When it will come to podcasting, streaming, or content creation, developing a excellent, cohesive audio set up can make all the variance. However, deciding upon the proper components can occasionally grow to be frustrating, puzzling, and exceptionally highly-priced, in particular for hobbyists that are not looking to stream or make material full-time. Rode intends to adjust all that with a collection of extras intended to just take the guess perform out of developing a improved in-house studio. Does Rode take care of to make recording foolproof? Let us dive in.
Around the decades my recording components has slowly grown from a simple headset, to various mics, stands, desk mounts, and cabling that has appear to muddle my desktop and business house. I recognized it was a big issue when I experienced both of those a desk mounted mic, a flooring stand, and 4 unique recording equipment hooked up to my method at one time, that I necessary to declutter. Luckily for us, Rode’s PodMic, and a slew of add-ons had been available, and I jumped at the chance to streamline my set up.
In this review I’ll provide some aspects similar to the components, but I won’t go much too in depth when it arrives to the high-quality of Rode’s PodMic. This has been delved into deeply by our Hardware Editor just a few decades prior to this evaluate, and if you’re wanting for an in depth critique of the abilities of the microphone, I urge you to check out it out. Alternatively, this will be a shipping and delivery-to-desktop all inclusive set up evaluate, which will contain the unboxing and set up of the Rode PodMic, the AI-1 Amplifier, the WS2 Windshield, and the PSA1 Studio Arm. Here are the rough specifications:
- Price: $99 (Amazon)
- Acoustic Theory: Dynamic
- Polar Pattern: Cardioid
- Frequency Selection: 20Hz ~20 kHz
- Output Impedance: 320 Ohm
- Sensitivity: -57.0dB re 1 Volt/Pascal (1.60mV @ 94 dB SPL) +/- 2 dB @ 1kHz
- Output Link: XLR
- Pounds: 937g
- Product Dimensions (LxWxH, mm): 172 x 109 x 62
- Windshield Shown is Additional Price ($12.99 Amazon)
- 6ft XLR Wire Shown is Not Integrated
- Value: 98.70 (Amazon)
- Analog Inputs: 1 x Neutrik XLR-1/4″ combo
- Analog Outputs : 2 x 1/4″ speaker outputs (impedance balanced) 1 x 1/4″ headphone outputGain Vary: 60dB (with firmware edition 1.3.1)
- Little bit Depth: 24-Little bit
- Sample Fees: 44.1kHz / 48kHz / 88.2kHz / 96kHz
- 48V Phantom Power: Certainly
- Simultaneous I/O: 1 x 2
- Quantity of Preamps: 1
- Immediate Observe: Indeed
- Bus Driven: Of course
- Electric power: USB bus-run (USB-C)
- Cost: 99.00
- Thread Dimensions: 3/8″
- Body weight (g): 1740
- Horizontal Access (mm): 820
- Vertical Get to (mm): 840
- Bare minimum Pounds Supported (g): 700
- Optimum Excess weight Supported (g): 1100
Right after obtaining the products, unboxing them was exceptionally basic. Rode doesn’t imagine in a great deal of fluff. Whilst each individual piece of components was packaged effectively, there was definitely a minimalist solution, with several guidelines or excessive, even for the larger, and far more innovative merchandise this kind of as the PodMic and the Amplifier. I envisioned a detailed instruction manual for every single, but I was stunned to find quite minimal in the way of instruction. If you are new to location up your audio, you may possibly believe that a small a single-sheet of instructions is not ample, but it turns out that every little thing is generally plug and play.
