New Best Microphone For Streamers? Rode NT-USB Mini vs Elgato Wave

**The Ultimate Comparison: Rode Microphone vs Elgato Wave One**

As a streamer, choosing the right microphone is crucial for delivering high-quality audio to your audience. In this article, we'll dive into the world of microphones and compare two popular options: the Rode Microphone with its Rode Connect software and the Elgato Wave One with its Wavelink software.

**The Rode Microphone: A Good Option?**

While the Rode Microphone is a good microphone that sounds great, I'm not convinced it's the best option for streamers. The Rode Connect software, which comes with the microphone, isn't particularly game-changing. You can achieve similar results with other microphones on the market that are much cheaper and sound almost as good.

**The Elgato Wave One: Unrivaled Control**

On the other hand, the Elgato Wave One offers unparalleled control over your stream audio. With the Wavelink software, you can separate your microphone from your system sounds, allowing for precise control over both audio sources. This is a game-changer for streamers who want to ensure that their audio is always top-notch.

**But What About Volume Control?**

Unfortunately, even with the Elgato Wave One and its Wavelink software, you still can't control your volume in your headphones and your stream separately. This is a significant limitation compared to other streaming software on the market, such as the Elgato HD60.

**A Third Option: The Razer Siren Mini**

If you're looking for an alternative to the Elgato Wave One, I recommend considering the Razer Siren Mini. This microphone offers great sound quality and comes at a fraction of the cost of the Elgato Wave One. With the Razer Siren Mini, you can still achieve excellent audio separation using OBS.

