RØDE Wireless GO 2 Dual & Single - COMPLETE Tutorial - EVERY Setting Explained

this is a video where you learn everything you need to know about your rode wireless go-to microphone system so the system is pretty simple to use just straight out of the box however there's lots of settings that you can play around with as well to get the system working in different ways or you might want different setups for different projects recently rode released a version of the wireless go to with only one transmitter for solo creators called the rode wireless go to single it's basically for youtubers and people who like me create videos on their own and therefore don't really have need for a second transmitter a single setup is basically identical to the dual channel version it just means that basically this video is relevant to you as well if you only have the single version depending on the country you're purchasing in the single version might be about 100 cheaper but in the uk it seems to be only about 50 pounds cheaper so if you are looking to buy the single version to save money then it might be worth checking out how much you are actually gonna be saving for this video i will be using the dual version but as i say the single version works exactly the same the box contains two transmitters and one receiver there are also three fur windshields for filming outside in windy conditions there's three usb a two usb c cables for charging and connecting the devices to smartphones or computers there's also a 3.5 millimeter trs cable for connecting the receiver to a regular camera with a 3.5 millimeter input if you want to connect the receiver to an iphone you're going to need an extra cable or some kind of usbc to lightning adapter finally there's a carry pouch the single version of this setup has a smaller one of these pouches before you get started i do recommend charging each device each one needs to be charged separately so if you only have one charging method that's going to take a bit of time perhaps rode will one day make a charging case so we can charge the mics simultaneously so each device has a usbc port i'm not really sure why we're still getting usb a cables when i believe most of us are now using usbc most smartphones now come with a usbc charger so that means that the cables that come with the road setup aren't really going to fit that charger anyway i actually used the charging cable from my samsung smartphone and it works fine and i was also able to connect the device to my laptop using this same samsung cable as well you can get adapters like these quite cheaply which convert usb-a to usb-c after charging each unit should last up to seven hours the three devices look pretty similar at first glance but the receiver has the mini screen on it while the transmitters have no screen these things are just screen protectors so you can remove those by pulling the green tab the receiver connects to your camera or smartphone using a cable in this video i'll be using a smartphone but the principle is basically the same with a camera but you will more likely be using the 3.5 millimeter output rather than the usbc output depending on your camera once you switch on the devices one or both of the transmitters should automatically connect to the receiver wirelessly depending on how many you're using of course the rode wireless go system uses a 2.4 gigahertz radio band which is actually used for many other things such as cordless telephones bluetooth and wi-fi the transmitter contains an inbuilt microphone so you can clip the transmitter to the person talking as near to their mouth as possible the nearer you place the mic the more background sounds and echoes are reduced and the better quality your audio will be so putting it simply there's basically two methods for recording audio using this system number one onto your video recording device the first method takes the audio from the microphone through the wireless system and onto the device where you want to record audio this could be a camera a smartphone or a computer or you could even record onto a separate field recorder like this zoom h4n in this case i would need some kind of adapter to connect the receiver to the xlr inputs because this recorder only has xlr inputs number two onto a transmitter these transmitters can also record audio directly onto internal storage and this means they can be used to record a backup audio for safety reasons or you can even use the transmitter as a standalone recorder and that is actually what sold me on this setup and why i purchased it because as a solo filmmaker i can now record quality audio quite easily without having to fuss around too much connecting microphones i'll go into that in more detail later but first let's get started on the basics now you have a grounding in how the system works let's power on the devices all three of these devices power on in the same way find the o button which has a distinctive o the one with the line through it that rode uses in their name press and hold until it powers on the transmitter lights up the two blue lights at the top the light near the middle tells you that the transmitter is switched on while the light nearer the edge tells you the transmitter is connected to the receiver you can see each light has an icon beside it connection and power if your transmitter is not connected or loses connection for some reason the blue connection indicator led starts to flash with the receiver you will see the mini screen switch on and start displaying information immediately you should see the audio level bars moving on the receiver to show that it's