Anyone heard/used a "Blue Snowball" USB mic?

[theblue1]

Has anyone had a chance to hear/use the "Blue Snowball" USB mic from Blue?

• Condenser mic with USB connectivity
• Unique 3-pattern switch (cardioid, cardioid with -10dB pad, and omni)
• Dual-capsule design

[The Blue website was 'unavailable' when I went there. The BSW broadcast supplies site says they expect stock "Nov 30"... No one else seems to have stock, so I assume they haven't shipped yet or are in heavy demand.]


As a laptopper, I've had to fight the urge to pick up a Samson USB condensor for $80... I have to admit getting a multi-pattern from a somewhat trendier company that looks kind of cool is a little easier sell to me even at about double the price. (It can be had with a little retro table stand for about $160 at BSW or, presumably w/o a stand at Musicians Friend for $140 -- should either place get stock, anyhow).


The last time I started packing up a basic laptop recording rig using my MOTU 828, I ended up with two backpacks bulging with gear (one couldn't even be closed) and a couple of mic stands -- and gave up and grabbed my old MiniDisc and funky Sony stereo battery mic. And I was glad I did.

Something like this could be an okay compromise, seemingly perfect for a quick songwriter demo or to capture ideas or even get a nice retro/mono recording of a living room jam. (Okay... the last is a stretch. A compromised stereo recording probably beats a good mono recording for the typical l.r. jam.)


I wonder when someone is going to wise up and make a good stereo USB mic?

[Empty Planet]

For the uses you describe it should be fine. I have one of these little guys and use it when I travel with my laptop. It does a pretty fair room thing on omni. An unexpected issue came up for me when I wanted to record two different ins simultaneously; if this is going to be a need you might want to make sure your host can handle a USB mic input simultaneously with whatever other kind of input you're going to use.

Soundwise, it's not too shabby for the price, but probably nothing you'd want to record monster serious tracks with. As you note, you also get three different flavors, so that's a nice thing. The little guy must be made of lead; it weighs a ton and depending on the capsules might outlast everything else in that price range except maybe a 57. I use it on the road when I have ideas I want to flesh out that require multiple tracks; it's fast and pretty convenient for that.

But otherwise I just use a handheld digital recorder, which I find much faster and more convenient.

Cheers.

[max cooper]

MXL-DRK is another USB mic. Street looks like $99.

I guess they thought they could get on the 'white USB accessories bandwagon' too.

http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp...ry=Microphones

I love the hulking monitor they show the mic in front of. Slick, guys!

[theblue1]

Empty

Perfect info... precisely what I was looking to know. And not too surprising. Except for the heavy part... Still it'd have to be a lot better than hauling the ol' MOTU and affiliated crap around.

Your comments really make me wonder how it would stack up against the $80 Samson, sound, weight, and durability -wise. A cool retro look is nice, but when you're talking, after all, about hauling something around, heavy doesn't necessarily equate to cool.

I'm reading between all the lines everywhere, here, and guessing this is more a 'character' mic. (As opposed to a flatter 'accurate' mic.) Would you say that's the case? Do you notice a big change in prox effect and frequency response when you switch from cardioid to omi?

Multi-pattern seems like a really good thing to have on a mic for multipurpose laptop work. If you were doing an interview, that, right there, could be invaluable. And having the pad could be important, since it appears there's no other gain or level setting, yeah?

Yeah, on the multiple USB mics, I don't see how you could do it in Windows. I think Apple said they were going to add the ability to work with multiple unsynchronized digital audio sources to Logic (or was it the OS?), but I haven't heard anything since.

It'd sure be nice if you could just plug a pair of them into your USB ports, y'know? If I understood what Apple was promising, I don't see why you couldn't do that.

[theblue1]

Max

The first time I saw that Marshall in a catalog or online, I was sure it was a USB thing, too. When I went back and looked...

It's a conventional condenser with an XLR out, a power supply for it, and XLR-to-Mini-Plug and 3.5mm to 1/4" adaptors, along with a stand; the adaptors to allow you to use it with your laptop's mic in.

My laptop's only audio input is a mic in that has sounded lousy on everything I've been able to hook to it. Best has been a 'computer-store' mic... okay for Skype and capturing ideas.

Yeah... that monitor in the picture of the mic 'in use' is pretty hot. Looks like My First Computer... well, not my first computer... you know.



I have a personal moratorium on buying Marshall Mics, right now, though, since I just bought two MXL 990s from Musician's Friend... with shockmounts , they were, like, $47 bucks apiece with my ASCAP discount and MF threw in decent 6" pop screens (some special deal at check-out, a nice surprise... wouldn't count on it, though).

The golden part was the shockmounts work with my Fosters Lager sized Equitek 2, which has always been a fairly awkward mount. The downside is... well, they're not exactly fine mics. I bought two thinking stereo but... mmm... not very flat mics at all... a fairly veiled, comby sound. But what do you want for $50?

And, anyhow, they look great!

[max cooper]

I figured it might be better to have the flexibility, of course, at some point you just get an M-Box...

[Empty Planet]

theblue1,

Don't worry about the weight; it's nothing too extreme. I just meant to say that they're surprisingly solid.

Cheers.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by max cooper

I figured it might be better to have the flexibility, of course, at some point you just get an M-Box...