**Virtual Audio Devices: The Key to Control**

To get around the limitations of the Rode Microphone's software, you'll need to use virtual audio devices. These devices allow you to separate your audio sources and control them independently. You can download virtual cable or purchase additional virtual devices from their website.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, if you're looking for a microphone that offers unparalleled control over your stream audio, the Elgato Wave One is an excellent choice. However, if you're on a tighter budget, the Razer Siren Mini is a great alternative.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enoh look at that a brand new microphone i totally didn't place it there for the video excuse me for my mess by the way i'm still building my studio now this mic right here which is pretty heavy by the way has been around for a while and it was a great mic nothing special just a good budget microphone but then while i was scrolling on twitter i saw a tweet from rode which is the company that made this mic that they were launching a new software called road connect specifically for this budget microphone here now once i saw their selling point which was new software for podcasters and streamers it was pretty clear that this is direct competition with the elgato wave microphone which comes with the wavelink software and the goal of both companies is pretty similar and also pretty obvious you buy their microphone and then you get software which allows you to control your audio for your podcast or your stream that means separate control over the volume of your microphone your music youtube your alerts game sound everything in one place and elgato nailed it with their software for their wave microphone so since that launched around 8 months ago we've been waiting for a company to try and compete with the elgato wavelength software and road is finally doing it by the way i just did some testing with the mic and i can already tell you we're gonna do some testing together but the results look pretty promising this video is sponsored by owned pro it's a plugin for obs studio that gives you a big library of graphic packs five of them are free at all times and can be installed in one click if you want more options you can subscribe for less than 10 dollars a month to get access to all graphic packs which is a lot to say the least besides that they also have a chat bot copyright free music and a bunch of other stuff they recently upgraded the plugin and there's a 50 sale going on so right now is a great time to get in the link to the tool will be in my description you can just install it for free to check it out and then decide if you want to buy it later again the link will be in my description the rode mini and the usb mic comes in a pretty simple package it contains a microphone which has a noticeably smaller body than the elgato wave microphone next we have a microphone stand and also a long usb to usb c cable as well as a metal converter which i assume will be for when you use a boom arm on the back of the mic there are two ports one usbc to connect it to your pc and then one headphone jack since everything that's coming out of the mixer can go through the mic to your headphones the volume knob on the front will be used to well control your volume the stand it comes with is pretty sturdy and it's magnetic so that means that it's very easy to attach it to the microphone now if you want to use a boom arm you can just take out this rubber ring and then screw in the metal converter which will allow you to connect the mic to your boom arm now at first sight these mics look pretty similar right however there is a pretty big difference in price because this elgato microphone costs around 150 dollars while the rode one costs only a hundred i want to hear the raw sound of both microphones and to test that i will be importing them into adobe audition because then we can both listen to how they sound in real time alright i'm ready to test these microphones this is a test of the rode microphone this is a test of the elgato microphone so the alcatel one definitely sounds more deep by default now we have to add them to the software the software will add some effects to it but first i want to test them by holding them closer to my mouth because if you're using a boom arm it will be much closer so let's test that right now this is a test of the elgato wave one really close to my mouth this is a test of the road microphone really close to my mouth this rode mic sounds like it's really far there is definitely a noticeable difference the wave one sounds much better without any other effects let's add them to their own software right now okay so these are both of the programs for the microphones this is elgato wavelink this is our mic we can change some things by changing the gain adding a low cut filter and a clip guard but not that much to change how it sounds but it sounded pretty deep by default so that's okay it's the rode microphone that needs some effects to sound really warm so this is the rode connect software and the first column is the microphone when we click on one we can see some effects we can add a noise gate a compressor and then an exciter and a big bottom and these are the things that will make it sound better so now i'm really curious if it's gonna sound different so let's go back to audition and now let's test them with the effects added to them this is a test of the road microphone being held close to my mouth this is a test of the elgato microphone being held close to my mouth okay now there was even less of a difference so they both sound pretty similar all right i'm gonna go to bed now since it's already pretty late it's completely dark outside it has been for a while but these mics are pretty similar right i'm really looking forward to testing the mixer tomorrow see you then now the reason roadmap software for their mic just like elgato did is really simple the elgato wave link program is single-handedly responsible for the huge success of the wave microphone and obviously wrote once a piece of that success so let me show you what's so amazing about the elgato wavelink program so this slider controls the volume in my headphones and then this slider controls the volume in the stream now here we see two three four five six and this is where we can add everything like spotify our game or alerts youtube let's say i want to play music on youtube and i want to add it right here as a second source i would just go to the audio settings then to the advanced audio settings and then i can change google chrome to wavelink music then in the wavelink program