- In this video, we're gonna show you how to set up and connect the Rode PodMic with the Rode Rodecaster
audio mixer for podcasting. This is a really popular setup, so whether you have a heap
of gear in front of you and you need to know how
to figure it all out, or if you're looking to buy this equipment and you just wanna see
how complicated it is or hear how it sounds, we hope this video will be helpful for you. Now, if you are looking
for pricing or specs, for anything that you see in this video, we do have some links down
in the description below that will help you find
the best price possible for everything that you
see here across a variety of online retailers,
so we hope those links will be helpful for you. Now, for the purposes of this video today, we have factory reset
the Rode Rodecaster Pro except one thing, when
you go into the microphone setting here and go into Audio Processing, we turned all of this
off because we do believe that you should be setting
some other things up before any of the audio
processing is turned on. Right now you are listening to the lav mic that's clipped onto my hoodie here, if you want, you can
take a look at the logo up in the top corner,
when you're listening to the Rode PodMic you'll see a logo of the Rode PodMic, right now obviously you see a logo of the lav mic because that's what you're listening to. First thing we're gonna
do is we're gonna put on our headphones, while we're
talking about headphones, there are kinda three
different ways to do it. Some people like podcasting
without headphones and then if you're organizing the podcast, you can just watch the
meters on the Rodecaster Pro, some people like closed-back headphones like I'm using right now,
this prevents the microphone from hearing the headphones, it can be a little bit
better for audio reasons, some people prefer open-back headphones because they're lighter
weight, they're cooler, these things can get hot after a while, so it really comes down
to personal preference, we do have some links, again,
down in the description if you are looking for headphones. Next for the Rode PodMic,
we believe it sounds much, much better with a pop filter on it, so I'm gonna put that on now. Next, we wanna make sure
that the mic positioning of this microphone is set up correctly before we do anything else and that means, having it within about a fist of my mouth, the camera angle here can make
it look a little further away than it is, but it is
within a fist of my mouth or at least a fist within my chin, and then we're gonna
connect the XLR output from the Rode PodMic to
the input of channel one on the Rodecaster Pro. For this, we're gonna use
Canare Star Quad XLR cable, we believe these are
the best quality cables that you can get that are still colored and they have black connectors on them, which are like the nitric connectors and you connect that. Now I'm gonna hit record
on the audio mixer so you can hear everything I'm doing as we get the Rode PodMic up and going. Next, I'm gon' bring this
fader up to this dark hash mark about just above halfway up, there's no master fader or master volume on the Rodecaster Pro, so as
soon as you start turning up the individual channels,
you start to get level and you can see that here on the meters. We're gonna ignore this for a second here. The reason that we start
about two thirds of the way up is because we want a good level of audio, but we also want some headroom. It would be a mistake
to set up all your audio when you're set up at 10 out
of 10 on this fader here, you would have no headroom
throughout your podcasts. If you start your podcast like this, with everybody turned up, what happens when one person's quiet? Well, you run out of headroom there. That's why we recommend
that you set everybody up with it at this hash mark
here, this darker line, I think that's a better approach to getting everything going. Next, we're gonna click number one here, we're gonna go back, we're
gonna select Microphone, we're gonna select the Rode PodMic. Next, we're gonna go to level, you can see here at level 35, that we're kind of entering the sweet spot of what it's recommending. One thing that you
really wana be careful of with the Rodecaster Pro is
you don't wanna get caught turning this level up plus 40. I'm gonna turn it all the way up to 50 now and see if you can hear the
difference in the sound quality just with me not speaking when I turn this all the way up to 50. So if you had your headphones on, you'd notice that after 40, it starts to get really hissy
or after 40 it gets hissy, but after 45, it gets really hissy. So we wanna stay really out of that area, that amount of hiss
will ruin your podcast, it'll be way too distracting
for people to listen to, my personal recommendation
is that you don't go over 40. That being said here, I
think with about 38, 39 for my voice with this mic positioning, I think we're in a really
good spot here for level. Now, if you are very soft-spoken, I'm gonna show you how
to use a Cloudlifter really quickly, I think 95% of people won't need one with the Rode PodMic, I think it's wholly unnecessary, but I'm gonna show you how to set it up just in case you're unable
to get up into the sweet spot without going all the way up to 40. So I'm gonna disconnect this. Next, I'm gonna connect my microphone, the Rode PodMic to the Cloudlifter, there are many different
versions of a Cloudlifter, they're called in-line preamps, there's a whole pile of different ones from different brands, the Cloudlifter is on the more expensive
and it's just the one that I have here but you can get cheaper, more affordable ones as well, we're gonna put some links
down in the description to make sure that you have some options. So we connect the microphone
to the Cloudlifter, basically how the Cloudlifter works is it takes phantom power
from the audio mixer and then it'll give you 25
decibels of clean gains. So it's kinda like a second preamp that's why I call it an in-line preamp 'cause it's in line with the XLR cable, connect another XLR cable
to come out of this, so you can see the white cable, it goes into the Cloudlifter
and then the blue cable comes out, we're gon' put
this back into channel one. Now you can see here we
no longer have level. Again, this isn't for everybody, I'm just doing it to demonstrate, but to get the Cloudlifter working, you need to turn on Phantom Power. So there's two ways; you can
turn on Phantom Power here and already you can see
that we are way more level, so that's really awesome. But I'm gonna turn that off
to show you a second way. We can come back, select
