RØDECaster Multi-Mic and Multi-Camera Riverside Setup (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Today I'm going to show you how you can bring multiple mics and multiple cameras into Riverside with the Rodecaster interfaces. With our in-person feature being released we had numerous comments about how the Rodecasters specifically fit into the system, so we'll start with some tips and tricks with the audio interfaces and then we'll look at the video series. So let's dive in. Now conceptually we need to understand this one thing. Riverside's in-person feature is meant to keep everyone's cameras and audio on separate tracks, but Rodecasters by default are set to take all of your mics and cameras and mix them down into one track or program. So when you add your Rodecaster to Riverside it appears to only capture the full mix of everything, but there are a few ways around that. And we can start with the Rodecaster's multi-track recording. So starting with the audio consoles the Rodecaster Pro 2 and the Duo, and I've got the Pro 2 right here, the first thing you need to do is make sure your firmware is up to date because Rode reworked the multi-track layout in firmware 1.7.3 and how it works with the order of the faders. So once you are up to date on the Rodecaster you can go up to your settings, go to outputs, select multi-track, and then you don't really only need to do this in USB output 1, but I would do it in both recording and USB output 1 just to ensure everything is the same. Now usually you want to have it set to pre-fader so that an accidental bump on the faders won't affect the recording, and you can also hit bypass processing if you want to fully turn off any Apex processing or effects so that Riverside gets the complete raw audio feed. But you should only do this if you want to add your own compression and EQ stuff like that in post. But you can choose post fader if you really want the faders in control, especially in the case that mics need to be adjusted during the recording. Now two quick notes, multi-track only works on the USB 1 port and that's the main computer connection, so make sure you're not plugged into USB 2, and use a good USB-C cable, ideally one that came from the box, not just a basic one for charging. And as for how the channels are laid out, channels 1 and 2 are always the main stereo mix, and from there every fader gets its own stereo pair in order, so fader 1 is channels 3 and 4, fader 2 is 5 and 6, and so on down the line. Mono sources like your XLR mics, like the one I'm using right now, will show up as dual mono, which just means that the mic will be on both channels. And if you're on the original RODECaster Pro, this whole approach still applies, it just might be laid out slightly different. Now let's jump over to Riverside. So let's go ahead and open up our studio here, and inside the studio if we go ahead and add our main multi-track device from the RODECaster Pro 2, you'll see that we get this new channel option. It'll automatically know that multiple channels are coming in, so it gives you the option to choose which channel you want to assign to this specific track. And then if we add an in-person guest, we can also do the same exact thing where we choose the same device, and it'll give us that channel selection again. So I'm going to go ahead and add 3 into here. So on this one we can choose channel 3 because that's the one that's coming from this one. On this one I want the second mic, so I'll choose channel 5. And then on the third one I want it to be the third mic, which will be channel 7. So now that those are selected, I can go ahead and I have this one plugged into the second one, so I can go ahead and test. Check, check, check. That one seems to be working fine. And then I have a third mic plugged in right here that I can record like so. And that's how you can get each person with their own mic into their own track. Now one important note. As of recording this, the per-channel selection is a Mac app only feature. So this is not supported or really currently possible in browser. It really only gives you the choice between two stereo channels. Now if you're adding a remote guest, we can use the RODECaster for monitoring as well. Riverside disables echo cancellation when the in-person mode is enabled, so everyone in the room should be wearing headphones while having a remote guest. Then you can set Riverside's speaker output to the RODECaster and plug everyone into its headphone outputs. Okay, let's talk about the RODECaster video interfaces. The good news is they all talk to the Mac basically the same way. So you can plug your USB 1 port into your Mac and the RODECaster video shows up as two things at once. A webcam and an audio interface where you can use that same multi-track recording option. I'm not going to show it again here because it's basically the same process as the Pro 2. So we'll just skip to the video here. So when we go into our settings, I'm going to go ahead and do this from the app. The first place we need to go here is the device configuration and this is where we're going to select where we want each camera input to go. Now the key thing here is that the USB output only sends one video feed at a time, but how am I getting three different cameras in Riverside with the same device? Well, here's where it gets interesting. There are two other types of outputs on the RODECaster video models. The obvious one is HDMI and then the other is NDI which you can use from the Ethernet port. And both of these outputs have the same options as USB. So when we look at our options here, we have program, preview, multi-view, but we can also select every single camera individually. And this is the same for each type of output. So we can take advantage of HDMI by using a capture card and then using virtual input from NDI tools to convert the NDI feed to a webcam as well. So we can set which camera we want to go to each feed. So on my USB, I want my camera one to go to. In the HDMI, I want camera two. And with NDI, I want camera three. Now the only difference between the RODECaster video models is the Video S and Video Core only have one HDMI output, but the original one that I'm using here has two. So on this model specifically, you can have up to four cameras if you use two capture cards. Now if you'd like more information about capture cards specifically, I talk about them right here in this video. Or you can leave your questions in the comments as well. Now let's go ahead and see how this all works in practice. So I'm going to go ahead and go out of the RODE app right here. And let's just open up our studio. And so I'll just go ahead and join the studio right away. And I'm going to have three cameras. So I'm just going to go ahead and make sure that we have three here. Go ahead and rename them like so. Very original naming of course. So we have the RODECaster video, which is this first camera right here on camera two. Now normally this would go into a capture card. My capture card is actually over here on my other PC. So I'm actually using a OBS virtual cam for this. But it's the same concept. If you have a capture card like an Elgato or a Blackmagic or AverMedia card plugged in, it'll show up in the same way that I'm using it right here. So I'm going to go ahead and select OBS virtual camera. And now I've got my second camera plugged in. And then the third one, we can use that NDI virtual camera. And the way that we do that right here, we can just use the NDI virtual input from NDI tools to ensure that we pull it in as an NDI feed. So we can go ahead and select this. And now we have all three cameras coming in to Riverside from the same device. So we can go ahead and assign their microphones as well. Let's go back to that RODECaster Pro 2 main multitrack. Select channel 3. Go to the multitrack again. Select channel 5. And go to the last one and select channel 7. So now I have three different cameras with three different mics all plugged in using the same MacBook. Now if these cameras look a little flat in the screen recording, it's just because I use them for color grading. But some last couple things to be aware of is first, the Mac app currently only fully supports recording at 1080p width in person. So if a camera looks unavailable or an option seems disabled, check that your studio isn't set to 4k, which shouldn't be an issue with the RODECasters because they only support 1080p currently anyways just due to processing power. But that's just something to be aware of. And then again, I say only fully supported because this could change in the future and it also depends on your computer hardware. Second, if you're going hybrid, remote guests still join in like any other Riverside call while your room records everything locally. Just make sure that each in-person participant uses headphones. But depending on how many there are, you may need to consider headphone splitters to ensure everyone can hear. Third, if you use a wide camera, just ensure that you don't select a mic with it unless it's a producer mic you want to use to make sure that the transcript doesn't duplicate anything and because it won't work with any of the automatic smart layouts. And finally, don't forget to do a short test recording before the real thing, just 30 seconds like say and do some goofy stuff. And then check to make sure that every track shows up separately in your recording page and then go make your show. And that's how you get multiple cameras and multiple mics into Riverside with the RODECasters. Whether you're running a Pro 2 or Duo for your audio mixing or going full production scale with the RODECaster video series, I hope this at least cleared up most of the how. And please keep the comments coming because this helps us continue to learn more and more about how we can make your content creation experience that much better. If you want to go deeper on mic techniques or how to use your cameras with your setup, check out this video that goes into detail on these topics. Thank you so much for watching and we can't wait to see what you create.