receiving audio from the transmitter's inbuilt microphone and now if i connect the receiver to my samsung using the phone's charging cable you can see i now get a similar audio level bar in the samsung's pro video mode screen as well it now says audio is recorded via a connected usbc mic and if i start recording video the audio will be from the rode transmitter microphones so that's really how simple it is to get started recording with this mic and a smartphone or a camera but to get more functionality from this system we do need to dig a little bit deeper so let's look at the mini screen and find out what information we're being given here by default the rode wireless go records in stereo so we get two audio level meters named one and two and if you have two transmitters they're gonna be assigned to separate channels when i switch on both transmitters you can see both audio level meters start moving this means the transmitters are recording onto separate channels which is really important if you want to work on the channels separately later on below the main audio level meters we have mics one and two on the left and right we can see the battery level of the mics whether the mics are connected and the audio level of each microphone in the middle we're given three bits of information the battery life of the receiver backlight mode on off and output gain for the receiver indicated in this case by a thin blue line however if your receiver is set to coarse gain you will see a triangle here so if you have the mini screen on all the time it does drain the battery to switch between battery saver mode on and off just click the power button once the icon that looks like a light bulb will switch to a single point so when you are in saver mode the mini screen is going to switch off after about 10 seconds of inactivity in fact it doesn't actually completely switch off it just kind of dims a bit to save power while you can use the transmitter's inbuilt mic you also have the option to connect a mic to the transmitter why would we want to do that reason one the transmitter is big and has the rode logo on it so it's not very discreet basically you might not like the look of the receiver a smaller regular clip-on mic is much easier to hide in the speaker's clothes even if i clip it in the same place it does look quite a bit more discreet and therefore it's kind of less distracting for the audience reason 2 you can use a better quality microphone so here i'm using the rode lavalier 2 which is specifically designed to be easier to hide the head of the mic is flatter than the original version but you could use an even better quality mic here if you wanted to connect a microphone use the 3.5 millimeter port at the side of the transmitter while the external mic is plugged in the inbuilt mic will be switched off so first clip the transmitter out of sight somewhere perhaps a back pocket and next clip the added mic near the speaker's mouth so it's up to you really how discrete you actually want to be with the mic if you're filming a short film for example you might want to hide the mic and the cable completely so in that case just feed the cable under the clothes and also hide the mic head under something like a shirt collar or maybe behind a tie whatever you can find when recording audio there's one setting which is probably the most important setting of all and that is the audio level or what is known by sound engineers as gain when talking about adjusting an audio level professionals will often refer to the game or the gain control but simply audio level or gain is the strength or loudness of the audio there's two basic rules when recording audio one if audio is too loud and it goes beyond the maximum level this usually causes distortion in the audio rocker tourists actually add this to their guitar sound deliberately and it sounds cool but if it's added to the spoken voice it's usually not cool number two if audio is recorded too quietly when we come to mix the audio in our editing software we need to push up the gain the problem is there can be a low level of noise created when recording and when we push up the gain later this noise is also pushed up and then it becomes more audible so therefore recording good audio is usually about finding a nice balance not too loud and not too quiet when using the gain controller on the receiver the rode wireless go 2 can be set to audio levels from 0 db to -30 db this depends on whether you have set the receiver to use fine or coarse gain control for those who are new to sound recording db stands for decibels and using decibels as a measurement naught db is the maximum while everything else is a negative number any audio which passes 0 db will risk creating a distortion sound at that point and therefore we want to try to record audio at a level so that it does not go above 0 db the gain controller is a button on the bottom of the receiver with the microphone and the letters db beside it pressing this button moves between gain levels and how much it moves depends on how we have set up the gain control using the rode central software so i'm going to talk about that software later but for now i can tell you the receiver is set to fine gain adjustments and when it is set to find we can go from -30 to 0 db if we start at 0 db one click takes us to -30 and each further click then increases the gain by 3 db so minus 27 db minus 24 db minus 21db and so on until we're back at 0 db and as we click through we can see the blue line growing until we have a full line now if the gain is set to course the gain button will only switch between three settings 0 