Rode Archives - How to Kill an Hour

Big Zuu as well as a chef and a presenter is mainly a rapper! He does a lot of work from home, even more so now there’s a lockdown! So on our latest podcast with him, we decided to delve into his home studio to find out exactly what he’s rocking at home!

Big Zuu’s Mic of Choice: Rode NT2A

The NT2A is an amazing microphone! Of course it is as it’s made from the legendary RODE! The NT2-A continues the legacy from the original NT2 and now has a professional 1″ capsule studio mic and three position pick up patterns. Furthermore it has a high pass filter too! The switches are conveniently located on the body of the mic too! While the frequency and transient response of this transducer has been voiced to complement today’s modern recording techniques! However you can still get silky smooth and crystal clear recordings from it! This mic is so good as it provides flexibility and superlative audio characteristics making it hugely versatile.!

Purchase here!

Big Zuu’s Soundcard: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen

The Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 is now into it’s 3rd Generation and is better than ever. Especially since it’s used by musicians, producers and hobbyists all over the world! Mainly because it’s very very reliable piece of kit! It has 2 of the best performing Scarlett mic pre-amps. Which comes with ‘Air’ which helps to mic up guitars or record vocals. There’s also 2 high headroom instrument inputs for guitars and basses. It has high performance converters (24bit/192kHz) built in. Which will record, mix and play back in studio quality! Making it super clear and detailed.

Focusrite have something called an Easy Start tool which will help you set up and record within minutes too, so no excuses allowed!

(Focusrite)

Purchase here!

Big Zuu’s Speakers: KRK Rokit 5’s

The KRK Rokit RP5 G4 has a tweeter and a subwoofer which are made from Kevlar, which not only gives you really high studio level quality audio. Therefore ensuring the same sonic integrity on every frequency but also reduces listening fatigue for the user. The sound on these speakers are incredible, which is why it’s no surprise that these speakers are the go-to brand for studio monitors. Anything you throw at these speakers they will output and produce quality sound with ease. These speakers have been scientifically re-engineered from the ground up to work with modern artists of all genres and environments. (Amazon)

Purchase here!

Belkin USB C – to USB A Converter

If you work from home and you’re a music producer, rapper you’re going to need to connect a lot of devices to your laptop. The newest Macbook Pro’s don’t have a lot of USB ports so, to fix that Belkin have released this amazing USB hub. It’s USB C to USB 3.0 and has 4 available slots. It allows up to 5gbps file transfer speeds. So, you’ll be able to work super quick! It’s powered too so your devices and programmes will be unlikely to crash! You can also charge your devices on it too! (Amazon)

Purchase here!

Big Zuu’s choice of music software: Logic X

Logic Pro X is an incredible piece of software. It is often the go-to piece of software for professional and home studio’s all over the world. As it can handle really demanding projects. Both for film and for music!

It is a highly sophisticated tool for professional songwriting, editing and mixing. The interface is easy to use and designed to get the best creative results quickly. It includes a HUGE collection of instruments, effects, loops, a whole toolkit to create amazing music.

Purchase here!

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Sound Effects and Jingles

The RØDECaster Pro comes with eight programmable sound effects pads, allowing you to get creative with your podcasts. If you’ve listened to How To Kill An Hour lately you’ll be able to see how we’ve integrated these into the show. They’re sounding so good! Instantly trigger sound effects, music, jingles, ads, whatever you want really! It’s perfect for stepping up your game. Even record audio directly into the programmable pads via any of the inputs. While you can also put the audio in the conventional drag and drop way via the supplied software. Plus, change the colours of the pads easily to differentiate which pad is which piece of audio.

Phone calls

Connect via Bluetooth or a TRRS cable and the Rode RODECaster Pro automatically provides ‘mix-minus’ to prevent audio to be heard by the caller. Telephone calls for us got so much easier!

Processing

Class A Servo-biased Preamps

The RODECaster Pro has pristine preamps and outputs feature Class A circuitry which is found in broadcast centres around the world. The Class A preamps provide a very clean gain structure with very low levels of distortion. Making for an incredible clean and low-noise signal. In layman’s terms, you’re going to sound very very good! The Preamps are also servo-biased, which therefore keeps distortion levels low. .

APHEX^® On board

The processors on board are APHEX Aural Exciter™ and APHEX Big Bottom™. Which you can find in the settings tab on the RODECaster Pro, your podcasts and audio recordings will therefore be rich and warm. Other processing features available to you are multistage dynamics, such as compression, limiting, de-essing and noise-gating.

Overall we are very much in love with the RODECaster Pro, it is a stellar piece of software and we cannot wait to see how creative we can get!