i just click on the second source and then i say this should be the music source right now when i play music on youtube it's going right here in this column i can choose how loud my music should be in my headphones how loud the stream should hear it i can mute it for both and then here on the bottom you see where everything is going so this is the monitor mix this will go to my headphones this is a stream mix that's what my stream will hear and then something that's extremely useful you see these two ear icons here right now i'm listening to my monitor mix because it's what i want to hear in my headphones but if i want to check if the levels on the stream are right i just click on this ear and then i hear everything that my stream will hear so this way i can check if everything sounds right if it does i go back to my own mix and then i can just start streaming and just like i did with the music you can add everything right here as these sources control everything together this is the reason that the wavelink program has such a high reputation and the reason why this microphone here sells so good now let's check out the mixer options of the rode program now i'm going to use my camera mic for a second because i want to show you something so i'm doing the setup of the rode mic here and as you see i can add four microphones now there is one mic being connected to my pc so obviously i only see one right here but as you see i can drag it to a spot and then if you have more mics you can drag them to two three and four and this is something that alcatel lacks so you can only add one microphone to your software and then if you want to add multiple microphones you can't use the software which makes it kind of pointless right so right now it looks like if you are a streamer podcaster you want to add multiple mics that road connect and the road usb and the mini is a great option but let's look further so let's click on next and then here we can add two virtual devices one is a system audio and then one extra virtual device let's click next and right now i'm using the rode mic here let's click on one and as you see exciter and big bottom is enabled the big bottom will make my lows sound lower so i'll make my voice warmer and then the exciter will pull up the heist which will make my voice sound crisp the compressor will make sure that the volume of my mic is pretty constant and on the noise gate here this is really useful what it does is only activating your microphone once the incoming volume is above a certain level so what this is used for is when you're not talking but your pc fans are making sound then the microphone will probably not start picking up sound so as you see in total we have three sound sources here as you saw in the elgato software we had one microphone and then six other sources and i think you can add a seventh and an eighth i'm not really sure but right here we have the microphone and then two others so this one is for all your system sound so your game your music your discord your alerts everything together and then this one is for one thing you want to separate for example your music so again here in the advanced audio settings let's click here we can send our music to virtual output and then it will appear right here in this virtual output source but that's where it stops you have your microphone your music and then all your other sounds you can't separate your discord you can't choose how loud your music should be for yourself and for the stream as far as i know you also can't listen to the stream mix to determine if all the volumes are right for the stream just like you could in the elgato software with the ear icons right so the biggest problem of the rode microphone is that there aren't enough virtual audio devices to send your audio sources to now the good news is that it's pretty easy for them to just add a few more virtual devices so you have more control over your stream however even if they would add that to the software you still wouldn't be able to control your volume in your headphones and your stream separately this separate control is something that makes the wavelink software very unique and i know i've mentioned it a lot already but is the reason why everybody recommends the mic now if road would also add that capability to the software then we might have a really good contender however i don't think they will attack capability in the near future so in the end which microphone should you get well the answer is pretty interesting in my opinion because there is a third microphone that comes into play here if you have a hundred fifty dollars to spend i would get the elgato wave one the control you get with their software is simply unrivaled at this point and once you go live with their software on your second screen or on your main screen you will understand what i mean then secondly there's the rode microphone with the rode connect software and in my honest opinion after checking out everything trying new things i don't really think it is a good option to buy because the software isn't that game breaking now don't get me wrong it's a good microphone it sounds good but there are other microphones out there that don't come with software but that are much cheaper and sound almost as good or even as good and a great example of that is the razer siren mini now full disclosure i haven't tested out the microphone myself i've ordered it because i want to make a video about it but i've heard a lot of good things about it i've listened to test results of the microphone and it does sound great and it comes in at around 50 dollars so instead of getting the rode microphone for a hundred dollars which basically just gives you a very simple software with three sliders you can just as well buy the 50 dollar siren mini and then add the sources separately to obs which will give you the same control when you go to your audio settings and then to your advanced audio settings you can see all the programs that are making sound on your pc then you can just take one of the programs for example spotify and change the output to a device on your pc that you're not using and then import that device in obs which will give you a slider to control the device separately if you don't have audio devices on your pc that you're not using you can download virtual cable which will give you one virtual device and if you need more you can buy two more for five dollars on their website so that's my end conclusion either you pay a hundred and fifty dollars for the wave one with the wavelength software which is definitely worth it or you go down to fifty five dollars for the razer siren mini plus five