The RODECaster Pro is an audio interface and recorder that took the creator
community by storm a couple of years ago when it was released.
This is because it's packed with so many features that we wanted
in a piece of gear.
Now, after a year and some change of personally using one
within my own production workflow, let me tell you 10 things that I like
and then 10 things that I don't like about the RODECaster Pro.
Here are the 10 things I like about the RODECaster Pro.
Number one, it's amazing at doing audio for live streams.
The interface is super easy to navigate.
For example, if you needed to raise the volume of your computer audio
during a live stream
all you would need to do is bring up the little USB fader right here.
If you need to mute something fast,
just click the little buttons right there and it's muted.
The second thing that I like are the preamps.
They work as expected.
There might be more expensive, better preamps out there.
There's definitely cheaper ones.
And I feel like the RODECaster Pro just does a good job.
Number three, you have multiple headphone outs and you have volume control
of all of those headphone outs right here, as well as your speaker out on the side.
And for number four esthetically, they did an amazing job with this piece of gear.
You have your pads right here.
The way that these light up in all of these different little pads right here.
And I think the greatest compliment on top of all of this is my kids.
What they love to do is just come in here
and see the pads light up as they hit them.
Number five, the ease of use when it comes to audio processing within the unit.
So you can add things like EQ and compression,
and they even have presets for their own microphones.
It makes it really easy for the user, even if they don't know much about audio,
to set the RODECaster Pro up the best that it can be for a specific situation.
Number six, you can simultaneously record internally on the SD card,
as well as use it as an audio interface with your computer.
I'm recording right here,
and I can also be sending the signal to my computer at the same time.
And speaking of sending your audio signal to your computer.
Number seven is the fact that the RODECaster Pro is always
recognized as an audio interface with any program that I've used.
This is a huge one for me, because nothing halts your creativity more
than technical difficulties when you're trying to use a program
and it won't even recognize your microphone.
Number eight is the ability to connect via Bluetooth.
So if you have a phone or another computer
and you want to connect the audio via Bluetooth, that's capable right here.
And all you're going to do is raise that fader.
Once you've connected it to your RODECaster Pro.
Number nine is the ease of use
when it comes to transferring your files from the SD card to your computer.
In most cases, the RODECaster Pro is already connected to the computer.
And it makes it easy to transfer files by just hitting the little SD card
emblem up there and switching it to file transfer mode.
Everything's in numerical order
and it's all within one folder, making it so much easier on the user.
Number 10 is a small thing, but I think it goes a long way.
I like that this device has at least one
three point five millimeter headphone jack on the front of the device.
And I like that they put it on the front because it's sitting on your desk
most of the time, and that's the one facing you.
So it makes it easier for the wire to droop down and not get in the way
while you're working.
Now, let's move on to 10 things that I dislike about the RODECaster Pro.
And it's really hard to find things to dislike about this piece of gear.
So some of these may be a stretch.
It's all my personal opinion, and even some of these may be
out of the realm of what the RODECaster Pro is even in control of.
But in a perfect world, these would be things that I would like
to see fixed or better within the RODECaster Pro.
The first thing I dislike
about the RODECaster Pro is the amount of electrical noise that you get
on the audio signal when you connect this directly to a mirrorless or DSLR camera.
Now, I'm well aware that the preamps on those types of cameras are notoriously
bad, but it would just be great if that wasn't a thing .
I have made a complete video on this subject where I tried
connecting the headphone out, the speaker out the three point
five millimeter out to my Sony a7s3,
my Sony A73, and my Sony Alpha 6400.
Every single one of those had some varying degree of noise on the signal.
Now, I could alleviate that with some noise reduction,
but it would be great if I didn't have to do that.
There was one way that I could get the signal out,
and that was with a wireless pack. So you have that option.
But again, I would just like to see it where there wasn't any electrical noise
if I connected a wire from the output to my camera.
The number two thing
I wish was better with the RODECaster Pro is the ability to have auxiliary sends.
Where this would be helpful is with things like live streams.
Let's say you wanted to hear the game volume at a certain level
in your headphones,
but you didn't want it to sound as loud for the people during the live stream.
Or let's say I was screen casting and recording a tutorial on Premiere Pro,
and I didn't want to send the computer audio to my camera,
but I did want to send the VO microphone to the camera.
Just the ability to split out signals and send them where you want.
This may be a capability within the RODECaster Pro.
If that is an option, please let me know in the comments.
If not, I would love to see it in the future.
Number three, I put on here just because I feel like I have to discuss it.
Since it happened to me a couple of times, I've had a snippet of
about a second or a couple of milliseconds of silence out of nowhere, so.
I'll be talking and then it'll just cut the.
It'll just be silence on the track and then it will pick up
like nothing ever happened.
I just recorded the video and now this is me in the future, editing
that video that you're watching on YouTube.
And what I was talking about just happened.
So inside Premiere right here, this is about
two hours of footage that I've now pared down into the video that you're watching.
But on the very first take by zoom in
right here is where my audio dropped out.
So let me just play it to you.
Here are 10 things that I love and ten-
(audio drops out) Starting with the No.
So it just cut out there for a couple seconds.
I'd like to point out that it's not like a processer thing
because it shows that I'm sending the signal out.
It is recording.
And you can see that the audio is right there for the on camera microphone.
It's just the audio that I brought on from my SD card.
It's gone. It's not there.
And for those that are curious, I was using Channel two,
and if I go to audio processing, there's no processing there.