db minus 12 db and -24 db also the gain level meter now appears as a triangle instead of a blue line when connecting to a camera it's usually best to set the camera's input gain as low as possible and then use the rode gain to set the correct level this is because cameras often have noisy pre-amps which is something that we talked about earlier you might get a little bit of a hiss or a sound uh just very quietly but if you have to push up the gain in the camera to get the correct audio level then that sounds sound is going to be louder and you'll be able to hear it and spoil the quality of your audio if the transmitter and receiver become disconnected for some reason the blue light with the connection symbol next to it will begin to flash this might happen if you move too far from the receiver or there are obstacles between the two devices meanwhile on the transmitter the info from the transmitter will go blank of course if you turn off the receiver then you also get this flashing blue light to reconnect press and hold the pair button on the receiver for three seconds to enable pairing mode it's the button which has the same connection symbol we saw on the transmitter once in pairing mode click the power button quickly once on the transmitter and wait for a few seconds while it reconnects i actually found it quite hard to test this function because the connection between the transmitter and receiver was so strong i had to go out the door down some stairs and to the end of the corridor before it disconnected and as soon as i stepped back within range it reconnected again so i'm not sure how often you're ever gonna need to use the reconnect function but that shows you how good this system is the little windshields that come with the set are pretty easy to mount on top of each transmitter you will see the microphone in the middle it's this circle here you can also see there are two dots and two arrows now pull back the fur of the windshield and just keep holding it back like that align the two white dots with the marks on each side of the microphone push in and twist in the direction of the arrows and you're going to feel a gentle click the windshields are now locked in place so of course you only need these windshields if you're using the inbuilt mic on the transmitter if you have both transmitters connected you can mute one or both mics using the receiver first click the connection button on the bottom of the receiver once and now you will see a gray square around the first mic on the mini screen next click the gain button the one with the db next to it while the square is around the first mic and you will see a muted mic symbol appear though the connection button is a kind of channel selector one click places the grey square around channel one a second click selects channel two when you press the gain button whichever channel is selected will be muted and channels are unmuted the same way select the channel click the game button and it will become unmuted again there's a second way to mute mics using the transmitter instead once connected press the power button to mute and again to unmute now it used to be the default transmitter setting to do this but since i upgraded the firmware on both units i found that it no longer mutes this way by default i believe rode has changed this because unfortunately when you use the transmitter power button to mute the mic there's no indication that it's muted so you have to be really careful you or the talent doesn't accidentally mute the mic and then not realize until it's too late and that's why i think rode has now stopped this being a default setting instead if you want the transmitter power button to act as a mute button you need to use the rode central software so let's talk about using this software the rode central software can be downloaded from the rode website once downloaded and installed connect each unit and if this is the first time it's going to ask you if you want to update the firmware so go ahead and update of course it will do this every time there's a new version of the firmware as well bear in mind a unit doesn't have to be switched on when you connect it when you connect a unit you will see some indication that it's connected then there will be different settings to change depending whether you connect the receiver or one of the transmitters connecting the receiver to rode central will allow you to change the way your receiver operates top left we have the backlight control which just switches between normal and battery saver mode as we've seen earlier next along switches between fine and coarse game control again as we talked about earlier course gives you three game settings while fine gives you a greater range and a greater number of gain settings the gain button like the game button on the receiver changes gain in large or small increments depending on whether it's set to fine or coarse the next button switches between split or merged mode split means each mic will be recorded to a separate channel which is recommended if you want to separate out the audio for each speaker merged mixes both audio channels together if you want to be able to adjust the volume of each voice separately this is not the mode to choose however this button also determines whether you can use the next button along which is the safety channel to switch on the safety channel function the receiver has to be switched to merge mode if it's not in merge mode the safety channel button will be disabled so if you have the safety channel enabled rather than using the left and right channel of the stereo audio to separate the mics instead