In this part

The room · Microphones · Room playback · Cameras · Switching · The effort

The biggest advantage of this setup is having more control over what’s happening in the room. I can manage the presenter’s microphone separately from the audience microphones, bring those audience mics in when people have questions, and switch between camera views without having to physically move a camera.

Of course, all that flexibility comes with a lot more equipment to set up and manage. Most of it lives in Milwaukee Packout cases between meetings, and getting everything unpacked, connected, and working takes a fair amount of time. There’s a reason I don’t bring this setup to every meeting.

This grew out of equipment I already owned. For example, the original RØDECaster Pro became my meeting mixer when I replaced the one on my desk with a Pro II. That explains why it’s here; it doesn’t mean I chose it as the ideal purchase for a club.

The first piece of equipment is the room.

Usually we’re in a classroom-sized room at a fire station, with up to about 15 people besides the presenter. We’ve used smaller rooms too. When possible, I put the presenter up front and group the audience away from them, rather than scattering people around the room.

Arranging the room this way makes it a little easier to manage the audio and cameras. I can focus one microphone on the presenter and use the others to pick up questions and discussion from the audience. It also helps keep conversations happening around the tables from interfering with what people on Zoom are hearing during the presentation.

People in these rooms have been able to hear the presenter naturally. This is a system for getting the room into Zoom, not a tested solution for amplifying the presenter through a PA. That would add another set of routing and feedback considerations.

One voice up front. Questions from the room.

All of the microphones go into the original RØDECaster Pro. It connects over USB to my control laptop, where I select it as Zoom’s microphone input. An older Zoom-brand mixer with a USB interface did this job before the RØDECaster. Different Zoom. Same meeting.

The presenter

Usually the presenter is sitting at a table with their own laptop, sharing a presentation through Zoom. I put a RØDE PodMic on the table for them, on its own mixer channel.

I normally use a Cloudlifter CL-1 between the PodMic and the mixer. From memory, I was near the upper end of the gain setting I wanted on the original RØDECaster, and I already had the Cloudlifter. I haven’t established that it’s necessary, so I wouldn’t make it an automatic purchase.

Before the meeting, I ask whether the presenter wants to stand or walk around. If so, I have RØDE or DJI wireless clip-on microphones, with a lavalier option, instead of keeping them tied to the table mic.

The audience

I use up to four Audio-Technica PRO44 boundary microphones distributed as evenly as possible across the audience tables. The cables go off the front edges, get taped along the underside edges, then run down table legs and across the floor where needed.

In my arrangement, the four audience microphones are paired into two mixer channels. The RØDECaster Pro has four XLR inputs, and four audience mics plus the presenter would need five if each had its own input. Pairing the audience mics lets me fit them into the mixer I already have.

Another advantage of grouping the audience microphones is that I only have two channels to manage instead of four. When I’m already keeping an eye on Zoom, switching cameras, and managing the presenter’s audio, having fewer controls to worry about is a welcome simplification. I lose the ability to control each audience microphone individually, but that’s a tradeoff I’m happy to make.

Audio into Zoom / my wired arrangement

Presenter: PodMicThrough the CL-1, then XLR into its own mixer channel.
RØDECaster Pro: presenter channelStays separate from the audience channels.
Audience: up to four PRO44sPaired through Y cables in my existing setup. See the caveat below.
RØDECaster Pro: two audience channelsI mute or open these as the meeting requires.
RØDECaster Pro USB outputCarries the microphone mix from those channels.
Control laptop / Zoom microphoneRemote attendees receive the mix I send.
The audience mics share two channels for input capacity and easier muting; the Y-cable caveat is below. The wireless presenter option replaces the PodMic/CL-1 path; it isn’t another required microphone.

The grouping and the wiring are two different choices. My pairs use ordinary two-female-to-one-male XLR Y cables. They’ve worked in my setup, but directly connecting microphone outputs isn’t the same as properly mixing them. The practical reasons for grouping the audience don’t remove that electrical caveat. For another build, I’d look for suitable mic combining with phantom-power support, or enough separate inputs with a way to mute the audience as a group. Rane explains why a plain Y cable isn’t a proper mixer.

A small but important power detail

The PRO44s need phantom power. The CL-1 also uses phantom power for its active gain stage; the passive PodMic itself doesn’t need it. Microphone inputs and power settings are worth checking before buying or connecting equipment, rather than assuming the right-shaped socket is enough.

The useful part isn’t the number of microphones. It’s that I can leave the audience channels muted during the presentation, open them when the presenter pauses for questions, and leave them open for discussion at the end. Someone has to make those decisions. In this setup, that someone is me.

The other direction: Zoom back into the room.

I usually pair an external Bluetooth speaker with the control laptop and use that for Zoom’s speaker output. The room microphones aren’t directly played through that speaker. It plays the people joining remotely.

The normal room playback path

Remote participants in ZoomThe control laptop receives their voices.
Bluetooth room speakerSelected as Zoom’s output on the control laptop; separate from the mixer input.
There is still an acoustic return path: room-speaker sound can reach an open microphone and go back into Zoom.

