CONSOLE FEATURES:
For the price, it is definitely the most capable console I have used. There are a lot of options here that are not found on others in this price range, and a few that work substantially better. The ability to adjust LO, MID, and HI as well as the recording volume and microphone volume all at the same time is the main selling point for the console. You can't get anything else at this price that does ALL of that and has the extra features. This brings the CONSOLE up to intermediate level, for sure.
I had a lot of fun with the different voice pitches, too. The female voice can get glitchy, but if you adjust how you talk you can get a nice effect. If you speak too softly, the audio does sort of vanish, though. The other voice effects sounded fine, though. Robot voice....eh....more like B-Movie Monster. It's not bad, really, but should probably be labeled differently.
Some of the built in sound effects are great. Kids cheering, applause, booing, and the crow sounds are pretty useful. Would like to see a firmware update allow you to overwrite these with your own effects, though. That'd be pretty useful. Definitely more useful than only having only four programmable buttons.
Music Only, Side Chain, and Loop Back work as expected. No complaints! The De-Noise button, however, cuts words off very abruptly causing some distortion if you have a lot of short pauses and it will take practice to use. If you speak clearly and fluidly, this may not be an issue for you...I, however...pause often... Luckily, with the foam cover on it there isn't much background noise on the recordings anyway. I didn't use the De-Noise button, and I didn't have to do any cleanup in post.
The auto-tune works really well overall. I'm not much of a singer, but I imagine this could be useful for someone who wants to do a little bit of music work. There are definitely a plethora of outputs and in inputs to facilitate song production for someone just starting out.
My recording software picked the device right up. Output through USB-C to PC was flawless. I didn't have any issue crossfading through the sound effects or music (using my MP3 player). It just worked really well and is pretty intuitive. Big labeled buttons and wheels are a lot easier to understand than thirty tiny knobs like my first console.
MICROPHONE:
The included microphone is just okay. It's going to give you a voice-over sound, but it isn't anything special. I would absolutely advise investing in either a quality lapel mic or even a shotgun mic or two to pair with this. It has TWO microphone inputs so you can easily set this up for interviews during a podcast. I prefer the audio I get using a powered shotgun mic with built-in gain settings.
One thing I want to make note of here is that this does NOT supply enough power to run other XLR microphones through the console and included XLR to 3.5mm cable. I have not tried using this in conjunction with a phantom power supply, however....If you plan to, do so at your own risk! It does provide enough oomph to power basic shotgun mics, desktop microphones, and all other mics natively meant for or compatible with the 3.5mm jack.
CONCLUSION:
If you're just starting and want a solid audio experience that just works and doesn't have a huge learning curve...This thing is great. This is absolutely podcast making gold, even using the included beginner microphone. If you have a good 3.5mm mic, I can see this being a great upgrade to more inexpensive consoles. If you've got a nice console already, this isn't going to bring you much you don't already have. For me, this is a total upgrade. I'm still experimenting with different microphones, but the console itself is well worth it.