- One year ago TC Helicon
released the GoXLR, a one stop solution built for streamers to replace everything to
do with livestream audio. It has quickly become one
of the most popular devices used by professional streamers but a price point of $400, it is often out of budget for many streamers looking to improve that audio setup. This week TC Helicon have
released the GoXLR Mini. Now they sent me this a couple
of months ago to test it, it comes in at a price of $250, so nearly half the price
of the original GoXLR. In this video we're going to
be covering what's different, the things I like about these devices as well as the things that I don't like, and most importantly I
want to help you decide if either of these
devices are right for you and your streaming setup. (upbeat music) To be able to go through all of the features of the GoXLR Mini, it's worth first just going through a 30 second run down of everything the original GoXLR is capable of and then we can compare exactly what's different and what is the same. Since the GoXLR was specifically designed for streamers and content creators, it serves quite a few different purposes. First and foremost is
an XLR to USB interface, allowing you plug in a
high quality XLR microphone and then use that for live
streams and for recording. It's also an audio mixer featuring four separate channels with motorized faders allowing you to easily mute and control audio of things like your microphone, your music, your friends on discord and your game audio, all from your fingertips. You can easily then route any audio to your stream or to your headphones or even to the line-out, making previously complicated things like a two PC streaming
setup, incredibly simple. Built into the GoXLR is a DSP or a Digital Signal Processor, which offers things like compression, EQ, noise gates and De-essing
for your microphone. As well as some more fun voice effects which you can change
things like the reverb, pitch, echo and gender of your voice for comedic value if you wish to. Finally the GoXLR has a sampler built in so you can record and store audio samples and then play them back easily. As well as a one kilohertz
sensor button and a push-to-mute. So since the GoXLR Mini is half the size and almost half the price, they've clearly removed some functionality to make it more affordable. The main things that they've removed are the voice effects
panel and the sampler. There are also some minor
changes to the mixer, which we'll get into later but effectively they've just chopped the GoXLR in half whilst not sacrificing the things that I would
consider most important. One of the thins that they've kept from the GoXLR is the low noise pre-amps, they provide a whopping
72 decibels of gain. The GoXLR Mini uses
the exact same pre-amps as the original GoXLR meaning yes even if you're using the quietest of dynamic XLR microphones, something like the Shure SM7B, you can still power it with the GoXLR Mini without needing to buy something like the $150 Cloud Lifter, which are required by so
many other XLR USB interfaces when paired with a quiet
dynamic microphone. The GoXLR Mini also offers all the same enhancements
for your microphone, things like the noise gate, the equalization, the compression and the De-essing, which although they are set up through the GoXLR app, all these enhancements actually happen on the physical devices themselves meaning absolutely zero
impact on your computer. Effectively what this means is the sound quality of your microphone through the $400 GoXLR or the $250 GoXLR Mini
is exactly the same, there is absolutely no difference at all. In terms of build quality both the mini and the original GoXLR are built mostly from plastic with this
kind of glossy finish and some rubber feet on the bottom to stop it from sliding. In terms of inputs and outputs, they both obviously have an XLR input for the XLR microphone. They have three point five
millimeter stereo line-in and stereo line-out, which is super useful especially if you're using
a two PC streaming setup. They both have a USB port and an included cable to
connect it to your PC. An optical input for consoles, a three point five
millimeter microphone input for non-XLR microphones and finally a three point five
millimeter headphone output, which offers zero latency monitoring. Since the Mini is smaller and has less additional functionality, it can be completely powered by USB, meaning it doesn't have a power input and a power cable at all. Next lets look at the faders, and the GoXLR Mini still allows you to control four separate channels through the audio mixer, so you can easily mute or change the volumes of your microphone, your voice chat, your system sounds or any other application that you wish to. What has changed is that these faders are no longer motorized. So if you hit the mute switch on your team mates in discord for example, that fader will no longer
jump down to the bottom. Instead the LED lights on the fader and the mute switch at the
bottom indicate the change. Also you may have noticed
that up above the faders there are no longer those little screens that you could use to display exactly what each fader controlled. You can still customize what each channel
controls in the software, so if you didn't want your fourth fader to control your system audio and instead you wanted it to control something like
your headphone level, you can still change that in the software. But obviously the word system will still appear above the fader. They've kept the push to sensor and push to mute buttons so you can sensor yourself
when you're mid rage and you can mute yourself
when you're mid sneeze. So those are all the differences between the GoXLR and the GoXLR Mini. I think they a hundred percent made the right decisions on where to save money to make a cheaper product. I know some of you watching are probably disappointed that they didn't keep in the voice effects but from personal experience I think the voice effects are really cool but they get kind of old kind of quickly so unless you have a really unique way of being able to add them and integrate them into your stream, I think they are, again, something that was worth dropping to get a lower price. I personally would much rather have the low noise pre-amp, the Noise Gate, the EQ, the compressing, the De-essing, than to have those fancy
features like the effects, the sampler and the motorized faders. Now whilst I love and use
the GoXLR every single day there is some feedback and things that I wish TC Helicon would
