- If you're considering whether you want to master the RODECaster or hop on over to the 2i2, this video will focus on what's right with the Focusrite Scarlett
2i2 USB audio interface. (upbeat music) And this is a question
I actually get a lot. Several times each week, people ask, should they get the RODECaster
Pro or the Scarlett 2i2. And I will jump straight
to the conclusion here and say that these are not
really competing products at all. They're incredibly popular
in the podcasting space. But they aren't very competitive. The RODECaster is about $600 and the Scarlett is about 150, $160. As usual with my reviews
and comparisons like this, I'm gonna spoil everything upfront and just hope that you
stick around for the rest. So, here's who each of these are for. The Focusrite is a USB interface that lets you connect to XLR
microphones to your computer. And that's pretty much it. It has a decent amount of gain. It has some functionality
and controls on the front. But really, it just lets you
get the input from an XLR mic into your computer. The RODECaster on the other hand does have some overlapping features. It is a USB interface that will let you connect four XLR inputs along with a Bluetooth
input, a smartphone input, and a USB input and sound
pads all to your computer while out putting four
or five headphone outputs and a line output and an internal recorder
with built-in effects. So, if you want something
that is standalone. Right now, I literally
taped it a USB power brick to the back of my RODECaster with the USB adapter that Rode sells. So, it's literally a
standalone podcast studio. I could record up to four or more guests with this without ever
connecting it to a computer. I could even multi-track it internally. Now how I ended up with
the Focusrite Scarlett is that over the holidays last year, Buzzsprout where I host my podcast sent me this pretty
incredible care package, and it included the Focusrite in it. Which I was really excited to have, because I know that it is so popular. And I was curious about it. And it does have one killer feature that even though I have the
RODECaster really makes me absolutely love this for
a very specific use case. So, I'll explain that at the end of this. Focusrite does sell a solo version of this for just over $100. Usually that's what it sells for. But I would really recommend the 2i2. This is the third generation
and it's pretty terrific. It's incredibly well-built. It's all made out of metal. Even the knobs actually
feel amazing to turn. The buttons are very clicky. It's a really high quality piece of gear. And if you're somebody who just
wants to connect an XLR mic to your computer and you don't need any
other of the fancy stuff that the RODECaster offers, I would definitely recommend
the 2i2 over the solo, even though the solo is about $50 cheaper. Just because even if you do think you only need one microphone, you kinda never really know. And down the line, you may
want to connect instruments or another guest's microphone. You never really know. I think having two inputs and
two outputs is pretty amazing and that's a good bare minimum. So, I would recommend starting here, if you're gonna go with this lineup. And this is it. It's super duper compact. It just connects to
your computer via USBC. And once you get the Scarlett, you do need to download
their software application to make it work with your computer. It's a pretty easy process. You do have to create an account. Always a little bit annoying
when you have to do that just to get a thing working. But it's pretty easy. And then you can just
install the software. In the Settings, you can
adjust the sample rate all the way up to 192 kilohertz. And you can adjust the clock. And you can adjust your
Phantom power settings. You can also change the gain halo color. So around the gain knobs, you can select what
color you want it to be. Of course, by default it's
green, yellow, and red, because that makes sense. But because I am who I
am, I made good blue. So when these light up blue, that means I know there's a good signal. If it goes green, for
me, that means watch out. And if it's red, that
means you're clipping. Obviously, not something you wanna do. And on the front of the unit,
there are two XLR inputs. Each one has its own gain control. And each one also has an
instrument and an air button. So by default, they're line
level inputs for microphones and stuff like that. But if you press Instrument, it will then be adjusted
to something like a guitar or a bass, which we'll talk
about a little bit later. You've also got the air button, which I don't really use that much. But the air button basically
boosts the mid-level. And so, Focusrite's claim is that if you're somebody
who needs that boost or maybe you're a little quieter or your microphone kind
of needs that boost, it will give it to you. You've got your monitor input. There's a headphone jack, technic headphones with their own volumes. And there's also your monitor level. And then you can turn
Phantom power on or off. And Phantom power is universal. So it goes to both
inputs at the same time. On the back of the unit, there are the line
outputs, right and left. There's the USB connector
and then also a lock. So, we're gonna switch over
to this unit in a second. But let me pull in the
Rode video mic pro plus because something I've been waiting to do, specifically for this video, I haven't yet peeled off
on this nice glossy black, this little plastic here. So here we go. And even better. There's another one on the front. That was weird and unnecessary. But now the design really
shines of this thing. So we can focus right on the
things that are most important. So let me level with you about the levels. Let's try it out. I've got my Rode pod mic here. Of course, with the windscreen on it. I'm gonna plug this into input one. So, let's start out by turning
the game to nine o'clock. And then I'll switch over to the Focusrite in the pod mic right now. So, this is the pod mic. You probably can't hear much