dollars for two extra virtual cables which is amazing more and more companies are gonna notice this and if they wanna stay competitive in the streaming market they will need to come out with software for their mics that being said thank you so much for watching and i hope that i will see you in the next video have a nice day youoh look at that a brand new microphone i totally didn't place it there for the video excuse me for my mess by the way i'm still building my studio now this mic right here which is pretty heavy by the way has been around for a while and it was a great mic nothing special just a good budget microphone but then while i was scrolling on twitter i saw a tweet from rode which is the company that made this mic that they were launching a new software called road connect specifically for this budget microphone here now once i saw their selling point which was new software for podcasters and streamers it was pretty clear that this is direct competition with the elgato wave microphone which comes with the wavelink software and the goal of both companies is pretty similar and also pretty obvious you buy their microphone and then you get software which allows you to control your audio for your podcast or your stream that means separate control over the volume of your microphone your music youtube your alerts game sound everything in one place and elgato nailed it with their software for their wave microphone so since that launched around 8 months ago we've been waiting for a company to try and compete with the elgato wavelength software and road is finally doing it by the way i just did some testing with the mic and i can already tell you we're gonna do some testing together but the results look pretty promising this video is sponsored by owned pro it's a plugin for obs studio that gives you a big library of graphic packs five of them are free at all times and can be installed in one click if you want more options you can subscribe for less than 10 dollars a month to get access to all graphic packs which is a lot to say the least besides that they also have a chat bot copyright free music and a bunch of other stuff they recently upgraded the plugin and there's a 50 sale going on so right now is a great time to get in the link to the tool will be in my description you can just install it for free to check it out and then decide if you want to buy it later again the link will be in my description the rode mini and the usb mic comes in a pretty simple package it contains a microphone which has a noticeably smaller body than the elgato wave microphone next we have a microphone stand and also a long usb to usb c cable as well as a metal converter which i assume will be for when you use a boom arm on the back of the mic there are two ports one usbc to connect it to your pc and then one headphone jack since everything that's coming out of the mixer can go through the mic to your headphones the volume knob on the front will be used to well control your volume the stand it comes with is pretty sturdy and it's magnetic so that means that it's very easy to attach it to the microphone now if you want to use a boom arm you can just take out this rubber ring and then screw in the metal converter which will allow you to connect the mic to your boom arm now at first sight these mics look pretty similar right however there is a pretty big difference in price because this elgato microphone costs around 150 dollars while the rode one costs only a hundred i want to hear the raw sound of both microphones and to test that i will be importing them into adobe audition because then we can both listen to how they sound in real time alright i'm ready to test these microphones this is a test of the rode microphone this is a test of the elgato microphone so the alcatel one definitely sounds more deep by default now we have to add them to the software the software will add some effects to it but first i want to test them by holding them closer to my mouth because if you're using a boom arm it will be much closer so let's test that right now this is a test of the elgato wave one really close to my mouth this is a test of the road microphone really close to my mouth this rode mic sounds like it's really far there is definitely a noticeable difference the wave one sounds much better without any other effects let's add them to their own software right now okay so these are both of the programs for the microphones this is elgato wavelink this is our mic we can change some things by changing the gain adding a low cut filter and a clip guard but not that much to change how it sounds but it sounded pretty deep by default so that's okay it's the rode microphone that needs some effects to sound really warm so this is the rode connect software and the first column is the microphone when we click on one we can see some effects we can add a noise gate a compressor and then an exciter and a big bottom and these are the things that will make it sound better so now i'm really curious if it's gonna sound different so let's go back to audition and now let's test them with the effects added to them this is a test of the road microphone being held close to my mouth this is a test of the elgato microphone being held close to my mouth okay now there was even less of a difference so they both sound pretty similar all right i'm gonna go to bed now since it's already pretty late it's completely dark outside it has been for a while but these mics are pretty similar right i'm really looking forward to testing the mixer tomorrow see you then now the reason roadmap software for their mic just like elgato did is really simple the elgato wave link program is single-handedly responsible for the huge success of the wave microphone and obviously wrote once a piece of that success so let me show you what's so amazing about the elgato wavelink program so this slider controls the volume in my headphones and then this slider controls the volume in the stream now here we see two three four five six and this is where we can add everything like spotify our game or alerts youtube let's say i want to play music on youtube and i want to add it right here as a second source i would just go to the audio settings then to the advanced audio settings and then i can change google chrome to wavelink music then in the wavelink program i just click on the second source and then i say this should be the music source right now when i play music on youtube it's going right here in this column i can choose how loud my music should be in my headphones how loud the stream should hear it i can mute it for both and then here on the bottom you see where everything is