TC-Helicon GO XLR Mini

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.

Unfortunately the first time I got it it was malfunctioning making a electrical noise that at the start I thought was electrical interference but after contacting TC Helicon we verified that that was an actual component inside the device that was broken. I returned it and got another one, and the same problem was present. At the end of the day it not Thommans fault its TC Helicon's but I am either very unlucky or the entire batch has the same problem. Other than that if you ignore the noise the features are great, handling is decent. Quality obviously not great and the product does feel pretty cheap on touch but not terrible. On paper is great if you are a streamer but after this experience I am not risking it by getting a third.

As an audio interface itself, it is slick and easy to use. You can asssign different applications to each of the different channels handled by the interface, individually controlling volume or muting. It's a convenient mixer if you stream.

Unfortunately, I noticed a great deal of problems that occur in the software itself. It often stops functioning randomly and requires frequent restarts of the software itself. Occasionally the settings you change are not saved as well. I am unsure if this is caused directly by the app, or faulty drivers.

Still, for the price it's better than most you can find.