RØDE Podcaster Microphone

Reviewed by Wayne LeFevre

Manufacturer Interaction

Called to talk to representative, and spoke to Peter Freedman. The president of the company, can’t get better customer service than that!

Accessibility

Good public contact information such as address, e-mail, phone, website, FAQs and tutorials.

Instructions

Hardcopy instruction manual with complete and easy to follow instructions.

Recommendation

I believe that the number of quality USB microphones that are on the market today, you could probably count on one hand. I am not including the headset mics, which quality can range all over the map. I’m also not including any lapel, shotgun or specialty mics. The mics that I’m speaking of would be a viable choice if one would want to create a podcast or record music.

Normally, in this situation and up until now, you would be purchasing either a dynamic or condenser microphone, using a cable to plug into a pre-amplifier or even a full mixer to supply power to the mic if needed, to bring the gain, or the levels up to a level that the computer would be able to use. It is usually the mixer or pre-amp that plugs into computer using either the mic in, the USB port, or the more expensive ones can use the FireWire port.

Lately, especially with the podcasting boom, people have started to want an easier way to get good quality sound into their Macs. The only good quality mics, however, where analog and needed the middle equipment to talk to their computers. Now, we are seeing some mics that have built in analog to digital converters built in and are able to plug straight into the USB port. Any power used by the mic is also gained through the USB port. The most common of these mics that are suggested for the podcaster are, in order of price, the MicFlex, the Samson C01U - USB Studio Condenser Microphone, Blue Microphone’s Snowball and now Rode has thrown the Podcaster into the mix. I was able to get ahold of the podcaster, and have literally, put my other microphones away.

First, some technical stuff. This is a large, heavy, studio microphone that looks and has been compared to the EV-RE20. The mic weighs in about 1.5 pounds, without the spider shock mount. It is a cardioid pattern, which means when you talk into the end of it, the sides and rear of the mic do not pick up much noise. It is a dynamic mic, which uses a magnet to register sound waves and uses a coil to create electricity in the frequency of those waves. Most every book and subject on Podcasting suggest you go with a condenser, (basically using a capacitor instead of magnet,) to pick up more tonal quality. But what I find curious, are the real expensive microphones like the Shures and the EVs are dynamic mics! Leo Laporte’s favorite mic is a dynamic, so I wouldn’t put too much stock into only using a condenser mic for studio work. What is nice is the pickup for the dynamic part of the Podcaster is a huge 28mm.

It’s a very quiet mic considering that it does all it’s Audio to Digital conversion in the mic itself, with a signal/noise ratio at >78 db. Speaking of the audio out it’s 18-bit resolution, 8khz to 48k sampling. Remember CD quality is 16-bit. It has an internal pop filter, and I didn’t see much advantage on test audio with or without an external filter. The frequency range is 40 to 14khz, with a very flat range from 40 Hz to a slight rise from 8 KHz to 10 KHz topping out at 8dB. The slight rise of response at those frequencies is to make up for any loss by installing a foam wind shield. Again, it’s just another one of those small extras that Rode though about in designing this mic.

The greatest asset, to me, that the microphone offers is a built in variable gain 3.5mm stereo headphone jack. It monitors your voice, dry, (or without effects,) in real time with zero latency. For anyone who has tried to use headphones and plugs in too far into the audio stream, you start to get delays depending on what kind of effects you have. If you try to talk with even a slight delay, you soon start sounding like a bit drunk as you start elongating your vowels to try and slow down. This jack also has it’s own volume control, so it’s really a great addition to this mic. In order to hear other tracks while recording, you can also set your audio out to the Podcaster, and pick up those tracks in your headphones connected at the same jack.

It comes with no software needed for the Mac. The Mac recognizes it straight away. The only thing you may have to do is increase the in volume in the System Preferences, as to my experience, the gain going into the computer is a bit low. This is the same problem that the Blue Snowball USB mic had when it first came out, but was apparently corrected with a firmware update. Though the Podcaster does not have any updates as of yet, the Rode site has PC software you can download to increase the gain before the sound panel.

Though this microphone is the most expensive of all the USB mics out there, it is definitely worth it. Especially when you factor in the cost of a pre-amp or mixer that you won’t have to buy. It’s sound is warm and full. Takes a bit of practice to get the right mic feel, but otherwise I can’t think of one reason not to purchase this mic, where I can think of several when thinking of some of the lesser USB mics. The only reason that you might feel you want to pass up on the Podcaster is if you already have, or need, an XLR setup. Sometimes you’ll simply need a mixer if you want to have external devices such as compressors or gates. If you don’t think you will need a mixer, and just want to do a professional sounding podcast or simple voice–overs, than definitely buy this mic, buy the spider shock mount for it, and I guarantee you won’t regret it. Speaking of guarantee’s, Rode has a full 10 year guarantee on this microphone. If that’s not enough to get you down to the store, I don’t know what is. Visit their website, go through some of their training online, plus they even have a place to post your own podcasts if your new and need somewhere to stick it and would like some feedback. From my angle, though, you can’t go wrong.

RØDE Microphones are based out of Australia. Australian contact information can be found online.