The Blue Microphones Snowball: studio quality sound recorded at home
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Oct 11th 2005 7:32AM
posted Oct 11th 2005 7:32AM
Blue Microphones is offering what they claim to be the "world's first professional" USB microphone giving you "studio quality" sound from your Mac or PC desktop. This condenser mic is optimized for vocals with a 40 to 18,000Hz frequency response providing maximum detail in the critical midrange bands and a "smooth and focused high end." For $159 green, that 16-bit 44.1KHz audio better make us sound damned-near the Rat Pack on our next Podcast.
[Thanks, James]
People have been waiting for this model for about a year. The beta users were very pleased - all reports indicate this is a very good inexpensive microphone that is suitable for podcasting.
Are you kidding about sounding like the rat pack for 159? 159 is next to nothing for any mic near studio quality. Good condenser mics often cost 10 times that price.
By the way, I'm sure podcasting was the least of their concerns when they decided to design this device.
Pro quality with 16bit/44kHz audio???? Give me a break! Maybe if it recorded in 24/96, I'd be impressed...
It was launched at NAMM in january:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000447028481/
They're not presenting it as a high-end vocal mic, this is what the website says it's for: " instrument and voice for music production / pre-production / demos, DV-looping / dialog, podcasting, sound effects, audio sampling, interactive programming, video sweetening / post, internet telephony, internet conferencing, recording lectures, poetry slams, spoken word performances and speeches by your favorite politician"
hi guys, can you give me some reviews on this thing? and please give me some sites that talk about microphones. I'm looking for the best cheap easy-to-use microphone.
To SD: Give it a year and 24/96 will be here at a reasonable price. From what I've heard they are trying to grow the market -- not convince folks who have spent years accumulating gear to dump their Neumann's for a $160 piece of gear. However, if you're new to home recording and all you have is a mac and GarageBand or a PC and SONAR Home Studio this is a pretty compelling offering. Podcasting hadn't picked up steam when development started on this product, so I think that's just a secondary market that popped up on accident.
So yeah, the prosumer and pro market will come, but they're going to make they cash from the casual aspiring vocalist who just wants to plug and play. For them old school 16/44 is good enough.
Agree with poster #2. $159 is a pittance for a decent microphone - anyone with a modicum of broadcasting or sound engineering experience could tell you that. Judging by the quality of far too many of the podcasts available these days, anything over a built-in laptop microphone or RadioShack cheapy would be an improvement. Now if we could only get those podcasters to read a book or two on engineering basics we might be on to something...
What would be the best setup for recording a live acoustic set (house concert)? Most people I have seen at small shows are using a nice mic and a minidisc recorder. I would prefer not to use that method, as MD is pretty much dead.
Would the snowball mic do the trick? If so, what recording software (for XP) would you recommend?
Thanks,
This isn't really a "podcaster" mic ... this is overkill for plain vocals unless you want something closer to professional radio quality.
This is for someone who wants to do pro-quality voiceovers on a computer (for audio/video editing) and doesn't want to spend money on a mixing board to run one phantom powered condenser microphone, then money on a USB audio interface (assuming the board doesn't have one) for clean audio.
I just plunked down money for an M-Audio interface for this purpose so I could use my existing SM57/58 mics (good, but not great). I would rather spend the money on this mic for PC-based audio work.
thomas didn't just pull the podcasting thing out of his butt - BlueMic is marketing this thing as being "ideal for podcasting":
"With its dual capsule design and unique three-pattern switch (cardioid, cardioid with -10dB pad and omni), the Snowball can handle everything from soft vocals to the loudest garage band — and it’s ideal for podcasting."
http://www.bluemic.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Products&file=index&prod_id=18
What about Samson's new USB condenser mic for $80? Model #C01U
I am thinking about getting this mic for a podcast. Do you think that it would be good for a "group?" I don't need the best buy would like to use one mic for a group of 4or5 people sitting around a table.
I bought the SnowBall back in September at my local GC. The quality that I get is outstanding for the voiceovers that I do. I record directly into Peak LE 4 add a few plug-ins and it sounds as good as any radio production studio. I really like the -10db pad that is engaged when the 3 way switch is in position 2. I did look at the C01U from Samson, but it does not give me all the features that the SnowBall does.
Check out the reveiw that I did for macintouch:
http://www.macintouch.com/audiorecord8.html#oct24
Warmest Regards,
Jerry McCrae
Owner / Big Mouth
http://www.BigMouthStudio.com
SNOWBUZZ
If are using anything but a select few programs (ie - garage band and peak) then this thing is a hunk of junk. Most audio software doesn't recognize the snowball and the work around on the blue sites faq doesn't solve a thing... it only compounds the problem.