Compact, easy to use gear has democratised podcast production for all. With its eye on the pro market as well, we take a look at Focusrite’s Vocaster One. Are its sounds are up to scratch for engineers and remote talent? Listen and decide.

In Summary

Vocaster One is a 2 X 4 audio interface for content creation. It includes four preset slots for recording with its simple onboard compression and EQ. We check them out in our video so you can hear for yourself how these could be suitable for both pro and independent productions.

Going Deeper

Pro Or Solo?

The content creation boom has driven a whole load of product development, tailored specifically for independent shooters and recordists. Thanks to modern designs and components, much of this gear is now at a standard that can exceed the expectations of newbies and match the needs of professionals.

This can be seen in all corners of audio production, with the world of podcasting especially seeing a number of affordable, good quality problem solvers. Productions that would have occupied some kind of commercial facility can now happen on a desktop anywhere, aided by devices that can be used either by non-audio pros or by professional talent given remote ‘packages’ to work anywhere.

Four Sounds With One Vocaster

Once everything is plugged up, there is the small detail of refining captured sounds. While this can be done by a mix engineer further downstream, some productions can benefit from recording with processing. This saves time in the mix and can give confidence to the talent in what they’re hearing in their headphones.

In the video below we listen to four presets that land with Focusrite’s Vocaster One, allowing the talent to record with processing. We show how the settings can be refined in concert with its Vocaster Hub app, and how the hardware provides useful broadcast-centric controls such as a ‘cough button’ mute. Based on the presets out of the box, we have nudged the parameters slightly so you can hear what the processing is really doing.

Final Thoughts

In addition to recordable processing, Vocaster One has some other handy features. These include the broadcast friendly ability to record mobile phone audio and return a clean feed (mix-minus) to the caller via TRRS, as well as the ability to easily mute Host input with a real button. A juicy 70dB of gain is also on hand to help dynamic broadcast mic favourites hit the air at the right level.

At the listener’s end, however, the main improvement for new solo productions is instant programme polish courtesy of printable effects. That could also make a tool such as Vocaster One useful for established solo pros as well.

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.