And if I go to the level phantom powers on, I have the level
and there's no audio processing going on on the track.
It's just the raw signal from the microphone going to the SD card.
Like I said, there was about two hours of footage, and that's the only spot
where this happened.
I've looked up a lot of information about this online,
and I can't find anybody that has had this specific problem.
So it might be a SD card thing.
I have tried other SD cards, and I want to say that
I've gotten this issue with all of them.
I just want to say it's my specific RODECaster that's doing this.
I really believe in the products that RODE makes.
And hopefully this is just a one off where it just happens
to my specific RODECaster, I hope this is one of the reasons
why I would like to have the option of being able
to send the signal out from the RODECaster to my camera,
because I like having that backup for this specific situation.
I'm going to have to rerecord my intro now
because the audio cut out on my good take of my intro.
Number four isn't really a dislike, per se.
It's more to bring awareness to the fact that the RODECaster Pro collects dust.
So does every single other piece of gear you probably own.
It's just with the color of the RODECaster Pro dust
stands out a little bit more than, say, this gray tabletop.
You can purchase covers for the RODECaster Pro, if I can find some link them
in the description below. It's not too hard to clean.
Just something to be aware of.
Number five has to deal with the lack of mobility of the RODECaster Pro.
This device really shines in this kind of situation
where it's on a desk in front of a computer, where it's
not as good as if you needed to pack this thing up, go on the road
and then record in a remote location, which you can do.
They do sell a USB to power converter.
So if you have any kind of USB power pack, you could take this thing on the road
and not have to worry about plugging this into the wall.
That being said,
it is not as mobile as the Zoom H6 before the RODECaster Pro came along.
The Zoom H6 was the king among audio recorders in the podcasting community.
One thing that this thing still has over the RODECaster,
is the fact that it's so much smaller.
If I'm going on the road
to record a podcast, I'm still going to be using my Zoom H6.
Number six isn't a dislike I just had to get used to where the gain
and the level of your microphone input was on the RODECaster Pro
On a typical mixing board, you'll have the microphone input
and then you'll have a gain knob to set the gain of the microphone,
and then you'll have the level down here with the RODECaster Pro. It's different.
You can't set the gain of the microphone with a physical knob
anywhere on the interface in order to access the gain.
You have to click the actual input and hit level.
So right here is the level.
And then right here you have volume.
Just a little confusing on the terminology.
But again, it's just how I learned versus how others may learn the differences
between gain, level, volume, all those different things.
Number seven is that the RODECaster Pro only has XLR inputs
in tip ring sleeve or TRS outputs.
If you look at something like the Zoom H6 right here,
we have both the capability of TRS and XLR inputs with the RODECaster Pro.
You don't get that.
It would be nice.
And maybe that would be something that could solve that whole ground hum
issue if you had an XLR output to another XLR input on the camera.
Number eight is out of the control of the RODECaster Pro.
What would be really awesome in a perfect world is if the mute and volume
button still worked on your keyboard somehow while using the RODECaster Pro.
I'm sure there is some sort of software or hack out there where you could do that.
But just out of the box, using it as your audio
interface, you have to do that manually on the RODECaster Pro.
And that ties into No9, where I have an inconvenience
of having to mute or turn down the volume from the computer
every single time I need to do a voiceover.
So an example of this is in Premiere Pro, I'll go to record my voice over.
But in order to not have any feedback or hear any of the signal from the computer,
I have to manually turn down the signal from the computer, turn up the microphone
and make sure that my speakers are off record, the voice over.
And then when I want to hear that back.
I'll turn the volume of the speakers back up.
I'll mute the microphone
or turn it down so it doesn't feedback through the speakers and listen back.
And I have to do that every single time I do a voiceover so
compounded over time that gets really annoying.
I just wish that wasn't a thing. Number 10, again, isn't really a dislike.
It's just more of an inconvenience.
Every single time you turn off your computer,
you have to manually turn off the RODECaster Pro.
It'd be cool if there was some way that the computer could send a signal
to the RODECaster Pro.
When you're shutting your computer off to turn off the RODECaster Pro.
That way they both just turn off automatically by themselves.
And then when your computer turns on somehow the RODECaster Pro turns on.
But as it stands right now, you need to manually turn off
the RODECaster Pro when shutting down and turning on your computer.
So there's 10 things I like in 10 things I dislike about the RODECaster Pro.
A lot of the dislikes are more inconveniences, and most of them
are out of the RODECaster Pro's control, some of them are user error.
And like I said, I love this piece of gear
so much that it is a stretch to find things to dislike about this.
But I just feel like I had to be straight up with you
about some things that I disliked about the RODECaster Pro.
I like to approach these in the context of if you were to meet me in person
and ask me my opinion of the RODECaster Pro, what would I actually say to you?
And everything in this video is something that I would actually tell you
about my experiences with the RODECaster Pro.
Let me know in the comments down below what you think.
Do you have a RODECaster Pro? Are you looking to get one?
Hopefully this video helped answer one or two of the questions that you may have
had about the RODECaster Pro.
If not, you can put them in the comments down below. Until next time.
My name is Javier Mercedes.
I do a video tech tutorials and gear reviews on this channel.
And until next time, my name Javier Mercedes, I do gear reviews.
I'm just I believe in that in I'm leaving that in
till next time my name's.
Javier Mercedes.
I hope you're out there living a life of abundance, bye.