Rode promised multi-track support for the Rodecaster Pro in February — and delivered with no time to spare. The Australian company dropped news about the firmware update at 10PM PT on February 28, bringing the podcasting board’s most eagerly awaited feature as part of its first update since hitting retail late last year.
I reviewed the board just ahead of Christmas and found very little to complain about, save for the fact that the system recorded everything to a single track — a fact that makes shows a real pain to edit. The company said the limitation was a feature, not a bug, for a plug-and-play system designed to be as simple as possible for live recording. Clearly not everyone agreed.
The system is designed for recording shows on the fly, right down to the sound pads that can be used to fire up effects or bed music. But most podcast producers prefer to edit post-recording, and saving multiple voices to the same track makes it tricky. With the update, the system records up to 14 tracks when connected to a computer via USB (while it will just record a stereo mix to a microSD card).
Those are as follows, per Rode:
- 2 tracks (stereo left and right) “live mix,” as featured on the RØDECaster Pro since its release
- A mono track for each of the 4 microphone inputs
- 2 tracks (stereo left and right) each for the USB, 3.5mm TRRS, Bluetooth and sound-effects-pad channels
As of this week, the feature can be accessed through the board’s “Advanced Setting” menu.