Here’s a Handy Arm
I started out by environment up the studio arm. If you’re like me, you are confined on your desktop genuine estate, and I was especially worried, since I have experienced desktop mounted studio arms ahead of, and I hated them. Commonly, my principal trouble when putting in a new microphone arm would be that the C-clamp mounts typically leave indents or scratches on the desk. Now that I have a standing desk with a glass leading and a metal body, my largest concern was that the body weight of the arm and the microphone would potentially scrape or crack the glass, or that it would not connect securely since the steel rail underneath the desktop was rather skinny, but I made a decision to give it a shot. There is also an more mount furnished that will allow you to attach the Studio arm as a result of the desk, but I opted for the C-clamp version, because drilling by a glass and metal desk is not a undertaking I am interested in partaking in.
Right after tightening the clamp on to the desk, I taken out the yellow warning tape that knowledgeable me that the arm is spring-loaded, and located it into the only offered gap on the clamp. At this point the arm trapped straight up. There isn’t a way to tighten the arm in any configuration without the need of the microphone hooked up, so I moved on to the PodMic, and began location that up. Fairly literally, the PodMic is the only merchandise contained inside of its box. The XLR cable Rode presented is an further charge, while they are comparatively low-priced. Rode delivered a 6-foot XLR cable which for my specific setup is a little overkill, but the cable arrived with a branded Rode Velcro strap so it was quick to shorten it to my preferred size and strap it to the C-Clamp. The XLR cable simply just suits into the back of the PodMic, there really is not any choice way to do it. I then screwed the microphone into the 3/8ths threaded mount and the counterweight introduced the arm into whole swing.
Make That Program Perform
I ran the cabling more than the arm, ran it throughout the again of my desk, and put the AI-1 Amplifier near my Laptop on the desktop. I plugged the XLR cable into the only put you could conceivably put it on the amplifier, and then ran the USB-C cable provided in the AI-1 package deal to the Computer system. The components portion of the set up was effectively total. It was as fool proof as it could get, so I moved on to software. At present, I’m jogging Home windows 11 on my desktop, and the running method was capable to detect and put in the software with no any prompting from me. I opened up Adobe Audition and tried a recording, but alas, there was no joy – a little something was wrong. The AI-1 amplifier has two knobs, the microphone, and the headphone. If you push in the microphone knob, a light-weight will convert on, indicating that the microphone is completely ready to file. Sad to say, there was a very little more to it than just turning the knob on.
For the lifestyle of me I could not at first get the microphone to document via the amplifier, no matter which purposes I tried to history with. I went into the audio settings, and looked in excess of the alternatives. It turns out that the amplifier will not do the job if the channel attributes are unique frequencies. From the handle panel, under Sound > Playback and Seem > Recording, I chosen the AI-1 and went to homes. I then experienced to go to innovative, and change the default format to the similar frequency. I chose 96000 Hz, and sure sufficient, following modifying those people settings the sound top quality on the PodMic arrived through crystal distinct.
The quality of the PodMic and the relieve of use to modulate my audio input as soon as the Amplifier was up and running effectively has been an exceptionally simple and streamlined practical experience. For new Podcasters, Streamers or Written content Creators, the components set up couldn’t be less complicated. Anything is really substantially self-explanatory, and it is actually more challenging to not set factors with each other the appropriate way. On the computer software side, the confusion relevant to the frequency modifications isn’t anything that new streamers will know suitable absent, and it may perhaps not even be evident when you search for solutions.
Still, when every thing is set up, you just cannot conquer the good quality of the PodMic and AI-1 Amplifier at this cost stage – you just can’t. For around 300 dollars, you close up with a sound microphone and amplifier, as very well as a single of the smoothest swivel mount boom arms I have tried out. Whilst I in all probability will not keep it mounted to my desk, I have a fantastic floor stand that is also appropriate with Rode’s PSA 1, so in the end, I get each a very articulated increase arm and some of my desk place back again. If you genuinely want to jumpstart your audio with qualified seem, use Rode’s PodMic and Add-ons as a tutorial on how to do it proper.
*Rode PodMic, PSA- 1 Studio Arm, AI-1 Amplifier, WS2 Windshield and 6 Ft XLR Cable have been furnished by Rode for the reason of this assessment.