the receiver records the exact same audio onto both channels except one channel records 20 decibels lower a common problem recording the spoken voice can be the range in volume from quiet to loud if a speaker unexpectedly raises their voice the audio might spike at that point and cause distortion but if you have this safety channel recording at 20 decibels lower you'll be able to use that version instead of the distorted audio so it's just useful to have that in case there's a distortion occurs on the main channel the final button assigns the backlight button on the receiver you can switch this to marker instead so every time you short press the backlight button which is actually the power button on the top it will place a marker onto the audio track everything else displayed here is just information regarding the receiver when you connect a transmitter to rode central this is what you get there are some useful settings as well as access to any audio files you've recorded directly onto the unit's storage apart from exporting audio files you can select and play audio files here as well as navigate between any markers you've placed as well you can rename files just double click and start typing to export one or more audio files select the audio files you want to export and then click export you will now get a bunch of options if you have only selected one file you get the option to rename the audio file as well below that you can select different audio quality settings unless you're worried about using up storage space or some other reason i recommend choosing wav and 48 kilohertz the bottom setting gives you a choice between 24 bits pcm or 32 bits float now 32 bits floating files are said to be 50 bigger and a seasoned pro will most likely tell you this file type is a bit over the top for just regular sound work but if you don't mind the extra file size it might be worth experimenting to see if you notice any difference in quality once you click export you can choose where on your computer you want to save the file you can also use the all and none buttons here to select every file or to deselect everything quickly now if we click the cog icon we bring up the transmitters settings like i said earlier the transmitter can also be used as a standalone field recorder first you need to connect the transmitter to rode central and click the cog icon the first button on the left called record is the one we're looking for this button has three settings by default this is switched to off click to switch to always or backup and the setting we want here is always now as soon as you power up the transmitter it will start recording and it doesn't have to be connected to anything to stop recording power off the transmitter and the audio recording should be saved inside for you to access later note that when you choose always you can only record at maximum quality and this means you'll have about seven hours worth of audio recording per unit and if you have the dual transmitter version you could actually carry both and then you would have a potential 14 hours worth of broadcast quality audio in your pocket like when using the transmitter with the receiver you can use the inbuilt mic here or add an external mic as we talked about before when set to record to backup the transmitter will immediately start recording when it's connected to the receiver and stop again as soon as it's disconnected so why would we need a backup audio file well there's always the possibility something goes wrong with the original the main issue with wireless microphones is a loss of connection the backup recording is made directly to the unit without using wireless so therefore it won't be affected if there is any kind of connection failure the next button is called pad and this allows you to alter the mic sensitivity pad stands for passive attenuation device but you don't need to worry about that but it's basically used in microphones to avoid loud audio causing distortion so put simply a pad reduces the gain by a set amount of db so if you find that no matter how low you set the gain the audio is still going over 0 db and switching on the pad should fix it next button dims the brightness of the leds on the transmitter so this might be handy if the light from the transmitter is causing a problem maybe with the shot as well some battery power is going to be saved the final button allows you to switch between three uses of a single tap on the power button of the transmitter so off means a single click will do nothing mute means a single click will mute or unmute transmitter and marker means a single click will add a marker to the audio the markers can be useful if you have a long recording so adding a marker for maybe a different scene or a change of subject or there's a new shot and this can save time when you want to find them later below the buttons is a battery life meter and below that you have the option to select the quality of the audio if you choose broadcast quality you're gonna have seven hours of audio and if you choose the compressed version which is an mp3 file you will have up to 40 hours below the quality selection tool you will find an indicator showing you how much space has been used up by recording audio if you reach the limit the transmitter will simply start wiping over old files so you may want to delete files and to do that you just click the red trash can button so there's no way to delete individual files and clicking this button it just completely wipes the onboard memory so make sure that you've exported all the files that you need before you go ahead and click that button