Rodecaster Basics

If you see Joe Rogan on the premises, alert Security immediately.

The Rodecaster is the main control deck of your recording adventures. All audio inputs for your recording should be routed through the Rodecaster to ensure that your recording is of the highest quality possible.

BYOD or Mac Mini

The Rodecaster is plug and play, meaning that you are welcome to use the mixing desk with your own Mac or Windows device. Simply pull the USB-C cable out from the back of the Rodecaster and plug in the loose USB-C to USB-A cable found in the second drawer.

Please note that we are unable to support BYOD users outside of the equipment inside the Pod (i.e. software and driver issues are not supported).

If you do encounter problems, please shift your production over to the Mac Mini.

Logging In and Getting Started

Make sure you are logging into the Mac Mini with your University login. If you are not familiar with the MacOS layout, most of the items you will require will be on the Desktop, with others being in the Applications folder.

Rodecaster Inputs

The Rodecaster accepts the following inputs:

• 4 XLR microphone inputs (currently hooked up to 4 Rode PodMics)

• 3.5mm TRS input - for aux in

• Bluetooth - for phones, tablets.

  • Bluetooth audio acts as a headset, allowing you to route your input from the Rodecaster as the phone call audio device. (Tested on iOS 13 - iPhone XR).

Levels and Recording

For most people, the current default settings should be enough for a clear and balanced recording. Adjusting the sliders of each of the inputs to get a balanced feed is important in making sure that you end up with a high quality end product. Make sure that everyone sounds at the same level in the monitor feed by adjusting the sliders. Try not to have any input above 80%, as you may encounter clipping.

Make sure that your channels are not muted or in solo mode, however, it is a good idea to mute channels that you are not using in your recording, or reduce them to zero if you need them later on.

Noise gating is enabled by default, so test your levels and microphone positioning to make sure that your voice is being transmitted while background noise remains low. Noise gating works by only allowing sounds above a dB threshold to be transmitted, reducing unwanted noise like breathing or movement, but if set up incorrectly it may lead in a choppy recording if you are too far away from the microphone or have the levels set lower than optimal.

We recommend doing a 10 second test clip and testing if you are being gated correctly, and then adjusting the levels up and down until you are satisfied.

Computer Audio

The Mac Mini's audio feed is routed through the Rodecaster, so that we can split it through the four monitor headphones. If you are playing back your recording, or listening to other audio, make sure the USB slider is pushed up, and is not muted to ensure your feed is playing through.

The default setting for USB audio is to enable USB minus-mixing which removes USB audio from the sound inputted back into the device. If you do require to disable this setting you can do so in the Settings - Advanced pane of the Rodecaster, however we do not see many use cases for this (please be sure to set the setting back to enabled when you are done with it).

Bluetooth Setup

To setup the use of Bluetooth devices with the Rodecaster hit the blue Bluetooth button above the slider on the Rodecaster unit and pair your device as normal. Your phone will now treat the Rodecaster as both an input and output device, so you can now phone in external parties, with the monitor feed being passed through to your headphones.

VoIP applications are recommended over ordinary voice calls due to the compression of the voice network.

We highly recommend that after you finish your session to delete the Rodecaster from your Bluetooth devices to ensure that you do not accidentally connect to the device.