Review: Is this MaonoCaster AU-AM100 the Ideal Budget-Friendly Podcast Studio Gear? Updated.
It works for me!
Updated: I have now been able to test the Mac-compatible version; see notes at the end.
Ever since preparing my Video Series on Software Testing for Java Developers, I’ve been playing with the idea of getting some decent audio gear for mixing and recording. Recently I was planning to start a podcast or YouTube channel, on electric vehicles, but I hadn’t gotten around to “gearing up” when two things happened: the 2020 Corona Virus pandemic and ensuing lockdown put the brakes on all the car shows and on travel and, more germane to this article, the inexpensive MaonoCaster AU-AM100 podcast studio mixer came to my attention.
Since you’ve read this far I’ll assume you’re familiar with mixers, at least in a general way. If not you might want to scope out this Wikipedia article on “mixing consoles”, a longer name for mixers. So what do I see as the difference between a podcast mixer and a regular mixer? At the very least a podcaster must have two mic inputs and two headphone jacks, so that the person running the show can interview another person in the “studio” (wherever that is) with each using their own mic and headphones, ignoring any background noise. A podcaster should also have other inputs so you can, for example, feed in audio from a phone or MP3 player, or even interview a person not in the studio over a smartphone. Sound effects and sound clips should round out the offering. The MaonoCaster has all these.
But wait! There’s more! The kickstarter page for this new device said:
MAONOCASTER Portable Podcast Studio is exactly what you need when you want to get your podcast, radio shows or Twitch streams off the ground easily but are not sure what gear to buy. It is so easy and intuitive to use that you can jump headfirst into podcasting within minutes, and focus on providing valued contents and interacting with your audiences rather than being distracted by complicated operations.
So I set out to find how well the MaonoCaster meets that criteria.
The unit combines a four-channel mixer with sound clips (some preset and some custom loadable sounds), sound alterations (lower/upper, …), preamps, analog-to-digital conversion, noise reduction, and more. Oh, and it’s portable — running for “up to 8 hours” off an internal 5000mah battery for use at shows or anywhere that power is an issue, or even to finish your podcast if the power goes off in the middle! Of course that would require that your output be going to a battery-powered device, like a laptop, a smartphone, or battery-powered speakers.
A single USB-C port allows you to charge the battery, load custom audio clips from an MS-Windows app, and output the master mixed signal in analog or digital form to a computer, or play audio from the computer to the Maonocaster headphones. This lets you either save the mixed audio output to disk or live stream to a social media streaming site, either alone or along with a video stream. You can also output the master signal in analog form to a set of speakers.
Making Connections
The MaonoCaster has four input ports for microphones or other audio sources (like most products of this type, you cannot use USB microphones as input):
- An XLR microphone port; Maono sell the Caster either alone or bundled with their own headphones and XLR-cabled microphones.
- One port that can has two sockets and can accept either an XLR microphone connector or a TRS (3.5mm jack) input;
- One labelled Phone Input
- One labelled Aux Input.
The latter two have standard 3.5mm input jacks and may be used for various kinds of inputs, including a smartphone via a phone jack cable to conduct interviews by phone or WhatsApp, an MP3 player, etc.
I had already backed the project for one MaonoCaster on KickStarter. The company was good enough to send me an early production unit for this review — an early unit from June/July production — in the Solo bundle , while waiting for the final (macOS-compatible) version. Maono is, by the way, an established company with about 130 employees. They manufacture hardware in their own factory in Shenzhen, China. Their main product up to now has been podcast microphones and accessories (including over-the-ear headphones for monitoring). These units are designed primarily for podcasters/vloggers/Youtubers, so Maono has a working knowledge of that scene, and used that in shaping MaonoCaster’s feature set.
The “Solo” bundle consists of a MaonoCaster with a Maono AU-PM320 microphone (but with a smaller desktop stand in place of the large boom stand you get when you buy the microphone from the web site) and a pair of AU-MH601 studio monitoring headphones.
The XLR ports can also accept what the company calls “6.5mm” or “6.25mm” plugs, which North Americans know as the common 1/4" plug found on electric guitars, microphones, and so on.
The two main microphone ports have large sliders for volume as well as rotary gain control. If you’re not familiar with “volume vs gain”, there are many articles on the web but, briefly, gain (the small rotary knob for Mic 1 and 2) is the input level from the mic to any effect processing, while the large volume slider for each of these controls the output level fed into the master mix. The two smaller ones (“Phone” and “Aux”) each have a single rotary gain control knob. Phone and Aux don’t go through the Effects panel so they don’t need both controls. A small rotary knob controls the volume of both monitor headphones. The single large rotary knob controls master output volume.