so this software is actually also available as an app for ios and for android so most of what i've just shown you can also be done on your smartphone but there is a slight complication because you will need to update the firmware on the units first and that can only be done on the desktop version of rode central but once updated they should connect to the rode central mobile on your smartphone now to connect one of these road units to an iphone you will need a special cable for lightning ports such as the rode sc15 or sc19 one thing you can't do with the mobile version is access or download audio files from the transmitters so if you do connect a transmitter the app will take you directly to the setting controls if you have your receiver connected to a camera or other device using the 3.5 millimeter output the usbc port is then free and you can connect a smartphone and use it as a controller switch on all your road units and let them connect and now connect the receiver to the smartphone with the rode central mobile app from the app you will see which transmitters are connected and as well you can change settings so this way you could actually start and stop a transmitter recording audio for example when professionals buy microphones and other recording kit one thing they look at is how much noise the unit produces itself and that's why it's also known as self noise and this is measured in db again except it's marked with an a at the end so an equivalent noise level of naught dba would be no noise at all and this road setup has an equivalent noise level of 22 dba and for comparison dj i say their new wireless mic setup which is considered a direct rival has 23 dba so it's virtually the same compared to the very cheap wireless mics i talked about in another video the rode wireless go to is much quieter well you'd expect that this setup is 10 times the price the low equivalent noise level is particularly important in a studio situation where background noise becomes more apparent so if we're recording audio for social media or low budget movies 22 dba is good and for example this would also be considered good enough in a studio recording situation when you're recording the spoken voice in short the rode wireless go-to is good enough for pretty much all audio recording situations that you and me are likely to find ourselves in my experience of this setup is so far mostly good there have been two issues that occurred in about five days of testing firstly my samsung briefly stopped recognizing the mic when i connected the receiver i believe that this was after i installed the rode central mobile app on the same phone my phone still recognized another usbc mic just not the road and then i found that by opening the app and connecting the mic and then opening the camera this resulted in my phone recognizing the rode mic again and another time andrea was recording a 20 minute audio track using only the transmitter as a standalone recorder and the device created a file but there was no actual audio on it so i don't know if the lavalier mic wasn't pushed in fully or if this was a glitch in the device anyway i'm going to be using this microphone system quite a bit in the coming months so i'll let you know if this turns out to be a road issue i'd say if you're recording something like an event or a situation where you can't retake the audio i would make sure to capture audio internally to the transmitter as well as onto a camera at the same time so then you'll have two copies of the audio and you're going to be safer that way but other than that i've found it pretty easy to use and i do think it produces great quality sound okay so let's do some microphone tests okay so i've connected a lavalier mic to the transmitter and this one is the rode lavalier go which is about 50 pounds uk price and so this is just to give you an idea of the quality so do you think this sounds different to when i'm just using the transmitter and by the way if you do want to learn more about smartphone filmmaking you can join us on patreon where i've got all kinds of downloads to get you from beginner to advanced i'll also have a cheat sheet for the rode wireless go to system so the cheat sheet will allow you to quickly reference all the things that i've gone through in this video so i'm in a kind of echoey room here so you're probably gonna hear some reflections so now i'm using the rode lavalier 2 which is the clip-on mic which has a flatter head the flatter head makes it a little bit easier to hide the lavalier mic when you're clipping it on to someone's clothing so on patreon i do all kinds of different things we've got books that i'm writing for smartphone filmmaking as well as just filmmaking in general basically most of my filmmaking career has been spent making films with very little money all my focus on the patreon is about helping you to get the best quality video the best quality short films the best quality stories with very little resources the last podcast i did on patreon was about how to generate ideas for example and in the future i'm going to be talking about how to make the most of what you have basically if you just got a smartphone and a microphone you can make professional level short films or any other kind of films so that's it for this video a big thank you to all my members on patreon a big welcome to all the new people there and uh i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Simon Horrocks

Views: 137,833

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Id: eAvzzHScN8g

Length: 30min 45sec (1845 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 04 2022