Microphone and select Condenser, we can go back, back to Level and that also turned on Phantom Power, so there's two different
ways to turn it on. Next we're gonna turn this level up, we can try something like 27, 28, 29, maybe let's try 30, 31
and here you can see, so we're about 10 points
lower than we were before to get the same amount of level. So the preamp inside of the Rodecaster Pro is not working as hard,
that's the whole point of an in-line preamp, it's to
take some of the heavy lifting off of the Rodecaster Pro. I think most people will be fine turning the level up to
40 with the Rode PodMic but if you can't get the level you need up into this sweet spot, try this, try the steps in this
video with a Cloudlifter, other in-line preamp, I think
that'll be helpful for you. Now that we have the level set up, we're gonna go back and we're
gonna go to Audio Processing. In here we have a whole
pile of different options, let's quickly go through
them and you'll hear them as I demo them here. First, we have the Compressor. The Compressor will
narrow the dynamic range of the microphone, it'll squeeze
it into a tighter window. You can think of it
almost as an auto mixer. If you're really dynamic and
you're laughing all the time, or you're getting loud,
quiet, loud, quiet, it'll save you from having to
turn the faders up and down, up and down, up and down,
it basically squeezes the microphone into a more narrow window so you can leave the fader where it is and it'll kinda take care of itself. So I'm gonna turn that on now. Next, we have the Highpass Filter. For the Rode PodMic, I
don't really recommend using the Highpass Filter,
it kind of has that built into its EQ frequency response, but basically what a Highpass Filter does is it rolls off the lower frequencies and the objective is to
take the microphone out of the subwoofer of the listener. It's generally recommended
for every vocal mic, but I think the Rode
Podcaster, like I said, it's unnecessary with this microphone. You don't want a
microphone in the subwoofer of your listener, you've
gotta remember a lot of people listen to podcasts driving their car, there's just no usable frequencies and there's no reason
to cause a low rumble from a podcast or anything like that, it's a little bit overdone, so, I generally recommend it for most mics, I don't recommend it for the Rode PodMic. Next, we have the De-esser, that's exactly what it sounds like, it
will kinda get rid of the S sounds of your guests, so
if they're really sibilant or they have a lot of mouth
noise or something like that, you can turn that on, I like having it on. Next we have the Noise Gate. Basically what the Noise Gate does is it will automatically mute
and unmute your microphone when you're not speaking. As soon as you start speaking, you exceed the threshold
and the microphone unmutes. This is really good if
you have multiple guests on a podcast, but it's not as helpful if you're doing a talking head video or one person podcast
like I'm doing right now, it's just a little bit distracting, you can hear the Noise
Gate clicking in and out and if you don't have another
guest speaking at the time, it can be a little bit distracting, I'll turn it on so you can hear it. So here's what it sounds like, you'll notice that there's
just a really subtle click where the preamp noise goes away when I stop speaking and gets dead quiet, it's a little bit more
distracting than I like, so I'm gonna leave it off for right now. Next we have the Aural Exciter. This is again, something
that I wouldn't recommend using on every guest, but if
you think that there's a guest that really just sounds
muddy, or they're not popping, or they're not shining through
and they just kinda sound blah, then you can turn this on. It will turn up or kind of
excite the upper frequencies of the microphone, it can be grading if you use it on somebody that already has a strong kinda presence
in these higher frequencies, it can be overdone, so you
don't wanna use it on anybody, but if somebody is really
muddy and kinda boring, if you find yourself getting
bored when they speak, you might wanna consider that. Next we have the Big Bottom. This is something that I would recommend as a general recommendation
for the Rode PodMic, because it is kinda weak down
in those low frequencies, this will fatten up the
microphone a little bit, give it more presence, it is
something that I recommend. Now, this is the opposite
of a Highpass Filter. A Highpass Filter will kinda
roll off the low frequencies, the Big Bottom pushes them in, so there's no sense
turning the Big Bottom on if you also have the Highpass Filter, those two things will conflict. So, in this case with the Rode PodMic, I generally recommend no Highpass Filter, but you can turn on the Big Bottom if you wanna add a little bit of boost of those lower frequencies,
I'm gonna turn it off right for now. Next we have some voice options here. In the Tone, you can
kinda calibrate the EQ of the microphone with
some easy EQ settings, so if you have a deep voice,
if you have medium voice, or you have a high voice, there's some subtle EQ
changes going on here. Next for strength, my belief
of what this is doing here is that it's kinda
calibrating the compressor, so if you're really soft-spoken, it's gonna give you a
little bit more makeup gain, or if you're really strong, it's gonna increase the attack
and the compression ratio and the threshold of the compressor in order to kinda squeeze your dynamics into where they need to be, so you can use that if
somebody is, you know, too soft or they need to be
kinda taken down a notch. And that's really all
there is to setting up the Rode PodMic with the Rodecaster Pro, you would go through and do the same steps for all your other
channels, it is important that you do not copy paste
from guests to guests, to guests, to guests,
everybody needs kinda like their 32nd sound check to set them up and find the right settings for them but you can use the general rules in here in this video as a starting point, it's pretty simple just to
go through the four options in the menu, in the wizard,
in the Rodecaster Pro. Again, if you are price shopping, we have some links that will
help you find the best price on some of this stuff from a
variety of online retailers, just check out the links down
in the description below. If you have any questions
that we didn't answer in this video, please leave a comment down in the comment section below and if you wanna see more
videos like this in the future, please like and subscribe, thank you for watching. (gentle upbeat music)
