In this episode of Podcast Answers, we explore the exciting new beta update for the RodeCaster Pro and Duo, introducing four additional virtual input channels. Learn how these channels can enhance your podcasting setup, the benefits for gamers and streamers, and how Mac users can leverage Loopback for full functionality.

Welcome, everybody, to the Podcast Answers Podcast, the show where I help you start and

grow your podcast, all while answering podcasting questions along the way.

And today is a special day. We are talking about Rode and RodeCaster and RodeCaster Pro

and Duo and the new virtual channels that are there that weren't there before. So this

is something that's actually been a long time in the making.

And it is something that that Rode kind of hinted at, I don't know, like a year, five

years, I don't know, a long time ago. And they so essentially, the idea is you already

had three USB channels on the device, you had a USB main, you had a USB, one chat, and

a USB two, and those are all bi directional, they had inputs and outputs. So you could,

you could you could mix minus that. And you could do things like have a zoom call, have

a ECAMM live call, whatever, and not hit it, not not, you know, have the audio going one

way out and one way in using a mix minus.

And it was great for doing interviews and things like that. But the the streamers who

do like live gaming and things like that, were crying for more virtual channels. And

to be honest, I didn't quite get that. Because I was like, Okay, so I have USB one, which

is my in and out for my ECAMM. I had USB chat, which I use for zoom. And then I had a free

USB, second second USB, which I still also had plugged into my computer. But I wasn't

even really using it a whole lot. I you know, I'm using loopback, which allows you to aggregate

device aggregate software into a virtual output. And, and I was using that to kind of bring

whatever I wanted to bring virtually into that that third channel. But yesterday, wrote

announced on the beta program that there is new capabilities to have four additional inputs

to your roadcaster.

Now these are just inputs, these are not in and out. These are just inputs. And, and so

I do want to warn you, this is a beta version, beta, beta, beta, beta, beta. So again, if

you're not cool with running beta programs, and the possibility of it having problems

on your live stream, or your recording or your podcast or whatever, I would not do that

for this because this is something that that could crash. In fact, I right as I started

this this podcast episode, I ended up having it crash my the roadcaster pro to main multitrack

was not showing up. And so I had to unplug it and plug it back in and it showed up. So

this is part of the beta program. So you do need to join the beta and you can find those

instructions on the internet to join the beta.

The one thing that I was a little bit disappointed though, was that they said this is at this

time only for Windows. So you could get you could update the firmware, like I'm running

the beta firmware on my roadcaster here. And, and I could get that I could get the the software,

the firmware for this device. But but I couldn't take use of it in my Mac because I'm using

a Mac. And so I did find a hack about that will work, you do have to have some extra

software, possibly maybe, maybe not. I mean, you may have some software that you can use.

But the idea of of how to use it for Windows was really kind of easy. So what you do is

you go ahead and to put your your roadcaster into this mode, you essentially go into the

once you've downloaded the firmware, you go into the settings and you go into outputs.

And I'm not able to do it now because I'm actually recording but multitrack and then

you say USB one output. And you can turn extra, I'm sorry, inputs and you can turn extra inputs

on under the multitrack once you once you've installed this, this beta firmware. And so

essentially, for Windows, what you end up doing is you use turn that on and then you

download a driver for Windows and then you you assign it to so you assign the virtual

devices to a channel. So for instance, here under this channel here, I have the A one

and you can go into again, I can't do it because I'm actually recording right now. But what

you do is you assign that to a fader. So I've assigned as you can see, I've assigned a to

this will not that fader sorry, this fader here, this is a and so you essentially you

have four virtual channels and the one is going to be they're called that doesn't really

matter what you do with them because they're they're all the same. They're all inputs,

they have a be gaming and music. And so if you can see here, they I've got like a music

icon, a game icon, an A and a B. Those are the new four virtual channels that exist on

on the new road caster. And so once you've assigned up to a fader, whether it be virtual

or fader or physical fader, for Windows, you go in and you use it, you essentially go into

the the sound panels and do advanced settings after you've installed the driver. And then

you you can it lists all of your software that's running out and you can tell it what

output to use for that specific one. So if you want to for your game, assign your game

to have its output be the road caster game, then it will it will do that. But what it

can't. So you know, you can assign the things like that. But for for Mac, we don't have

the ability to do that. They don't have the new updated driver. But what I did notice

and I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and kind of get a little bit geeky here. So I

I'm running the software called. Hold on a second. I messed that video up when I when

I did that somehow I. Did something wrong. OK, hold on. We're going to get there eventually.

OK, here we go. No, no, I can't see my screen. This is the process of doing this all live.

It it is is a little bit of a problem, but we'll get it there eventually. It's the wrong

thing. Wrong thing. Wrong thing. There we go. All right. So there we go. You get to

see behind the scenes. So this is so I'm using a software called Loopback. And the reason

I use Loopback before was to kind of aggregate different devices together, create virtual

devices. But what I did notice. So essentially, you can have inputs and output like a virtual

output, then you can monitor it. So what I did is I added the RODECaster Pro main multitrack

to it. And before I updated to the newest firmware, it just had a left and a right channel

output.

