TC-Helicon GO XLR MINI

Go XLR kiinnosti jo silloin kun se julkaistiin viime vuoden puolella, mutta sen korkea hinta oli este. En ollut täysin perehtynyt siihen mitä Go XLR Minillä voi tehdä verrattuna isompaan malliin, mutta 200€ hintaero oli sen verta iso että otin Minin testiin.

Go XLR Mini on osoittautunut loistavaksi tuotteeksi striimaamiseen, editoimiseen kuin myös normaalin nettisurffailuun. Neljän eri faderin avulla varmistan etteivät äänet ole koskaan liian kovalla ja niiden käyttötarkoitusta voi muokata miten haluaa.

Sekä Go XLR kuin myös tämä Mini-versio omaavat niin paljon tehoa että desibelihirmumikrofonit kuten Shure SM7B saavat tarpeeksi voimaa ilman mitään Cloudliftereitä. Tämä oli yksi suurimpia kysymysmerkkejä jo silloin kun ostin tuotteen, mutta ystäväni oli varma etten Cloudlifteriä tarvitse ja totta se oli. Jos ostat tämän tuotteen ja sinulla on Shure SM7B, et tarvitse Cloudlifteriä.

Go XLR Minin kanssa tarvitsee oman sovelluksensa, jossa kaikki taika tapahtuu. Sovellus on itsessään hyvin helppokäyttöinen ja vaikka alkuun äänilähteiden routtaaminen tuntui vaikealta niin sekin oli loppujen lopuksi hyvin simppeli. Sovelluksen kautta voi muokata mikrofoninsa äänenlaatua johon on työkaluksi annettu Gate, EQ ja Compessor. De-Esser olisi vielä löytynyt isommasta mallista, mutta noilla kolmella pääsee jo pitkälle.

Ulkoasu on myös hieno: Se ei vie paljoa tilaa työpöydältä, LED:in värejä voi vaihdella miten haluaa ja voit tallentaa useita profiileja sovellukseen jos haluaa vaihtaa väreistä toiseen nopeasti. Äänikortti ei myöskään tunnu eikä näytä halvalta.

Omiin käyttötarkoituksiin Go XLR Mini on jo itsessään täydellinen ja vaikka kaikki tärkeimmät ominaisuudet isommasta mallista on saatu Minin matkaan, on silti harmi että De-Esser ja fadereiden yläpuolella olevat taulut on riisuttu pois (ja tilalle laitettu tylsät Mic/Chat/Music/System joita et voi mitenkään kustomoida). Myös olisin kaivannut kahta XLR-paikkaa laitteeseen, mutta se puuttuu myös isommasta mallista. Muuten tuote on kaikenkaikkiaan pakko-ostos jokaiselle striimaajalle sillä tämän helpommaksi hommat ei voi enää ryhtyä.

What I like about this product for everyday PC use is the fact that I have control of the audio levels right at my finger tips all the time. For example mute or change the volume of music, games, console or browser independently on the fly quick and easy.

Secondly this interface allows me to use up to 3 different audio sources/devices on the same set of headphones/speakers. There's no need for different headphones for each system separately anymore.

Thirdly GoXLR replaced 3 products I previously used for my setup. This one product can do all that my mixer, microphone preamplifier/processor (DBX 286) and a USB audio interface together could do and a bit more for a fraction of the price.

The device isn't really able to do submixes or mix-minus outside of it's routing tables. You are in full control where each audio source goes to, but the volumes cannot be controlled separately for each output.

GoXLR can do ASIO in a DAW separating all of the inputs too if you need to. Most of the inputs are stereo except the one XLR connection and one 3.5mm microphone input, so therefore the use cases for DAW usage may be limited.

What I do find slightly annoying is that you don't have much control over what the buttons can do. You can't change what the bleep and cough buttons do. The mute buttons you can configure to mute to specific output on press and mute to all outputs on hold. But I find the hold takes a bit too long and I would prefer double press.

It's a great replacement for my software processing. I used to use:
1. Voicemeeter Banana for routing my audio
2. Cantabile with Reaper plugins for microphone audio processing in real time
3. Equalizer APO for Equalization on my headphones.
4. A small AMP for my headphones
5. StreamDeck with Voicemeeter plugin for audio routing changes

I have managed to replace 4 of 5 of those things with the GoXLR mini
1. The routing table in GoXLR mini allows a lot of flexibility in routing audio to wherever I want
2. Built-in microphone processing with EQ, Noise Gate and Compression
4. Provides quite a decent amount of power and sounds quite nice. I no longer use my AMP, even though I've heard there's a way to connect it and use it together with the GoXLR.
5. StreamDeck with GoXLR plugin for easy audio routing changes

So overall, this has already been fantastic, it gives so much control at your fingertips, especially if you combine this with a StreamDeck, because it has a plugin for it where you can control either the Routing Table by itself or switch between different profiles you create in the GoXLR app itself if you want to change more than just the Routing Table.

There are several cons however:
1. Audio Routing - the routing table is great, but I would have liked to see at least one more output for speakers. We currently have Headphone Out and Line Out. That's enough for headphones and speakers if you do not have a second (streaming) PC. If you do, you have to use the Line Out for the second PC instead of speakers and then you have nowhere to connect your speakers and you can't switch to them with the press of a button any more. I feel like this is a common need for people who don't want to wear headphones 100% of the time. It's potentially doable if you have 2 GoXLRs and connect them to each other via Line In / Out and connect each via USB to each computer.

2. Very small con but microphone processing lacks a de-esser on the mini version, just because for some reason they decided to make this bus powered (i.e. usb powered) instead of having a separate brick for powering it. I am not sure why though, such a powerful and flexible device, who would complain if you had to power it separately? Just get an extension and problem solved. The de-esser would have been nice but this is a very small con.

3. Neither GoXLR version has any EQ on outputs! - this is a big con for me and I would like to see EQ on outputs, not just on the microphone in future versions of this product. There are 2 alternatives currently - if you use the Sampler channel that is detected in Windows to send your music with EQ to it. Then you use the Music channel to send your music without EQ to it. You can route the Music channel to the stream and the Sampler channel to yourself so only your music is EQed but not the stream's EQ. The 2nd alternative is to just send EQed music to your stream and then apply an equal and opposite EQ on the stream to cancel it out. So one EQ on your music with Equalizer APO and another opposite EQ in OBS to cancel it out for the stream.

4. The StreamDeck plugin keeps breaking constantly - if you are using this, make sure you find a version of stream deck and the GoXLR plugin that works for you and then make sure you do not update it! Every other update breaks the plugin and makes it unusable. It's incredibly frustrating.