I’ve left Zoom’s audio processing at its default settings, and echo really hasn’t been much of an issue for us. I think I’ve only had someone mention it once or twice. When it does happen, I’ll usually lower the Bluetooth speaker’s volume or mute the audience microphones. That’s worked pretty well in the rooms we’ve used, although I wouldn’t assume it’ll behave exactly the same way in every room.

Keeping Zoom’s playback out of a direct electrical loop doesn’t eliminate sound traveling through the air. Echo cancellation helps with that; microphone and speaker placement, volume, and which microphones are open still matter.

The separate display laptop still feeds the TV, just as in the everyday setup. When playing a shared video where timing matters, I temporarily use the TV’s HDMI sound instead of the Bluetooth speaker, with all room microphones muted. The switching procedure belongs in the meeting-operation part; this diagram shows normal conversation.

Two views without moving the camera.

In my more typical full arrangement, a Canon EOS R covers the presenter and a GoPro covers the audience. I also have a two-GoPro version: one on the presenter, one on the audience. For special cases I’ve used all three.

The GoPros are HERO8s. As with the rest of this equipment, that’s what I have, not a recommendation to buy that particular generation.

With the GoPro pair, I use the wide setting for the audience and linear for the presenter. That has let me mount both on the same tripod and get useful framing for each, depending on the room layout. It’s a physical setup choice as much as a camera feature.

Using cameras over HDMI comes with a few quirks. I have to make sure the Canon is sending a clean video feed without any camera settings or other information showing on the screen. The GoPros can be a little more frustrating because, depending on how they’re connected, I can’t always use their built-in screens to get rid of those overlays.

If you’re thinking about using a camera this way, it’s worth checking whether it supports clean HDMI output. Just having an HDMI connection doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll give you a usable picture for Zoom.

There’s also continuous power: USB power for the GoPros and a dummy-battery supply for the mirrorless camera. An HDMI cable doesn’t take care of that. The convenience of a fixed camera view comes with more than one cable.

The switcher changed. The job stayed similar.

The camera side evolved. These are two versions of the system, not two switchers that everyone needs to connect at once.

Earlier / ATEM Mini Pro

Presenter + audience camerasHDMI feeds into the ATEM Mini Pro.
ATEM + external monitorThe monitor shows the switching view; physical buttons select the camera.
ATEM USB outputThe switched camera feed, not the slide presentation.
Control laptop / Zoom cameraAudio is selected separately from the RØDECaster.
This was the earlier arrangement, with a separate small monitor connected to the ATEM.

Later / AtomX CAST + Ninja

Presenter + audience camerasHDMI feeds into the AtomX CAST/Ninja combination.
Switching + monitoringTakes over the jobs of the ATEM and its separate monitor; supplies the meeting’s camera feed.
Ninja local recordingCamera footage recorded to SSD for a separate editing workflow.
Postproduction, when I did itLocal footage edited into the Zoom recording afterward, not an extra requirement for the live meeting.
A functional overview of the later arrangement, not a port-by-port wiring diagram. Local recording is optional work beyond running the meeting.

In either version, the presenter shares slides from their own laptop through Zoom, with their microphone and speakers disabled. That keeps their presentation out of the camera-switching chain. The display laptop receives it through Zoom for the TV, and I get the recording behavior I prefer.

The physical switching controls are useful while I’m also managing audio. But separate camera views don’t make the meeting automatic. They give me better choices to make.

What the equipment list doesn’t show.

A full setup means rearranging the room, positioning cameras and microphones, routing and securing cables, connecting power, and testing the laptops, sound, cameras, and TV. I can do that in around 40–45 minutes if I’m efficient. It used to take longer. That’s on-site setup, not the checks and charging I do beforehand.

Then there’s an hour or more of muting microphones and switching video during the meeting, followed by roughly 20 minutes of teardown. Even after all that setup, the underside of the desk isn’t necessarily pretty.

When I was recording locally, I could add another five or six hours downloading Zoom recordings and editing in camera footage and separately captured audio. Apparently the meeting itself wasn’t enough of a hobby.

I don’t routinely do that editing now. If a recording needs posting, I trim the Zoom recording for time. I’d like better recording quality, but a standard Zoom recording is an acceptable endpoint without taking on a second production shift.

What I get: separate presenter and audience audio control, useful camera views, and hands-on switching.

What I take on: more equipment, more cables, more preparation, and an operator’s job for the duration of the meeting.

These days, I usually save the full setup for meetings where I think the extra equipment will make a meaningful difference. For our regular meetings, the simpler setup gets the job done without nearly as much preparation or cleanup.

I still enjoy working with all this equipment, and there’s something satisfying about getting everything connected and working together. But after spending 45 minutes setting it up, an hour or more running the meeting, and another 20 minutes packing it all away, I’ve learned to appreciate being able to do the same job with a lot less gear.