 A new firmware beta for Rocaster Pro 2 has just been released. This is 1.0.08, and this does now include these longer-weighted enhancements to the advanced audio routing that we have on the Rocaster Pro 2. So if you're not already on the beta, I'll leave a link down in the description as to how you can get onto the beta. There's no sort of barrier to entry with it, just put in your application and then you'll get straight through to it. There is obviously a way to download the firmware from the device itself. So if you don't see any prompt coming up, then the way to do that would be that you'll go into your settings, go into system, go into information, and then check for updates. So that is the way that you'll go and sort of manually check for this update. However, what you should see is if you are already on the beta, then you will be basically prompted to do this. And you should see something that looks a little bit like this on the home screen, on the main screen, I should say. Click through to that. It'll prompt you to download the beta. So it'll tell you that there's a beta available in your firmware update. And then click on the button. It'll download it. And then as soon as it's downloaded, you'll click the button to install. And I've sped up this next bit, but basically it took around about, I think, two or three minutes downloading the update and then going through the install. And this little sort of progress bar seemed to fill up about two or three times. Switch off, switch back on again, repeat the same process. And you'll find that once it's done that, you'll hear a little the road chime that you get when you switch it on as well. And then basically the road will, the road caster will come back to life. And then everything will be exactly as you left it, more or less, except that you will now have the new firmware. One thing I should say is do make sure that you do a backup of your profile before you do the update. Just in case anything goes wrong, it went fine for me, but you never know with these things. And so just to recap the way to do that would be to click on the little button just at the top here and then just click this export to export your show. And then you'll have a copy of that. So always safe to do that before you do the update. So let's have a look at the main sort of feature of this. In fact, let's just quickly have a look at what all of the features are and then we'll dig in because there's only really three specific new ones. So first of all, added variable output mix functionality. That's what we're going to be looking at next. Also, various user interface improvements. It's not specific about those. And I couldn't really see too many on the actual device itself. Those seem to be more related to the road central app. More on that in a little moment. And then also MIDI mapping of smart pads now begins from MIDI channel one. So that's all just to do with the naming of these MIDI channels. The rest of the list, as you can see, is just bug fixes. So, but really the main sort of core feature that we're going to be talking about today is this first one on the list as it relates to the actual roadcaster itself. So coming back over to the device, what we're talking about here is the audio routing. Now, previously we were able to do some advanced audio routing on the three USB channels. Obviously, we've got two cables, but there are three channels, USB one, USB one, sorry, main, USB one chat and the USB secondary. And then we've also got the Bluetooth. And on all of those four channels previously, if you recall, when you go into the settings here, click on outputs or tap on outputs, go into the routing and then we could change the mix minus and so on. This is now a bit of a different interface, as you can see. And in fact, what we've got here is, as well as the Bluetooth USB channels here, we've also got all of the other potential outputs. So headphones one to four, the speakers. Bear in mind, we've got the four headphone outputs here. We've also got the speakers on the back as well, the left and right for the speakers. It's also got another one here though for recording. And what we can do here is, as well as doing that sort of basic routing that we could do before, we can now actually control the routing to each of these individual channels. But actually they've gone a little bit further than that because we can also control the individual levels. It's not just a case of deciding if something is either on or off. So if you recall before with the, let's say the USB, for example, we could decide which of our other channels we wanted to go down to that particular channel. So if we've got a series of inputs, which one did you want to output to that particular channel? Well, what they've done here is they've actually changed this slightly. So let's just go into USB one. This part will look a little bit familiar, just like we had before. We've got main mix, we've got mix minus and then custom. But the custom has actually changed now. The UI has changed. And as you can see, what we've got here is we've actually got the full set of sort of faders that we've got down on the mixer down here. We've also now got those there. We can still do the exact same thing as we did before, where if we want to exclude something from the mix, we can do that. But what we can also do is we can set relative levels in here as well. So for example, this is my main mix. Now, if I just change to a different one just so that we can look at something that's not gonna get affected by the output into the recording, let's say USB secondary. So on the secondary channel here, what you'll notice is at the moment, all of these different sort of faders here are exactly the same as the faders as they appear sort of on the board. So if I move this one up and down, what you'll notice is this one here is moving up and down right here as well. So I'm moving that one up and down. But what we can actually do is we can actually change that independently. So if I just move this right down to the bottom, for example, you can see I can just tap on these. And as I tap along, then you'll notice that the actual little icon here is changing color. So this is now green. Maybe if I zoom in a little bit on that, can you see how that one is green? Tap on there, that one turns green. That means that that is the active one that I'm now adjusting. Now, if I use the rotary wheel on the side here, if I move this one up and down, you can see how I'm now moving that sort of independently of this fader. So the fader position is still indicated on there, but in this case, you can see there's this kind of like little blue bar now has opened up in between the actual fader position and the sort of relative fader position of this one. So what this means is that in this particular sort of output here, going out to USB secondary, although my fader is set to here on the main board as it were, here you can see that the level is actually higher. But these two are still linked. When I move this fader, wrong one, when I