implement in the future. Some of these have already been fixed and implemented into the GoXLR Mini, some of them are actively being worked on and then just some I hope will
be worked on in the future. I was going to complain about the lack of a power switch, which leave the GoXLR brightly lit even when I powered off my PC but it seems that TC Helicon have already recognized this and are soon to be releasing a stand and a power cable that has a switch for the original GoXLR and then since the GoXLR Mini is just powered purely through USB, it already shuts down when
you shut down your PC. I wish that the original
GoXLR had a second XLR input, I've realized that I'm
probably in the minority here but I think it would be amazing to be able to use the GoXLR for things like podcasts or streams when you have a second person on stream. Since the name is GoXLR and they're encouraging you to go XLR, I think this would be a massive feature if they could implement
a second XLR input. I've seen a few people
in the past complaining about the GoXLR's reliance on having to have the GoXLR app running on the PC for it to function properly. And I wasn't that bothered about this until last week where an update rolled out that was mandatory and unfortunately the update wasn't ready for public release and caused a lot of streamers to have to cancel streams or move back to a USB microphone just to be able to stream. TC Helicon to their credit, did work quickly to fix the bug and help everyone get back up and running and since then they have
released a statement saying that they are rethinking
their software testing and roll-out to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again in the future. Lastly, I'd love to see GoXLR be compatible with Mac OS and Linux. I know that they've aimed
this towards streamers and largely nowadays streamers are gamers playing on Windows PC's. But as streaming grows, as this whole ecosystem grows and more and more people come in to streaming all kinds of content things like podcasts or cooking streams there are going to be more users that want to use the GoXLR with their Mac setup or
with their Linux setup. With all that said, I still think that the GoXLR and the GoXLR Mini are fantastic products and if your used case is similar to mine and you want something to make your audio for streaming simpler
and of a higher quality, in a one PC, a two PC or even a PC and a console setup I think you'll be very
happy with your purchase. That being said, I know that there's a lot of skepticism on the internet and rightfully so, particularly for products that are labeled for gamers, so I went to Twitter
and Instagram yesterday to ask you guys what you wanted to know about the GoXLR
and the GoXLR Mini. I'm going to answer a handful of them now and I'm actually going
to be using the GoXLR so you can hear what the sound quality is like with my microphone. So one thing that I had a
lot of different questions about was using the quiet
mics like the Shure SM7B. Obviously this is a very
popular microphone for streamers but it is a very notoriously
quiet dynamic microphone meaning that it needs a lot of gain to be able to be heard. Well this is exactly how it sounds, this is the Shure SM7B plugged directly into the GoXLR Mini without a cloud lifter or any kind of signal boost. You can see in the app I have my gain set to 55 decibels and this is how it sounds. The second question that I had was from True Impact asking, I want to know if it's possible to use a USB microphone such
a the Blue Yeti with it? And the technical answer is yes, if you had a microphone like the Blue Yeti or the HyperX Quad Cast, both of those options have a three point five
millimeter headphone out which you can use to
monitor your headphones. What you can do is get a cable that will go from the three
point five millimeter out of the microphone into the three point five millimeter microphone in on the
GoXLR or the GoXLR Mini and then you can use them together. One thing to note though is that you're not going to be
using the amazing pre-amps that are built into the GoXLR and the GoXLR Mini instead you'll be using the pre-amps that are built
into your USB microphone, so you won't be getting the same quality. So the overall answer is yes it's possible but honestly in my opinion
it's not really worth it. If there is a future
where you would upgrade from a USB mic to an XLR microphone then it might be worth
just getting yourself a GoXLR Mini in the meantime 'cause you can use it
with your USB microphone but I would only say it's worth it if in the future you are planning to move to an XLR mic. Finally, I got quite a lot of questions about the comparison between
the GoXLR and the GoXLR Mini, Till Truth asked on Instagram, do you think this is actually a good alternative option? I think some of the best parts
are left out of the mini. In my opinion, if you would prefer to have $150 to spend on
other things in your stream or maybe just to keep in your wallet, I would a hundred percent get the Mini. It's smaller, it's USB powered which means it's one less cable and $150 can go a long way in buying something else for your stream if you do have that money, something like lights or a camera upgrade or
something like that. That being said, if you really think that you're going to be using the voice effects and you have a good idea of how you could integrate them into your stream then obviously the GoXLR
is also a great choice. So hopefully this video has been helpful in helping you understand a bit more about the GoXLR and the GoXLR Mini and maybe if one of
those is right for you. If you are considering purchasing one, I have some links at the
top of the description to both the GoXLR and the GoXLR Mini at your local Amazon store. So it will take you directly to your local store where you can see what the price is in your local currency as well as whether it is in stock. If you're new to the Gaming
Careers YouTube channel, it is completely dedicated to helping you learn to live stream. So have a look around at some of the other content that we've got and I would highly recommend subscribing with notifications on. Especially as I will be doing another Black Friday
video for you coming out on Friday with all the
best deals for streamers. Finally a massive thanks to all the Gaming Careers patrons who have supported the channel this month. I really couldn't do what
I do without you guys so I really do appreciate it. I'll see you all in the next video, which is Friday for the
Black Friday streamer deals. Peace. (upbeat music)