The front panel has two 3.5mm jacks for the monitoring headphones, numbered 1 and 2 to correspond with Mic1 and Mic2. Before opening the box I assumed these would be 1/4" jacks since that’s what most monitoring headsets have. However, the smaller jack opens up the possibility of using a small set of wired earbuds when using your MaonoCaster on the road. I tried a variety of small headphones and earbuds and they all worked OK. The curly headphone cable shipped with the Solo bundle has 3.5mm plugs on each end, each “hidden” inside a screw-on adapter for use when a 1/4" plug is needed.
Unboxing and Initial Setup
Can you really “jump headfirst into podcasting within minutes”? To test that claim, I recorded a video while I:
- unboxed the unit,
- plugged in a microphone, headphones and a computer connection
- and recorded a short video demonstrating some of the effects.
- I predicted that setup should take a few minutes elapsed time. And it did. You’ll see the unboxing video on my IanOnEVs YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrif8aDdM38.
Interestingly, the microphone stand shipped with the bundles features a clever dual-threaded top connector, which can be used to fasten the PM-320 microphone “shock mount” ring holder via a 3/8" thread, but also legacy microphones which have a 1/2" threaded mount. For example, my late father-in-law’s Japanese crystal microphone — which I suspect dates from the 1950’s(!) — not only screwed onto this 2020 microphone stand, but its 1/4" plug went into the MaonoCaster’s XLR/6mm socket and… the microphone just worked! Well, sort of: I did have to turn the gain up close to full. Speaking of microphones, my RØDE VideoMicro also worked fine, plugged into the 3.5mm socket for Mic 2. Not all microphones will work, of course, but the three or four that I tried all did.
Trial By Cable
One of my first live tests was running courses with Learning Tree’s AnyWare™️, an online corporate training package that is built atop Adobe Connect, running the course from a Microsoft Windows 10 PC. The MaonoCaster worked fine out of the box for both live-streaming my voice and other audio, and e.g., hearing questions and comments from remote students, playing sound clips. Everything just worked!
Since my other day job is as a computer geek, I was curious to learn about about the device’s USB interface. I plugged the Caster into my OpenBSD system. OpenBSD is a Unix-like operating system, as are Linux and macOS. What I like about OpenBSD for this purpose is that its “dmesg” (operating system “kernel diagnostic messages”) gives an exact and succinct summary of devices. When I plugged the MaonoCaster in, I got this:
uaudio0 at uhub2 port 2 configuration 1 interface 1 "Maono Maono Podcaster AM100" rev 1.10/2.00 addr 3
uaudio0: class v1, full-speed, async, channels: 2 play, 2 rec, 2 ctls
audio2 at uaudio0
uhidev2 at uhub2 port 2 configuration 1 interface 3 "Maono Maono Podcaster AM100" rev 1.10/2.00 addr 3
uhidev2: iclass 3/0
uhid0 at uhidev2: input=40, output=40, feature=0A bunch of geek-speak, but it basically confirms that the MaonoCaster provides a reasonably standard USB audio interface and one “human-interface device” (hid), which I assume is the master volume control. I was able to use the MaonoCaster with OpenBSD’s sndiod audio software and aucat, audacity and juk to both record and playback over the USB connection without issue. I listened to ten minutes of MP3 audio through the MaonoCaster and did not encounter any stuttering problems. And I recorded the next episode of IanOnEVs using the Maonocaster, the PM320 mike, and two smartphones — using a package called Camtasia. So this mixer should work with just about any computer system out there, with one painful exception noted later.
Recording Phone-in Interviews
Since we’re still not open for widespread travel, and there are no car shows yet, I’m planning to record some interviews by phone for my electric vehicles Youtube channel Ian On EVs. To test this out (before trying the patience of my interviewees/victims), I tried a couple of phone calls to relatives. The first reported that I sounded distorted, so before the second I reduced the gain and upped the volume on the main mic. The second call was fine. The second was 50 miles away, via cellphone-to-cellphone. Audio was clear and sound levels adequate in both directions. So I’ve gone ahead and recorded an episode for IanOnEVs using two remote phone-in guests, and will have that up shortly after I get done editing.