move this fader up, you'll notice that the whole thing here is moving up as well. It's moving up relative to this fader and I can move it all the way down to the bottom and it moves down like that. Obviously, when this one is completely bottomed out, so it can't go any further and effectively in the mix to everything else, this is now at zero, this is still above zero. Now, that's because we've set that relative to this above it. Now if I was to move this fader all the way to the top, what you would see is that as it gets to the very top, then now I start to close the gap. So that one is basically maxed out and now this one moves up to join it. So when you have got this sort of relative change, maybe if I make this a little bit different, if I'll just put this one at unity level and then I'll move this one all the way down. So now we're effectively saying that for everything else in the mix, this is the sort of level, but for the output to USB 2, it's now significantly lower than that. What then would happen is as I lower this down, you can see how now that one is effectively at zero, even though this one is still higher than that. So that is how you basically can set relative levels. Now, what you can also do though, is you can actually break this connection. So you'll see that there is a little sort of link symbol here. So let me just put this back to unity. What I can do also is I can tap on this one, but I can change this little link symbol here. So now there is, it looks like a picture of a sort of broken link. Now I can just adjust this one completely independently. And it doesn't matter what I do with this one, it's still showing me the level. But as you can see, as I move that up and down, it's having no bearing on that whatsoever. So it means you can set completely separate levels and not have them linked at all. You can also do exactly what we used to be able to do, which was just actually exclude it from the mix altogether. So if I was to just press that again, you'll see that now it's got the little cross symbol. So that effectively, when you see it like that, that is the old functionality that we used to have of being able to just exclude something from the mix. So that's how this works. And where might you want to use this? Well, if you're, say, live streaming, maybe you're live streaming a game or something like that, and you want to be able to hear it in your head, but you don't want it to be going out through to the, as loud over the live stream or vice versa, or maybe you're in Discord, you want to have the chat or music playing that is playing louder in your ear than it is over the stream, whatever the case. This is how you could set these sort of relative levels. Now I'm just going to pop that one back for the moment. One thing I will also just point out is what I tend to do a lot is rather than setting up these sort of exclusions, if you like, of specific incoming feeds going out to down other channels, I tend to use the buttons down at the bottom. So if I just zoom out a little bit, I would tend to use these ones. So where I want to say, for example, when I'm live streaming, I want my e-cam live and microphone to go out into the mix, but I don't want Discord, Zoom, or other things, my system audio going out into the mix. And so the way that I do that is I just mute those in here, but then I just actually listen to those tracks as well. So that's the way that I do that. Now, what you'll notice is when any of these tracks are in fact muted, then, or here, like down at the bottom, you'll notice that they do in fact have the sort of corresponding red icon here to show that that is muted. Let me just come out of here for a second. There we go. You can see as I press mute down here, it's got this little red bar. So that's what we also indicate that this audio would not be going down this USB2 channel because I've actually muted it here. So even if we adjusted it in here, it is still muted. So that's just another little thing to take note of. Now, so far, we're just looking at the USB channels as we've just seen. We've also got the Bluetooth. So these four down here are exactly as we've always had before, but now what we can also do is do the same kind of thing with these other channels. You obviously don't have mixed minus and so on on a headphone channel because there's nothing incoming. It's only a sort of one-way street as it were. So that just goes straight into the audio routing. And here you can see we've got exactly the same controls. So if you want to adjust the levels going down to a particular set of headphones, then you can do that in here as well. Now, the way that I actually have sort of hacked to get an extra channel out of my computer, because obviously we've got the three and I use one for Ecam Live, I use one for Zoom, one for Discord. What I also then do is I've, if I just maybe can show you this, probably can't quite squeeze it in, but just down here, basically I've got a stereo pair, a linked stereo pair that is coming in down at the back into two of the channels. And so that's where I'm then bringing in the audio from my computer from System Audio. So that's actually coming down through a cable out of the headphones from the back of the computer and into a stereo pair on the back of the Rocaster. That is obviously one way, because it's just an input. But now in fact, what I could do is I could take one of these external headphones, because I only really use two of them. I have one for my InEar monitors, and then I have one for my Rode NTH100s that I use when I'm editing. And so that one then is, you know, those just took those two channels. But then what I could do then is take one out of the channel three or channel four and take that one back into the computer. So now effectively I could really have four Mix Minus channels going back and forth to the computer. So that is the audio routing. And I think that is a nice little addition. What I would really, really love to see, and obviously we'll be submitting this as a feature request. So if you are on the beta program, there is a way to sort of submit any tickets that you've got in terms of issues that you come across all suggestions as well. One of the things that are we suggesting is a way to actually have these settings programmed from the smart pads. You can do this to a limited extent with the smart pads already in terms of doing setting up the back channels, but not really quite such advanced sort of audio routing in the way that I use the channels at the bottom here, for example, you can't really easily set that up. So that is something that I will be suggesting. But I digress slightly from the update. That is the main thing then to consider in terms of this routing. And it is in this routing once again, just as we've looked at with the headphones, you've also got it there for the speakers. You've also got it for the recording as well. So here you've got the option of main mix versus custom and here you can change that as well. So if you wanted to have something that was being