going so this is the monitor mix this will go to my headphones this is a stream mix that's what my stream will hear and then something that's extremely useful you see these two ear icons here right now i'm listening to my monitor mix because it's what i want to hear in my headphones but if i want to check if the levels on the stream are right i just click on this ear and then i hear everything that my stream will hear so this way i can check if everything sounds right if it does i go back to my own mix and then i can just start streaming and just like i did with the music you can add everything right here as these sources control everything together this is the reason that the wavelink program has such a high reputation and the reason why this microphone here sells so good now let's check out the mixer options of the rode program now i'm going to use my camera mic for a second because i want to show you something so i'm doing the setup of the rode mic here and as you see i can add four microphones now there is one mic being connected to my pc so obviously i only see one right here but as you see i can drag it to a spot and then if you have more mics you can drag them to two three and four and this is something that alcatel lacks so you can only add one microphone to your software and then if you want to add multiple microphones you can't use the software which makes it kind of pointless right so right now it looks like if you are a streamer podcaster you want to add multiple mics that road connect and the road usb and the mini is a great option but let's look further so let's click on next and then here we can add two virtual devices one is a system audio and then one extra virtual device let's click next and right now i'm using the rode mic here let's click on one and as you see exciter and big bottom is enabled the big bottom will make my lows sound lower so i'll make my voice warmer and then the exciter will pull up the heist which will make my voice sound crisp the compressor will make sure that the volume of my mic is pretty constant and on the noise gate here this is really useful what it does is only activating your microphone once the incoming volume is above a certain level so what this is used for is when you're not talking but your pc fans are making sound then the microphone will probably not start picking up sound so as you see in total we have three sound sources here as you saw in the elgato software we had one microphone and then six other sources and i think you can add a seventh and an eighth i'm not really sure but right here we have the microphone and then two others so this one is for all your system sound so your game your music your discord your alerts everything together and then this one is for one thing you want to separate for example your music so again here in the advanced audio settings let's click here we can send our music to virtual output and then it will appear right here in this virtual output source but that's where it stops you have your microphone your music and then all your other sounds you can't separate your discord you can't choose how loud your music should be for yourself and for the stream as far as i know you also can't listen to the stream mix to determine if all the volumes are right for the stream just like you could in the elgato software with the ear icons right so the biggest problem of the rode microphone is that there aren't enough virtual audio devices to send your audio sources to now the good news is that it's pretty easy for them to just add a few more virtual devices so you have more control over your stream however even if they would add that to the software you still wouldn't be able to control your volume in your headphones and your stream separately this separate control is something that makes the wavelink software very unique and i know i've mentioned it a lot already but is the reason why everybody recommends the mic now if road would also add that capability to the software then we might have a really good contender however i don't think they will attack capability in the near future so in the end which microphone should you get well the answer is pretty interesting in my opinion because there is a third microphone that comes into play here if you have a hundred fifty dollars to spend i would get the elgato wave one the control you get with their software is simply unrivaled at this point and once you go live with their software on your second screen or on your main screen you will understand what i mean then secondly there's the rode microphone with the rode connect software and in my honest opinion after checking out everything trying new things i don't really think it is a good option to buy because the software isn't that game breaking now don't get me wrong it's a good microphone it sounds good but there are other microphones out there that don't come with software but that are much cheaper and sound almost as good or even as good and a great example of that is the razer siren mini now full disclosure i haven't tested out the microphone myself i've ordered it because i want to make a video about it but i've heard a lot of good things about it i've listened to test results of the microphone and it does sound great and it comes in at around 50 dollars so instead of getting the rode microphone for a hundred dollars which basically just gives you a very simple software with three sliders you can just as well buy the 50 dollar siren mini and then add the sources separately to obs which will give you the same control when you go to your audio settings and then to your advanced audio settings you can see all the programs that are making sound on your pc then you can just take one of the programs for example spotify and change the output to a device on your pc that you're not using and then import that device in obs which will give you a slider to control the device separately if you don't have audio devices on your pc that you're not using you can download virtual cable which will give you one virtual device and if you need more you can buy two more for five dollars on their website so that's my end conclusion either you pay a hundred and fifty dollars for the wave one with the wavelength software which is definitely worth it or you go down to fifty five dollars for the razer siren mini plus five dollars for two extra virtual cables which is amazing more and more companies are gonna notice this and if they wanna stay competitive in the streaming market they will need to come out with software for their mics that being said thank you so much for watching and i hope that i will see you in the next video have a nice day you