Routing (Alt+2)

Where every sound goes: what each output can hear, and at what level.

• Tabs: This page is a tab strip of four: Output mixes (which also holds mix presets and Reset all output mixes), Faders, Levels (the fader and monitor levels, the output mutes, auto-mute, the monitor mix levels and the headphone types), and Master Mix (the Compellor, the output delay and what the unit sends this computer over USB). Arrow left and right along the strip, Home and End for the ends, and only the tab you are on is on the page. Opening a tab reads that tab's settings from the unit, so the values are always current, and the tab you leave off on is remembered.
• Output mixes: The heart of routing. Every output (your headphones, USB to a computer, the Chat channel to callers, the Bluetooth send to a phone, and so on) carries its own mix, and they are separate from one another: changing what a caller hears does not change what you hear. Main Mix is everyone. Mix Minus is everyone except that output's own source. Custom lets you include or exclude each source for that one output by hand. Pick an output at the top and the list below shows the real mix, read live from the unit. The output you pick acts straight away, since it only changes what you are looking at; the mix you choose for it waits for Apply.
• What Mix Minus actually means: It is the answer to feedback and echo on a call. Say a guest is on the phone over Bluetooth. Whatever the guest says comes INTO the desk on the Bluetooth channel, and if the desk sends its full mix back out to them, their own voice goes with it and they hear themselves a fraction of a second late, which is horrible to talk over. Mix Minus sends them the mix MINUS themselves: they hear you, your co-host and the pads, but not their own voice. The same applies to a caller on Chat or on USB. That is why the caller outputs offer Mix Minus and your headphones do not: you are not a source arriving on your own headphone output, so there is nothing to leave out.
• Building a mix minus by hand: On a Custom mix, an output's own source is in the list like any other, worded "back into itself". Untick it and you have a mix minus you control: everything else about that mix stays yours. This is what you want with a second computer on USB 2. You hear it in your headphones, because that is a different output, but its own sound does not go back down the USB it arrived on, so nothing over there hears itself repeated. Mix Minus mode does the same leaving-out for you but decides the rest of the mix itself, which is why the hand-built version exists.
• Mix presets: Output mixes saved under a name: which sources each output carries and at what level, put back in one press. It is not a backup of the desk and never touches your channels, processing or pads.
• Which outputs a preset touches, and why it is in its name: Every preset in the list ends with its scope, because that is the thing you need to know before you choose one. "(every output)" rewrites the whole desk, so anything you have set by hand on another output goes back to what the preset holds. "(Chat only)", or any other output's name, touches that one mix and leaves the rest exactly as they are, which makes it the kind you can safely use in the middle of a show. The scope is worked out from the preset itself each time the list is read, so it is right even for a preset saved on the other RODECaster.
• The three built-in presets: "Everything normal" puts every output back, the same thing as Reset all output mixes below, and it asks you to confirm because it wipes mixes you set by hand. "Chat = my mic only" sends a co-host on the Chat output just Mic 1 and nothing else, which is what you want when your screen reader is going into the mix and they should not hear it. "Chat back to normal" undoes that one, putting Chat back on its proper mix minus. The last two touch Chat alone.
• Saving your own: Type a name, then choose which of the two save buttons you want. "Save every output's mix as a preset" stores the whole desk. "Save only the [output] mix as a preset" stores just the output you have chosen at the top of this tab, and its label always names that output, so it says what it will do without your having to check anything else. The one-output kind is worth knowing about: it is the only sort that cannot disturb a mix you are listening to, and it is the only sort worth putting on a keyboard shortcut.
• Reset all output mixes: Puts every output back to its normal mix in one go, and every source back in and following the faders. Use it if a headphone output has been left on a Custom mix, which stops the Mute buttons silencing a channel in your own headphones. It wipes any custom mixes you have set, so save a mix preset or back the unit up first. You are asked to confirm.
• Fader assignment: Choose which channel sits on each fader (your unit's physical faders plus its virtual ones), each one labelled with which kind it is. Every fader can be reassigned, mic faders included. Putting a channel where another already sits swaps them, so you can rearrange your layout. Nothing is sent until you press that fader's own Apply button. A reset puts the standard layout back. A channel's processing moves with it, on both units.
• Fader and monitor levels: The levels with no physical fader to grab: the virtual faders and the monitor speaker level. Both units. If the encoder seems to have stopped working, a channel button has taken it: the announcer says which channel, and pressing that same button again gives the encoder back to these levels. Each virtual fader carries its mute and solo here as well, because those two have no control on the unit at all. If the desk ever sounds dead for no reason, a solo left on is the first thing to suspect, and "Clear all solos" on that tab is the one-press way out.
• Output mutes and the Bluetooth level: These silence a whole OUTPUT, which is not the same as muting a channel: your mixes, the recording and anything you are streaming carry on untouched, and only what somebody hears goes quiet. There is one for the monitor speakers and one for the Bluetooth send, plus the level a paired phone hears from the desk. Worth keeping straight: the Bluetooth OUTPUT is what the phone hears from you, and the Bluetooth CHANNEL, on the Channels page, is what you hear from the phone.
• Auto-mute: Two anti-feedback safety switches, on the Levels tab under the two manual mutes they automate. Monitor auto-mute silences your speakers whenever a mic fader is raised, so the mic does not pick the speakers up and squeal. Bluetooth auto-mute does the same for the Bluetooth output when a mic goes live. Leave both on if you use speakers or take calls.
• Master Mix: Two things, both about the whole mix on its way out. Master output processing affects everyone, so adjust with care: the Master Compellor is an output compressor that evens out and glues the mix together, and output delay holds the main outputs back by up to two seconds to line audio up with video. USB output is what the unit sends this computer, which is what any program here hears from the desk, whether it is recording, streaming or in a call: either the mixed pair, or every channel separately so a program on this computer can record them apart. It does not change what the unit writes to its own card or drive, which is on the Recording page.
• Monitor mix levels: Set how loud each source is in one chosen output, without changing the others or the recording. For example, make your own mic quieter in your headphones while everyone else stays the same. Reset puts that output back to following the faders.
• Headphones: The headphone type for Headphone 1 and Headphone 2, applied with the button beside each one. On a Pro 2, headphone outputs 3 and 4 are not reachable yet. High sensitivity is intended for quieter headphones and can be loud, so change with care.