBS, you can select your video
source, you can select the Rodecaster as your audio source, and then you're
going to get the best quality audio from the Rodecaster Pro II possible.
It's going to be just as good as the internal audio would be.
The beauty of doing things that way is that it will merge
your audio and your video.
So even if you're not streaming, you can still use software like Ecamm or OBS
to just record into your computer, and then you're going to have your video and
your audio synced together perfectly.
But if you don't have a capture card or you want the absolute best quality
possible, like the ATEM is limited to 1080p, sometimes cameras over
USB are limited to 1080 or 720.
So if you want the absolute best quality from your camera and the best quality
audio from your Rodecaster, what I recommend is doing what I'm doing right
now and just recording separately.
Record internally to your camera, record internally to the Rodecaster, and then
just sync them in your editing software.
Just be sure to clap on camera after you start recording, and then you can match up
the spike from that clap with the visual of you clapping and your audio should then
all stay in sync and be super easy to use.
It feels like that's a tedious thing to do, but it's not that difficult
once you get the hang of it, and depending on the editing software you're using,
it might be able to automatically sync your audio and video together too for you.
Now, everything I've talked about
could be resolved if the Rodecaster had a 3.5 millimeter output.
And as much as I love both versions of the Rodecaster Pro, a while back
I did a review on the Focusrite Vocaster Two, and this has a dedicated
3.5 millimeter output for a camera.
This is just a simple interface, so it's just for connecting two microphones
basically, and that's it.
Then running it through your computer. But it has a dedicated output for a camera
in addition to the quarter inch outputs like the Rodecaster Pro has, and that
means you can very easily use a 3.5 millimeter aux cable, run this
from here to your camera, to an ATEM, and get crystal clear audio with no
interference or anything like that.
That doesn't mean it's a direct alternative because it doesn't do all of
the amazing stuff that the Rodecaster does.
It's basically just an interface, but it is a really solid interface,
and if you just need one or two microphones and you want to run
that audio into your camera, this is a very easy way to do that.
And once I saw a very easy solution on a less expensive interface,
it did make me kind of wish that
the Rodecaster just had that from the start, because this is such a
common problem that seems like it would have such a simple solution.
But unfortunately the solution is anything but simple, honestly.
And again, while there are ways to solve that problem, I personally
prefer to stick with internal recording on the Rodecaster Pro or direct USB
connections as often as possible to avoid any potential issues and to keep
my audio quality as high as possible.
And speaking of things that are high quality, thank you to everyone
who helps support my channel through Patreon and YouTube Channel Memberships.
It genuinely does mean the world to me.
And one thing I think a question a lot of people have is how is the Rodecaster mounted?
The Rodecaster Pro II has a built-in VESA mount on the back of it
so any generic arm will work.
I can put a link to this one, but this is just a generic
monitor arm I found on Amazon.
I think it was like $25 or $30.
But it's great not to have this on the desk.
It makes it heck of a lot more versatile.
The Rodecaster Pro I doesn't have that built-in Mount, but I've heard of
people having luck with arms for laptops.
Sometimes there are arms and they have a platform that can put a laptop on it,
and some people have had great luck putting their original Rodecaster Pro
on that, and then it's off the desk.
It saves a lot of space and it also makes you feel like you're super
futuristic in space– so you can feel like you're in space while saving space!