Sound Bank
MaonoCaster features a bank of 8 sound effects. Five are pre-defined and the remaining three are user-programmable. The five fixed clips are clapping, cheering, two “stinger” sounds (one short, one long and “dark”, labelled “Suspense”), and the BLEEP sound used to mask out rude comments. A Windows (not Mac) application lets you upload MP3 sound files over USB-C into the three custom slots, but also lets you select from among hundreds of sound files. You can make these sound effects yourself with a program like macOS’ GarageBand or basically any sound-recording app. There is a whole carload of web sites from which you can download such sound effects. I’ve used the non-commercial freesound.org, but there are many others, both free and commercial, as a quick web search will prove. I keep one of the 8 buttons loaded with a “back to class” bell ringer stinger that I use when live-streaming full- or multi-day seminars. On these, people need breaks but then need an audible reminder to come back to the virtual classroom. This is the modern analogue of the bell-ringing in opera houses signaling patrons to return to their seats after an intermission.
I found the process of uploading MP3’s a bit slow, but the USB cable is also transmitting and/or receiving audio at the same time (there’s no Master Mute button; when the unit is powered on, it’s transmitting). Maybe it’s just my computer’s USB connection. Also, there’s no official way to stop a stinger from playing if you change your mind or decide it’s going on too long; if you press the effect’s button a second time then that effect starts over. However, I found that a quick tap on the BLEEP button (furthest lower-right corner of the board) will stop any sound effect without issuing the BLEEP sound, so there’s your first unofficial workaround!
Sound Effects
Besides the 8 sound clips, there are other sound effects. You can alter your spoken voice to sound like an impression of a baby’s voice, a female voice, a male’s deep voice, and even a robot voice.
One I like is the “side chain” button, which lets you talk over music that’s playing at the same level as your voice; the music’s volume is lowered just enough to be heard while you talk, then returns to normal. This is also called “ducking”, and is the effect you hear all the time on radio shows and podcasts, when the DJ is announcing a song by speaking over the opening or closing music. Maonocaster makes this as easy as pressing a button.
Finally, a “Music Only” button lets you strip out the words from a musical recording so you can sing along with it — like Karaoke from any recording. Results here vary depending on the song — it may not always strip out 100% of the vocal, but it drives it down enough that you can sing over it.
There’s an audio sample showing most of the Maonocaster’s audio effects at https://ianonevs/maonocaster.html.
Good Build Quality
The build quality of the MaonoCaster and all the accompany hardware is of very high quality. Everything just fits together solidly, as it should. The knobs and sliders have bright orange highlights that are engraved, not just painted on. The top and back panels are aluminum while the sides and bottom are of thick, solid plastic.
The only issue I found, and it’s minor and probably my fault, is the plastic nut holding the microphone shock mount onto the desktop stand. It’s a plastic nut to adapt the 1/4" thread on the end of the stand’s probe to the 3/8" thread used on the shock mount. I managed to strip the thread by screwing the mount on crookedly; when you have a metal bolt going into a plastic nut, at an angle, the metal always wins. At this point the mic started to fall over and would have hit the floor or the table, but of course my hand was right there so I caught it. Fortunately, just by removing the plastic nut, you let the metal part of the shock mount thread right onto the larger thread of the brass adapter at the top of the stand, giving a solid metal-on-metal mount. If you buy the mic as a separate product from Maono’s web site, the microphone ships with a larger “scissor” or “boom” mount instead of a desktop stand. The scissor mount may be more convenient for in-studio use and, if so, you can find them on the online stores for about $15. For portable use the small stand is certainly easier to carry around.
Maono tells me that the thread stripping problem has been isolated to a supplier issue and that they are considering switching to a metal insert, so this problem should be solved if you purchase a unit after, say, September 2020.
macOS is not PC
Note: If you are reading this after September, 2020, the issue described in this section will probably have been resolved in units that are now shipping.
When you invest in a Kickstarter project (as on most crowd-sourcing platforms), you are technically not buying a product, but investing in its development, usually with the expectation of receiving an instance of the product when development is complete (which is usually some time after the project closes). You usually get the product at a significant discount, usually around 25–40% off the proposed retail pricing. The MaonoCaster project on Kickstarter closed on June 25, 2020, and the company hoped to start shipping units sometime in July. But there’s that thing about “the best-laid plans of mice and men” going oft awry (a.k.a. “Bard of Ayrshire invents Murphy’s Law 150 years before Murphy”). Just a few days before the Kickstarter project “closed” to new backers, final internal testing of the late-stage prototype found a serious glitch. The units were basically unusable on Mac computers, at least those running macOS. Audio — especially with music background — developed serious stuttering when playing from macOS over USB. You need to be able to replay audio to confirm what you’ve recorded, and you don’t want to keep re-cabling to feed analog audio to the headphones on playback…The annoyance is that audio playback works fine on other operating systems, including MS-Windows and OpenBSD, even when running on the same Mac hardware. So I’m going to apportion blame 50% to Apple for having an “interesting” USB stack, and 50% to Maono for not finding this issue sooner. When this was first announced, Mac users seemed to have few options: run Windows under Bootcamp (which basically reboots your Mac into Windows) or using a conventional dual-boot scheme to run other OSes (that’s how I booted into OpenBSD on the MacBook Pro for the tests mentioned). Or, feed the MaonoCaster’s analog output into the Mac’s ADC (analog to digital converter, e.g the “headphone/microphone” jack on a MacBook).