Arf!


Pro tool?


Well, if I gotta haul something around, I'll be hauling around my ol' MOTU 828mkII.

But I did give a good look at the Mbox on my way to the MOTU. (If I was buying today I would most likely buy something else, but the MOTU's been pretty solid. Happily, I haven't had to go to MOTU for anything.)

[macbodock]

Hello All,
I have been lurking for awhile and trying to get a feel for the forums here. So hopefully I won't sound like a troll(Peanuts do sound good now). I guess that I am a early adpoter of the USB Microphone. I did all the research that I could on USB Microphones and was about to buy the C01U from Samson($80). Then I heard about the SnowBall from B.L.U.E.($140)did some research and found it to be well worth the extra money. I bought a SnowBall from GC when they 1st came out and this is one sharp little Microphone. If you need some comparison to the C01U, I found a reveiw and you can read it here. I wrote Ric Ford over at MacInTouch and gave him my thoughts on the SnowBall and you can read the review here! I think that it also important to hear the SnowBall in action. A guy by the name of Robert C. Andrews did a song with his acostic guitar and recorded with his SnowBall called "Stay Away Woman"! One more thing I use the SnowBall and you can check my website XXXXXXX click on demo's. All the demo's recorded with the SnowBall with the -10db pad engaged into Peak LE4 with some compression added plus a few "other" things. I hope this information helps.

Warmest Regards,

[theblue1]

Thanks for the info!

Ironically (or whatever it would be), I just bought a C01U yesterday.


I'll have to go read the review you linked to -- but, for the money -- and with the limitations of such a mic firmly in mind -- I'm pretty well delighted.

I eyeballed the Snowball at NAMM but that's no place to test a mic and they weren't offering (though I asked... they said Apple might have had one up). And it's sure a cute little thing.

The fact it comes with (I think) a little folding tripod stand will save you about $20.


I wrote a bit of catch-up about the Samson here: http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...highlight=c01u


One thing I was pleased (and a bit relieved) about was the fact that the Samson's analog input stage gain can be controlled via softare -- either the Samson mini-app [which I didn't want to install in my normally lean-mean notebook] or, better yet, through Windows XP's or OS X's system settings. (In Windows NOT the volume/mixer applet that hangs out in the systray but the actual system Audio Control Panel, which I bookmarked into my favorites and put a shortcut to on my desktop.)

[theblue1]

VERY nice that the Snowball has switchable polar patterns! I was thinking that that would make the Samson much more versatile for field work. Good on Blue.


I guess the neat little stand isn't included with the Blue. (I just bought a folding tripod for $15 online, $19 after shipping.)

On the driver front, I can only talk about Windows, but the Samson showed up like clockwork everywhere expected. I used it to record in Sonar, Tracktion, and SoundForge. It was very much plug and go. (It worked fine with the standard Winddows USB audio drivers so I happily didn't have to install the Samson applet. But if you wanted to avail yourself of its bass rolloff or phase reversal, I guess you'd want to install it.)


One thing I was a bit nervious about on the Blue was that it might have a 'characterful, colored' sound... which is nice when it's nice and not when it's not (like when you want a flat recording). (I haven't listened to the example you linked yet... got some killer Ravi Shankar on I don't want to interrupt the flow of.)

The Samson was, well, entirely acceptable for an $80 mic (even without the USB angle), moderately flat and not too colored. The freq. chart included in the manual shows a believable curve that's up 3 or 4 dB around 11 KHz and begins rolling down around 95 Hz until its 6 or 7 dB down at 50 Hz.


From the review you linked, it appears the Blue depends on its pad to accomodate different sound levels. The Samson approach (software controlled analog stage) seems to offer far better flexibility there, important when you consider the Samson is a 16 bit device.

(Oddly, I can't recall ever seeing whether the Snowball is 16 bit or 24 bit.)

Anyhow, I had no problems using the Samson to overdub into existing 24 bit projects in Sonar (and with the proper MDE drivers installed for my notebooks Sigma Tel onboard interface, playback was fine, too, although a trifle less silky than proper 24 bit through my regular MOTU. But emminently usable for location overdubs, something I'm keen on right now.)


And, of course, both the Snowball and the Samson share the inherent limitation of no zero or anywhere-close-to-zero-latency monitoring. You pretty much have to go old skool and partially lift a headphone off one ear if you want to better hear whatever voice, acoustic or amplified instrument you're recording.


What amazes me is that there's not much competition yet for either of these mics.


Now... if someone would just make one with a usable monitor output right on the mic... and maybe a built in reverb for monitoring with verb and... a MIDI interface, yeah, that'd be the ticket...


__________________

I finally caught up with the example from Robert Andrews. I like the song and performance a lot. I did notice a bit of comb-filter type coloration on the guitar and vocal but that could easily have been an EQ decsion, it was pleasant enough sounding.

PS... if you can stand my dicey guitar playing and somewhat offkey vocals (it was late, I was tired, it was the wrong key... what was I thinking) you can get an idea of what the Samson sounds like on this recording:

http://lazybeat.com/ayearofsongs/mme..._Its_Never.m3u [stream]

http://www.archive.org/download/Now_..._Its_Never.mp3 [DL]

I slapped some compression on it, if I recall correctly, but I didn't use any EQ or FX.