because the levels are so low. So, I'm gonna keep turning up the gain, turning it all the way up. There we go. We're starting to see some indication that we're getting a good level of signal. So, if you're using this
as an XLR interface, how good does it sound? Let's see the noise floor. So right now it's turned
up almost all the way, which is giving me a decent level on my voice with the pod mic. But if I stopped talking, now you can kind of hear the
noise floor and the hiss level. If I turn that down to
where the noise is gone, which is right about 10 or 11 o'clock, you probably can't hear me very well. So what that means is if you're using a
relatively gain hungry mic, like the Shure SM7B, or even the pod mic, you might end up needing
some kind of gain booster like a CloudLifter or a FetHead in order to get the signal that you want. And we'll try this out in a second. But I just happened to have
my Shure SM57 right here, with it's super cool
looking windscreen on it. This is very similar to the 58 and other microphones like that, which aren't quite as gain hungry, or at least they don't
normally tend to be. So, let's plug this into input number two. And then see how it compares in terms of gain with the pod mic. So, I actually learned something in order to get this to work, it wasn't showing up on channel two. And then in Adobe Audition, I had to select specifically
stereo channel two. And that showed up. So, just know if you're switching
from channel one to two, or you doing multi-track,
you gotta make sure to specify which one. I know that sounds obvious, but hey, I'm learning along
with you right with this. So, right now here is the SM57. If I turn this down, it does still need quite a bit of gain. This is at about the
three o'clock position. And it sounds all right. And then if I, whoa, if I
crank that all the way up, we get a lot of background noise. And there we go. This is probably like the happy medium. What is that? Maybe like four o'clock on the gain dial. So what this kind of tells
me is you really want a mic that's not super gain hungry. Even the SM57 isn't quite as effective as I was hoping it would be. So, it kind of seems like
with a lot of XLR mics, you might need to just be
maxing out your gain knob, which is gonna give you plenty of volume. But the downside of that, is it's also gonna bring
up that background hiss that you can hear when I stopped talking. And that can be kind of frustrating. So, if we bring in something
like a CloudLifter, that should solve that problem. Let's take cloud, no, the pod mic and plug that into the CloudLifter. Plug the CloudLifter into the Focusrite. And then, we will also need
to turn on Phantom power to power the CloudLifter. Okay. So now that we've got Phantom power turned on with the CloudLifter, Phantom power's running
into the CloudLifter to give it it's gain boost. That's running into the pod mic. Let's check out our levels on the pod mic. If I turn it up now, I turn the SM7B down. And the pod mic up. Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. Using the CloudLifter with the RODECaster, I didn't notice much of a difference. But right now I've got the
gain knob turned to 12 o'clock. And my level is pretty much maxing out where it was at, you know,
all the way down five o'clock. If I turn, whoa. Okay. If I turn it up, wow. If I turn it up all the way,
this is what it sounds like. I'm barely talking and it's super loud. So, let's turn that way down. So, I can get a very, very
decent level with the pod mic and the CloudLifter, with the gain at pretty
much like 12 o'clock. And if I stopped talking, you can hear the noise
floor significantly quieter. Now the downside to this is you
have to add in another unit, the CloudLifter, which
isn't really a big deal except that this is
the double channel one. But the single channel
CloudLifter is $150. The Focusrite is $160 to get started. So, you're now spending
the same amount of money on the unit as just the
amplification for the unit. And that to me, isn't super ideal. Obviously, something maybe like a FetHead. And there's some cheaper
options you could find for gain boosters that might work and make it more reasonable. But it really seems like if
you're planning to use this with a dynamic mic,
that's kinda gain hungry, you're gonna need some sort of booster just because the preamps
aren't quite strong enough in here to handle it on its own. Let's check out the
CloudLifter with the SM57. All right. So with the SM57, it's very similar to the pod mic. I think I'm actually getting
a slightly higher reading at 12 o'clock. So that's kind of nice. And I start peaking, I start pre-clipping right
around three o'clock. And then I start, whoa. Okay. So, they're actually kind of similar. I thought for whatever
reason that the SM57 just wouldn't want as much
gain as the pod mic does. But it does. So, there we go. Now, the last thing
that I wanna check out, you might recognize
this bad boy over here, the Neewer NW-800. This was from my cheapest
mic on Amazon video. This looks like I'm holding a trophy. And if this mic won a trophy, it would be for the worst
sounding microphone that I own. And I'm sorry. I know other people have
gotten good results with this. But this thing I can not
get it to sound good. Here's why it's here though. This is a condenser style microphone. So what that means is we should be able to get a strong signal
out of this microphone without the CloudLifter and without maxing out our gain knobs. So, let's see if that's
something we can do. I've now switched back to the pod mic running through the
CloudLifter on channel one with the gain at about 12 o'clock. And that's so I can steal this
cable from this microphone. Plug it into this microphone. Since I've got the CloudLifter connected, I've already got Phantom power turned on. Just a couple of notes about
CloudLifters and Phantom power, the power does not go
