The name Roland has held a special place in my heart for a long time. My father, a guitarist, had a Roland amplifier for as long as I can remember. When I attempted (and failed) to learn to play the guitar, it was that amp I used to hear my awful sound. Fast forward several decades, and Roland has released a product that even I can make good sounds with: the Roland Bridge Cast, a two-bus mixer that brings style along with a long-standing reputation in audio.
In the box, you get the Roland Bridge Cast, a USB-C to USB-C cable, and a USB-C to USB-A cable. On the back of the Bridge Cast, you have a single XLR input, two USB-C ports (one for power and one for connection to an external device such as a console, phone, or PC), a toggle for Console/Mobile use or PC use (which we will explore in depth shortly), a line out jack, an auxiliary jack, and a headphone/headset jack. The build quality of the Bridge Cast is excellent, with responsive buttons, clicky knobs that let you feel when you move between values, and an intuitive layout.
On the front of the Roland Bridge Cast, there is a mic effects toggle button that doubles as a phantom power and microphone select button, a select button to switch between preset mic effects, pitch and formant knobs to change voice effects on the fly, and an EQ select button.
“From an aesthetic standpoint, the Roland Bridge Cast looks every bit like a professional device, and then you turn it on.”
You also have gain knobs for your mic, AUX, chat, and game channels, with mute/assign buttons underneath; volume knobs for your stream output, line out, and headphones; a mix link button to link your personal and stream mixes; and a button to select between hearing your personal and stream mixes. You arguably have more control compared to the real estate on the interface than any other audio interface I’ve used.
When setting up the Roland Bridge Cast, ensure you select the correct toggle (console/mobile or PC) before the Bridge Cast is powered on by plugging it in. There is no power button for the device. If you are switched to the wrong device set, you will need to power down, as the internal settings change based on that toggle and cannot be changed on the fly.
To access phantom power, hold down the mic effects button until it is activated. This button is also used when switching between XLR and headset (you can only control one via the Mic gain). When connected to a PC, the Roland Bridge Cast provides four inputs that you can assign to applications within your app volume and device preferences. These inputs are labelled to match the knobs on your Bridge Cast, making it easy to understand. Once set up, you can control each of your devices/applications individually, as one would expect from any mixer.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the Roland Bridge Cast looks every bit like a professional device, and then you turn it on. The way the lights come on, making the device look like it is coming to life, and the brilliant colours emanating from the ring surrounding the game knobs (especially on the white model) are absolutely beautiful. It becomes the perfect combination of work and play.
The Roland Bridge Cast provides a submix, allowing you to send a different mix to your headphones than to your stream. You can choose to have your chat louder in your headphones than in your stream or have music going to the stream to fill out the sound while keeping it from distracting you during gaming. All of this is possible thanks to the provided submix.
The Roland Bridge Cast’s companion app offers an easier way to control many of the mixer’s settings and provides access to some otherwise inaccessible functions. You can change the colours assigned to each of the gain knobs as well as the source input for them.
“The Roland Bridge Cast is a beautiful and professional mixer with many onboard controls, a lot of I/O, and some features that few competitors offer, if any.”
Since the sources are just written on the faceplate, you may not want to change them unless you purchase a customizable faceplate cover, which does exist. You can also assign a new function to the button below the gain, allowing you to mute the line out, the stream, the headphones, or all of the above.
You can assign sound effects to the button, which writes directly to the device, so you don’t need the application open for them to work. Additionally, you can assign a series of MIDI controls. If you use MIDI in your stream, you can assign the Bridge Cast as a controller and use the buttons to trigger whatever you want.
In the app, there are tabs for mic setup (selecting which kind of mic you are using) and mic cleanup, which includes standard audio processing options like noise suppression (toggled between noise gate and adaptive noise suppression), de-esser, compression, and a 10-band EQ. The mic effects tab provides additional control over your voice, allowing you to adjust pitch and formant, and add reverb. You can save any effect combination over the existing presets.
The app also includes an EQ for your game, with presets for Apex Legends, Valorant, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and a general FPS game. However, you can customize it to your preference. Personally, I don’t see much use for this feature, but it might be beneficial for some users. Additionally, there is compression processing for chat, which can be helpful for your squad when you start speaking loudly into your mic.
In the output tab, you can set up a delay on the mic if there is a sync issue between the Roland Bridge Cast and your streaming software, though I never needed it. You can also choose what mix goes out to your line out, whether it’s just the mic, the stream mix, or the headphones, as well as choose between the mic or the stream mix for your USB output.
Another cool feature is the ability to access Roland’s music and sound effects library via the app. The quality of the content is decent but limited with a free Roland Cloud account. You can subscribe to access the full library for $2.99 USD per month or $29.99 USD annually.
The overall sound quality of the Roland Bridge Cast largely depends on the mic you are using. The interface itself won’t degrade the quality of the microphone, nor will it significantly enhance it. The EQ does a good job of masking some shortcomings of most mics but won’t perform miracles if you are using a lower-quality headset microphone.
The noise reduction does tend to leave some residual digitization that I can’t help but notice as someone who tests a lot of audio processing. It’s not unusable by any means, but you’ll need to decide if that sound in your voice is preferable to the noise you are eliminating.
The Roland Bridge Cast’s price tag of $299 USD is a great value for all the control you get. The ability to control your effects directly on the device is unique among high-end audio interfaces, and the MIDI controls are incredibly convenient for those who use them, with very few comparable options on the market.
The Roland Bridge Cast is a beautiful and professional mixer with many onboard controls, a lot of I/O, and some features that few competitors offer, if any. It’s been reliable in passing through quality audio, which is the minimum one could ask for, and it provides many features that any streamer will love.
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