Blue Microphones - Snowball USB Cardioid and Omnidirectional Electret Condenser Vocal Microphone

I always read reviews before making a tech purchase. So many people were clamoring how easy it was to use this Blue Snowball microphone in conjunction with their gaming needs that I decided to go against what I really wanted, which was the Turtle Beach Microphone that is now available. The Blue Snowball is extremely easy to use. It doesn't even come with software to install. The booklet said that it was plug and play with any PC/MAC. I have a Mac, so I connected it and it automatically appeared in the following software by name: Elgato Video Recorder/Editor, Garage Band, Final Cut Pro X, and iMovie. I haven't plugged it into my PC, but I assume it should work just as well. The microphone has 1 switch on the back with three options. Option 1 is recommended for game-play/podcast recordings. Option 2 is best suited for musical needs. Option three is best suited for outdoor recordings. I had a concert to go to the day after I received the mic. I took my Mac book and recorded the concert (it was a high school choir in an auditorium). The sounds quality was impressive. My wife (choir director) said she had never heard her choir sound like that. For voiceovers on my video gameplays, I can provide you a link to a video I uploaded that showcases how the mic sounds with my voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEk9LCFiKrM&t=48s Judge for yourself. Using the ELGATO software, as I hit record, it automatically records my voice over the gameplay so that I don't have to sync the video with the audio later. It's seamless, easy, and sounds great. I now look forward to recording with the microphone because it has eliminated a time-consuming task of having to sync the audio with the video. Definitely worth the investment. I'm sure there are better microphones out there, but none will be as easy to use as this Blue Snowball microphone. There aren't many options to highly customize the mic, the booklet itself even says that if you want a mic that you can custom modify, to look elsewhere because this mic was meant for people who just want something that works out of the box. In that sense, the goal is over-accomplished.

I needed a mic to record a performance by an accordion player for my wife’s ethnic dance group. This mic has a 3-way switch to change between different settings for basic voice recording, a -10dB setting for instruments or other loud directional sound, and an omni-directional setting good for recording multiple people. For my application, the two voice settings were too hot and I was clipping at the high end on my recordings. Had to use the -10dB setting which seemed to go a bit too far the other way and things were recoding a bit too low and I had to normalize the recordings afterward to bring the levels back up. One thing I noticed is that the recordings didn’t sound very lifelike using this setting. As if the mic was a bit too directional to adequately capture the sound emanating from the accordion which radiates in all directions from both ends of the instrument. I’m not sure I’d call this a fault of the mic. Rather i think it’s just a difficult instrument to record for an amateur with consumer grade equipment. The mic was super easy to setup and configure and it works with all recording software I tried on my wife’s laptop. I tried Soundforge and Cool Edit Pro. I’m sure it works with pretty much anything else you might have too. Final verdict: Great for consumer grade item, but don’t expect pro-quality for every possible situation. It’ll get the job done for most non-recording professionals.

The snowball microphones look soooo cute and stylish, yet they are so powerful. It can catch a lot of noise in the background, so watch out for that. (Thankfully, a lot of recording techniques and programs can reduce that noise nowadays.) Is it professional quality? Almost. It's professional enough for me and my friends. Again, if not calibrated correctly, it can catch you breathing in between singing notes. Is it portable? Somewhat. It needs to be on a table or flat surface for you to use; i.e. it is not a mic on a tripod or a stand. It's as tall as... I dunno, a large sports drink bottle? A bit more? Is it cold like a snowball? No, next question. Should I buy it? I bought it twice since I liked it so much. I really thought it has a cute design, and again powerful. Easy to learn and handle. But please don't throw it around in winter. It is not friendly to windows or glass doors. It is definitely NOT a snowball.

The Blue Snowball is a very impressive plug and play mic, that offers almost no set-up when connected through USB. It has exceptional sound quality and can capture the faintest of sounds. Having different modes to capture audio is a key component of the device. It is best with any mic, to be directly in front of the device and position yourself so that you are speaking towards and down to the mic. You will get the best results if you place the mic around 4-5 inches from your mouth and around 2-3 inches under your mouth. This is absolutely the best mic for the price if you are a beginner and looking for solid sound quality at an affordable price. I have since upgraded to the Blue Yeti as I was looking for an even higher level of quality and design in my daily mic (just a matter of preference.) Overall, Blue products are some of the best made and certainly some of the best priced.

I went in to purchase a different microphone. I had done research and for what I was expecting to be doing, that other mic seemed like a good fit for price although it wasn't the highest quality. Once I saw the Blue Snowball was the same price, I snagged it without hesitation. Blue makes some high quality products, and the mic I had intended to get was a stop gap measure until I could save up enough for a Blue Yeti. With the Snowball, that Yeti might not get purchased. I have a friend that does a weekly podcast and we had a quick voip call to check the mic levels. Typically he has to adjust the levels on his home mic down to match the call-in's set up. He had to turn them up to match mine. Very awesome quality and at a great price. Could not be happier.

I use mine with Dragon NaturallySpeaking/Dragon Medical voice dictation program. I started out using a headset, and graduated to a handheld Philip SpeechMike microphone (which is much more expensive than this) but a desktop microphone is very convenient. It leaves my hands free. Logitech makes a USB desktop microphone but it is nothing like this. The microphone itself is slender and I was afraid is going to poke my eye out. Blue Snowball looks like something from a UFO (it reminds me of the show Space 1999). I don't plan to move it around because it is connected to my desktop. The price is reasonable for what I use it for. For voice dictation, make sure the setting is set to 1. With this setting, it only listens to the front (of it) The microphone is positioned about a foot away from me and it can hear me clearly.

I bought this to assist me in recording YouTube Videos. It's much better than the headset, but you must have headphones if you want to record anything without getting feedback. That's the case with any microphone though. There's three different modes on the back, but I haven't figured out a good use for the modes 2 and 3. I have it sitting roughly three feet away and while I have to speak up, it does still pick me up nicely, plus you can buy an arm for it plus the spring to help balance it if you really need one closer to your face. Perhaps that's what the other modes are for. I'd recommend this product to anyone starting out or potentially one to keep long term since you can buy additional equipment for it. Great buy, and great price!

This microphone sounds ok, nothing amazing. It barely sounds better than my cheap $20 dollar 16 year old logitech that I was trying to replace. The only thing it really does better than that mic is pick up a little less background noise. The vocal quality is pretty close. The problem though is that it's pickup range is junk for a desktop microphone. At 2 feet away with the levels maxed out, normal conversation level voice is quite low on this mic. Definitely not suitable for VOIP applications where you actually want the other participants to hear you. And that is my primary purpose for a microphone. I wanted a mic that would pick up my voice but not so much of the background noise. This this is also huge for a microphone and an eye soar on my desk. To top it off, it has a bright red LED on the front that is rather distracting. If this mic was priced at around 30 maybe 40 dollars I'd give it 4 stars, but at 70 dollars no way.