through the gain amplifier. So, it's powered by Phantom power, but nothing is going
through to your microphone. So you can't use a Phantom
power device with a CloudLifter. It just doesn't work. Similarly, I do wanna
differentiate that Phantom power and a gain booster are not the same thing. That's another question that I get a lot. Instead of buying a CloudLifter, can I just turn on
Phantom power for my SM7B or my pod mic or something? And the answer is no. That actually just won't do anything. Probably won't hurt the microphone, but it's not gonna boost the signal because Phantom power is
literally powering the microphone through the XLR cable. But it's not boosting the existing signal which is what the CloudLifter is doing. This is why this is not a microphone test. 'Cause this microphone is going to sound worse than this one. But we're looking at levels. And this is the only condenser
style microphone I have. So, you gotta work with
what you got sometimes. So, let's turn down the pod
mic and turn up the NW-800. And this is pretty much exactly what I was hoping would be the case, which is I've got the gain
knob turned up to 12 o'clock with the NW-800. And I have plenty of volume. If I max this out, I can
go all the way back here. I can barely talk right now. I'm like whispering, but the
noise floor is really loud. I have a really long
joke about microphones. But I'll need to condense it a little bit to make it more dynamic. So what this means is you
might actually wanna consider using a condenser style
microphone with this, just because the Phantom
power is going to give you so much more gain without
having to add in a CloudLifter. The downside being cheap
condenser microphones like this do not sound great. I know we're talking about condensers, but I'm gonna switch
back over to the pod mic. The thing with condensers
though is by their very nature, they tend to pick up more sound. So, they'll pick up more room tone. They will pick up, you know, keyboards. They'll pick up ambient
noise and stuff like that more easily than a
dynamic microphone will. So, whether or not a condenser
will be the right choice for you, only you can decide. But just based on my experience, it seems like it might
actually be the way to go for the Focusrite. So with all that being
said for $150, two inputs, everything it can do, I
think this is a great deal if you just need to
connect an XLR microphone to your computer. That noise floor may or may
not be a problem to you. Also, depending on which
microphone you're using. And the fact that you're using this means you are using some software already, whether it's GarageBand
or Logic, Audition, Audacity, something else. Your software probably has
some sort of noise reduction effect built into it. So maybe if that noise floor is annoying, you can just adjust it. And this is great because now you can use all these different style XLR microphones with not just podcasting in your computer, but then they just become an
input source for anything. If you're doing streaming,
video calls, Zoom, all that stuff, now
you can use an XLR mic. And there's just so much more variety in available XLR microphones
than there are USB microphones. Now, as I mentioned, there is that one
absolutely killer feature of the Focusrite, which is what I've been using it for. Because I have the RODECaster Pro, I'm not gonna use this for XLR microphones in place of the RODECaster. Because the RODECaster
is sitting right there. That'd be kind of silly. But there is something I really absolutely love using this for, that's not really podcasts
or streaming related. You can take an instrument, connect it to the quarter inch jack, press the instrument button. And now through an app like GarageBand, which is what I'm using right now, or whatever other app of your choice, you can now use your real
world instrument digitally. And the Scarlett then just
takes your guitar signal, which is loud, and lets your
computer then process it. So, it gives you the best quality that you could hope for in
terms of your final recording. So now, if I play the guitar, you're just gonna hear
the sound of the strings. (lively upbeat music) But I hear loud music. (lively upbeat music) Which is pretty crazy. So, you don't have to worry
about miking amplifiers. You don't have to worry about
disturbing your neighbors. If you live in an apartment, if you work a schedule
where you can only record or play music at night, now you don't have to worry
about being a crazy nuisance. You can record directly into your computer and make it sound as loud as you want. Do as many tracks as you want, add guitar, add bass,
add your synthesizers. Whatever you want. (tense upbeat music) I wish I would have
had something like this when I was like 17. If as a kid, I could be playing guitar, not disturbing anyone, but also being able to record
it as if I was playing loudly, which you can do all
kinds of crazy sounds. Distorted stuff like I did. You can do clean things. (lively upbeat music) If you're just listening
to me in the room, it doesn't sound like anything. It just strings. But if you're listening
to me in my headphones, then it sounds like I've
got this super loud amp with a ton of reverb going. (quirky music) That's kind of amazing. (lively upbeat music) I don't think you can go wrong
with the Focusrite Scarlett. I don't think it compares
to the RODECaster 'cause they're not even the same thing. It's kind of like going, hey,
do you want a sports car? Or do you want a pick up truck? Neither is better than the other. It just kind of depends
on what your needs are. Do you wanna go really fast? Do you wanna be able to
carry a whole bunch of stuff and have people ask you to
help them move all the time? And they'll pay you in pizza,
but they never really do. Now, if you're still sort of on the fence about what's best for your setup, I've put together an
entire playlist of videos all about audio. So audio videos, as I say,
adios to you in this video. (lively upbeat music)