recorded to the device at different levels, then you can do that from there as well. So in terms of the road central app, because I mentioned that this is something that also has had a refresh. And I do think that this is where the majority of these UI tweaks that they're talking about are because I didn't see anything specific having gone through all of the other menus on the device. I think that that is probably where the majority of these things have changed. There is a beta of the firmware as well. So if I just pop over to the website here, this is a list of all the things that have been changed. But also you'll find here, I'll leave a link to this as well. This is the beta testing program. So this tells you about the firmware download and so on. But you'll see scrolling down at the bottom here do make sure that you grab this as well. So download road central beta 2.0.15. And it says here quite clearly, if you're using ROGASTA Pro 2 beta firmware 1.0.8, then use the road central beta 2.0.15. So that is what I've done. And it's just obviously the usual installation process there. So what has changed on this then, if I just move this over a little bit, what has changed on this then is a couple of things actually. First of all, if I just click in, you can see it does clearly say beta. So you can be sure which one you are using. So first of all, if I come into the device configuration, and then we've got the routing down here. So this does then open up all of those things that we've just looked at. So as well as being able to do it on the device, you can actually do it from the road central. And again, as I say, you can just click through all of these. You can see all of these relative changes. This does update live. So if I move the fade up and down on my ROGASTA, you can see it's moving up and down here. Look, no hands. I'm doing it with a ROGASTA. So that basically allows you to do all of this from here. So you might find it easier to come through and just sort of set these things up this way from here. The other thing though that has changed in here, which is a new addition, which you may not immediately notice, is if I come through to the audio setup. So this is where you set up the various different things that you've got on your different faders. So here you can see my sort of main mix coming, sorry, my main mic coming in, I should say. This is my stereo pair that I've set up that comes in from the computer. And then this is where I have my wireless mic when I'm doing product demos and stuff like that. So that one is plugged in here. So this is the setup. This looks pretty similar to before. But what you may have not noticed is that they do now have these little setting controls or little cog wheels, I should say, on each of these. And what you can do is click into any one of those. And that now gives you access to all of the processing. So this is something that we haven't had so far in ROGESTA Central. So it's great to see this here because actually sometimes it is easier to go through and tweak these things on a desktop rather than on the device itself. So this allows you to change all various different things such as the compression, noise gate and all of those kind of things. By the way, I should say, obviously this is a beta, but as soon as the beta makes it out of beta into the regular firmware, this will all be updated in my ROGESTA Pro to masterclass, which you can see just down below. And just in case you're interested to learn more, I'll leave a link to this obviously in the description. It's just ROGESTA masterclass.com. But this basically covers everything from absolute beginner all the way through to advanced level of the ROGESTA. And it really does tell you everything from setting it up to understanding the sort of technology behind it and understanding the theory behind it. And I mention this now because what I've found is that one of the things about this piece of gear is that it is so advanced and has got so many great features. But one thing that I think that lets a lot of people down is this lack of understanding around the advanced audio processing. I mean, it's got such power on board that allows you to get a much better sound quality out of whatever you're doing. But if you don't understand what is compression, what are noise gates, how do they work? What do all of these different things mean? I mean, if I come into my thing here, if I go into the DSR for example, what does this line represent? How do we sort of change it? If I come into the high pass filter, what's going on here? What do all of these things mean? What is the compressor doing? What does this line represent? I think there are so many things that people are just really quite unsure about. And that was really my motivation for making the Rokasta Pro 2 Masterclass. So there is actually an advanced audio processing section. And if you go into that, all of these things are explained in clear English and demystified so that you'll actually understand what all of these things do and crucially what all of these different parameters do as well. So, I mean, just thinking about the compressor, for example, if you have a look at this, what is threshold? What is ratio, attack, release and gain? Because a lot of people twiddle with these different dials, not necessarily knowing the effect it's having. And in fact, in many cases, they can actually make themselves sound worse and have a sort of negative impact. So this is the issue that I've tried to address as I say with the Rokasta Pro 2 Masterclass. Over 100 lessons in there that cover absolutely everything you need to know from getting it set up all the way through to, as I say, all of the advanced stuff as well. So you'll find a link to that down in the description. And as I say, as soon as this firmware comes out of beta, this will be updated because you get lifetime access with all future updates of the Rokasta will be included in the Rokasta Pro 2 Masterclass. And so you just pay once and get that lifetime access. So it becomes your online Rokasta Pro 2 Encyclopedia in effect. So just coming back to the update then, so this is the Road Central app and that is the sort of last main update that they have made to the app. But I really think that this is useful to be able to come in here and tweak your settings from the Road Central app in this way and do just make sure though that you do go and grab this latest beta. So apart from that, as I say, there is this difference in the way that they are sort of labeling the MIDI tracks on the Rokasta. So that's not really something to demonstrate, it's just the fact that they are now labeled differently. If you are using MIDI, you'll immediately understand exactly what that means. So that's it for the update. But what I'll do is I'll leave a link over on the right hand side to some other Rokasta Pro 2 videos. And I just want to say a big thank you to my channel members for your support. I really do and appreciate each and every one of you and to everyone watching as well. Have a great day.