But now it actually had input to it. But now it actually has 10 different channels. And

so what I what I I've been able to do is I've been able to figure out what those channels

are. So what I've done is I've created a loopback device called RODECaster virtual channels.

And then I've done things like music and I map that through to channel five and six and

I map that out to five and six on the RODECaster and that ends up coming into the music channel.

So I can use those channels again. I had to have the RODECaster software, sorry, the loopback

software because I didn't I wasn't able to do it just natively like you can in Windows

yet. But with the loopback software, I was able to essentially take any inputs.

So let's say, for instance, so here's the mapping. So one and two are the same. The

main multi track that we've always had three and four are the game left and right. Five

and six are the music left and right. Seven and eight are the A left and right and nine

and 10 are the B left and right. So let's just say that I wanted to take and I wanted

to put Firefox into a channel, let's say B. So what I would do is I would delete the mappings

that it automatically maps. And I'm going to say B, so that's nine and 10. So what I'm

doing is I go nine and 10. And now when I play something through Firefox, it goes out

virtual channel nine and 10 and into the RODECaster virtual or nine and 10, which also shows up

as the B. So that's the way I can control different software going to different places

with with with the Mac. Again, you have to have loopback and loopback is a paid program,

but it is definitely worth it because you can you can use this update now. What the

other thing you can do too is any software that you have that has the channel mapping

on it, you can use it too. So not every software allows you to choose what channels but like

something like Ferrari, Ferrago, I can choose the main multi track RODECaster. And then

I can choose which channels to put it out on first, you know, specific things or the

whole the whole program. So I could hear say I wanted five and six and five and six are

going to show up as the music left and right for my RODECaster. So that those two those

two ways are ways that you can you can use your RODECaster right now with your Mac, with

the beta software and assign it to the new virtual channels that that we've that I've

talked about earlier. So the you know, the a, the B, the game and the music with the

programs like loopback or Ferrago, something that allows you to choose the channels to

output, you can use your your virtual, the new virtual channels on the RODECaster right

now. So this is really exciting. This is really super exciting in when it comes to things

for for podcasting, because you now essentially have you had three channels before and now

you're adding four more for a total, you know, four, four, five, six, seven, you have seven

virtual outputs now on our virtual in and outs.

USB is coming from your computer that you can do in your RODECaster. So you can assign

different software to have inputs right now on your RODECaster. And it's really, really

cool if you guys have any questions for me, I know that I see that people are watching

on YouTube right now, type them in the chat, I can, I can try to answer those for you right

now. But again, this is with the beta software that road released yesterday. It allows you

to actually have four new virtual channels, virtual USB inputs. These are inputs only

not input and output like the previous three were. But you now have four extra inputs into

your RODECaster that you can use for other software, any software.

So something like playing music, playing your games, whatever you want, they're labeled

a B game and music. But they, they're all of the same, they're all the same, they're

all virtual inputs. And, and, and you can see on my RODECaster here now that I have

them set up, and they have different icons, so A and B, and as well as the game, and then

the music, but they can be really used for anything that you want. They don't have to

be used for those specific tasks, but you can bring in whatever you want. You can bring

in any software. And again, this is for right now, windows only, but I did find the hack

that allowed that allowed you to do it. And the hack would be using something like using

something like the, using something like a loopback loop back here, which allows you

to map any software into any of the channels on the RODECaster output now.

So again, I explained USB one or sorry, one and two output are USB one main left and right

three and four are the game left and right five and six are the music left and right

a is left or sorry, seven and eight is a left and right and nine and 10 is B left and right.

So that's the way you can assign that. Or you can also use something like for Rago or

other channels or other software that allows you to choose the actual output channels of

the device that you're using. You can then go ahead and and be able to assign those to

that. So again, this is really cool because you now have seven inputs into your, into

your RODECaster. You have the three that were there before and you have four new virtual

inputs that you can put in and attach to any of the, any of the faders that are on the

RODECaster you can assign to any of the devices. So this is, this is really cool guys. If you

have any podcasting questions that you'd like me to answer, I, I that's what I do. I answer

podcasting questions and help you start and grow your show.

So if you have any questions, I would love to talk to you. You can get in contact with

me over at podcastanswers.com/contact, and that'll get you in contact with me so I can

help you start, grow, answer any podcasting questions that you have. I love helping podcasters.

So again, that's podcastanswers.com/contact will get you over to me and, and yeah, I'd

love to help you out with any of the questions that you have for podcasting guys. Whoop.

I just realized that messed my thing up. We got, wow. I'm, I'm really having trouble today.

All of my new scenes, I've got different scenes in here, so have a great week.