This was very disappointing to all concerned, of course. The company responded by offering backers a choice. This was sent in Project Update #3, a few days before the KickStarter project closed. The company needed to post this as soon as they could in the name of transparency, and did so. Posting it before the project’s close gave people time to back out of backing the project if they were sufficiently upset. I don’t have access to company data, but it seems that only a few backers pulled out; there were 3,277 backers a day before the update went out, and the project closed a few days later with 3,384 backers, so new backers outnumbered dropouts. Here’s the key part of the update (after their explanation of the problem):
We know most of you are anxious to get your hands on the MaonoCaster, so we’re offering you the following two choices:
1) Let us ship you the current unit in July. It works fine on Windows PC and Mac running Windows via Bootcamp, and it also does work on [macOS?] and presumably anything else using analog-only output on the 3.5mm TRRS jack from the Caster.
2) Wait a while — what we hope will be no more than a couple of months — and get the unit with the redesigned board that will work on macOS as well as on Windows. We will try to keep you up-to-date on our progress in resolving the issue.
We realize this will be a hard choice for some of you. To thank you for being a backer and your continued support to us, we will offer a free lavalier microphone to each backer.
Then, after the project closed, the company sent out a KickStarter Survey in which backers could confirm their shipping address and specify whether they wanted the macOS-incompatible version or to wait for the final version. Every backer, whether they took the Windows-only (non-macOS) version or waited for the final version, is to receive a free Lavalier Microphone as compensation. Microphones have been the company’s main product line up to now, so this extra isn’t surprising. They might have gone to a full-sized mike, but some backers had already ordered one (or two) of these as part of their advanced pledges. And anyway, nothing bigger than the lav mic could be fitted into the packaging which was already designed (imagine them with thousands of cardboard boxes and their foam inserts already printed and cut, or at the press).
Some Omitted Features
The MaonoCaster was designed from the beginning to be budget-friendly. As a result the designers omitted features that they believed only some people might find useful. Their choices were confirmed to be reasonable by the 3,300+ people who backed the project knowing its feature set. The device does not have an SD card, since you can send digital output to a computer for recording to disk (or to SD card if you like), and/or send analog output to the “Mic” input of a computer or to loudspeakers. Similarly, there’s no Bluetooth for wireless mics or headphones. People doing podcasting normally use large, over-the-ear headphones and don’t walk around much. If you do need wireless input, you could use almost any commercially available wireless microphone whose receiver has either XLR or mini audio jack output.
The various input channels are not available independently in the digital output — they’re mixed together. I was a bit surprised when I saw somebody asking for the outputs to be available separately in the output. To me the most basic function of this unit (like all its kin) is as a mixer. A mixer is designed to mix all the inputs together. But a few of the MaonoCaster project’s 3,000+ KickStarter backers have asked for it, and I later realized why. For example, if you are doing an interview by phone and don’t have video of the person (or persons), you’re going to be switching back and forth in your post-editing between actual video of the interviewer in the studio and a photo or series of photos of the interviewee, while keeping the soundtrack running. If the audio is made up of separate tracks, they will show up distinctly in the video editor timeline and it’ll be much easier to paste photos over the video when the remote person is speaking.
Also, the digital output is mono, not stereo — that’s one thing I wish they’d done differently. Maono’s CEO Alex Lu has assured me that they will be doing a “Pro” version of the MaonoCaster in 2021, to add most of these non-basic features. And there’ll be a discount for those who bought the base version on Kickstarter.
Finally, there is no mix-minus capability. Mix-minus is the ability to output the entire mix minus one input. In a very simple setup without mix-minus, phone-in interviewees would hear their own voice back in the form of a delayed echo, which normal humans find very distracting. To avoid this, the MaonoCaster feeds only the local microphones out to a smartphone plugged into the Phone or Aux inputs. The one practical result is that, if you have two remote interviewees, one on each of these channels, they will hear and be able to converse with the interviewer normally, but will not hear each other. If you only interview people in the studio and at most one remote person at a time, you should not have any problems caused by the lack of mix-minus.
A minor missing bit that could have been included for a mixer intended to be portable would be a locking cable slot in the side of the case, as used on most laptops, tablets, and the like. The device is likely to be a target for kleptomaniacs if you turn your back on it, though they’d have to unplug all the cables in “record” time to get away with it.
My consolidated wish list (from my own and others’ wishes) for Maono’s “next gen” product for 2021 includes the following. Time will tell how many of these features actually get in:
Sound Clips - 8, 16 or 64 programmable
Programmable from computer (Win,Mac) AND
from any input (line/mic, BT, USB)
e.g., maybe 8 pre-loaded and 8 user-loadable?
Mix-Minus for echo suppression to remote callers
Digital output to be stereo, and multi-channel
USB digital input (mic, MP3 player) for background music
If a USB disk has a .m3u playlist, use it automatically?
USB digital output in either stereo or mono to computer
Record to USB stick and/or to SD card
Locking cable slot
Updatable firmware
Maybe Bluetooth input (mic, smartphone) and output (phone, headphones)Speaking of other manufacturers… The Competition
Lots of manufacturers have audio mixers that might work as podcast studio mixers, but none that I’ve seen has as much functionality at the price point (was US$139 on KickStarter, US$149 on IndieGoGo, US$179 MSRP/on website). Prices for competition range from about USD150 to about USD600 — the latter for the high-end RØDECaster Pro. The RØDECaster has the “first mover” market advantage, and is seen as the one to beat. MaonoCaster certainly beats the RØDE on price and portability, though the RØDECaster at 3–4x the price should be expected to have more features. Apart from features, the RØDE does have certain “slick and professional” touches, like color-coded input sockets (with matching wraps for the plugs, though these cost a few $ extra). The 2021 MaonoCaster “next gen” edition should be better able to compete on full-featuredness.
There are also less expensive mixers, but none of the dozen or so I looked at (even at the bottom-of-the-barrel site aliexpress.com) had the two paired mic/headphone inputs/outputs that you need for interviewing. Not one. They did have features like bluetooth and/or USB, but without the interviewing capability they are not what you want for mixing podcasts.
Since competitive features change all the time, I’ve pushed that information out to this Google Docs Spreadsheet that you can refer to for a list of features on some other devices.
Summary: Go For It
You can indeed get started in a few minutes with the MaonoCaster and a microphone and headset. While it’s always tempting to wait and see if the next shiny object will shine a bit brighter than the current one, this year’s MaonoCaster provided sufficient value proposition that I could not wait for the “next gen” version. The current MaonoCaster is small, lightweight, and does the job for my training seminars and for my YouTube channel. Will it do so for yours? Most likely, unless you truly can’t thrive without one of the “missing features” called out above. In that case, wait for MaonoCaster’s next edition.
Diversion: But what is a “studio” anyway?
Since before Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, the word “studio” has meant a room where art is practiced. The meaning of “podcast studio” has come to be associated very recently with devices like the MaonoCaster that are used in a studio, thanks in part to the advertising of devices like the RØDECaster Pro. For information on the acoustical quality of rooms used as (actual) podcasting studios, see https://wsdg.com/what-makes-a-podcast-studio-unique/.
Update: Mods I’ve Made
I was getting a bit of echo from the computer keyboard through the microphone (on its stand, on the same table). So I stuck some FelTac™ on the bottom of the microphone stand.
Save that Shipping Box!
Then, since my goal for this gear is portability, I wanted a permanent carrying case for the Solo gear. Then I noticed that the original shipping box was about the same size as an old electronics technician tool case (“tech’s briefcase”) that I had lying around. I trimmed about half an inch off the top and the bottom (e.g., front and back in the picture below) of both parts of the foam lining of the Solo’s original shipping case to make it fit into the tool case, and Presto! Here’s the result. Maybe Maono might consider this as a prototype for a new product, and/or a new add-on to the bundles. Something like Penguin cases, but cheaper, and sized to use the existing foam inserts. Just a thought. [I was informed that they have one in-house, but didn’t ship it because the “volumetric weight” costing used by international carriers would make it prohibitive.
Update: December 2020
The long-awaited Mac Compatible version is now available, and it works! I’ve tested playing audio on a MacBook Pro and there is no trace of the stuttering that was a problem before! And it still works for recording and playback on non-Mac systems (OpenBSD Unix tested so far).
While at it, they’ve made some other improvements: seven of the eight sound pads are now programmable (up from three), all initially blank (don’t think they’re not working!). I find I miss one or two of the original baked-in sounds, but oh well, there are plenty of sound FX files on the internet, and Macs have GarageBand if you want to make your own. As well, there’s a new on-off slide switch on the back, marked “Loopback”; I presume this is mix-minus for the phone ports, but haven’t tested it yet. All in all: a good device made better!
