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There are times when you need a decent microphone, whether it’s for Podcasting, conference calls, recording demos or presentations, capturing riffs, recording band practice, etc.

The built-in microphones on computers are great, mainly because they’re built in and you don’t have to do anything to connect them up, but the sound quality is never all that good. Typical Condenser and Dynamic microphones used for pro audio applications sound great, but they require some kind of connection and/or preamp device to connect to your computer. This is where USB Microphones come in handy. Simply setup your mic where you want it, and plug the USB cable into your computer. Adjust your “Sound” settings in System Preferences and off you go.

They don’t require any pre-amp, no phantom power, and use standard USB cables to connect. Also, they tend to be less expensive than most studio quality microphones as they’re geared towards podcasters and musicians who, of course, have no money.

The Problem with USB Mic’s

The sound quality for most USB microphones would best be described as a solid “OK”. Not great, not bad, certainly better than the built in microphones or headsets, but not nearly as good as a half-decent studio mic. If you’re a VOIP/Skype user, the quality doesn’t matter all that much, because they’re at least as good as most phones and built-in mic’s.

They’ll also be OK for most podcasting and software demo capture tasks. But for Audio applications, most of them fall far short in terms of quality and patterns.

Another problem with USB microphones is latency. That is, it takes time for the audio to go from the mic through the cable to the computer and back out to the headphones.

This delay can drive you nuts if you’re trying to lay down tracks, basically making it next to impossible to do multitracking with them. On a podcast, phone call, or group recording, latency doesn’t matter that much though.

Enter the Yeti

I’ve already got a good Plantronics headset, and those work great for recording software demos  and doing VOIP calls. But I still needed something better for recording music at home, and being cheap I didn’t want to lay out a bunch of cash for a good microphone, a preamp, and other stuff that not only costs money but also clutters up the living room. I’m already in enough trouble there.

I’d heard some very good things about Blue Microphones from musicians and film sound techs in the past, and the Blue Snowball gets a lot of love in reviews. But when I went to check out the Snowball, I saw the product announcement on the Yeti and decided to pull the trigger on it. It carries on the whole “snow” theme, and you can see where it got it’s name naturally from the shape of the desktop stand and from the sheer size of the thing. It’s huge for a USB mic. Here’s a pic:

Connections

The stand is great if you’re using it on your desktop. I wanted to use it on a standard microphone stand, and the Yeti has the standard screw-in mounting on the bottom. I just took off the base using the thumbscrews on each side, then threaded it on the end of the boom.

No problems there, and according to Blue the mic was designed with enough internal damping so that a shockmount is not required. Right next to the stand mount is the USB port. A standard USB cable ships with the mic, although you could use just about any USB A/B cable if you wanted to.

The location should protect it a bit from abuse, but I’d recommend being careful where cables go and walking around when it’s setup so that you don’t accidentally pull on the cable and damage the connector.

Also on the bottom is the port for the standard 1/8” audio headphone jack, and on the front is the volume control for the headset. I’d recommend getting an extension cable for the headphones, just to make it easier to work with. I like to have the cables coming up from behind me so that it doesn’t interfere with what I’m doing in front of me.

Controls

This is where the Yeti gets really cool, really fast. The design incorporates three capsules, which means you get more audio patterns built into the mic. The knob on the back of the Yeti will allow you to set the patterns to:

•    Cardioid (directional, or basically picking up what’s directly in front of it)
•    Stereo (left and right, and immensely useful)
•    Omnidirectional (everywhere at once)
•    BiDirectional (directly in front of and behind of Microphone)

Each pattern is useful in different contexts, but it’s fun and easy to try out different patterns in a given situation. For recording acoustic guitars, both the Cardioid and Stereo patterns sound great, and I tend to lean towards using the Stereo pattern in Garageband. For recording a group in a room, set it to Omnidirectional and enjoy.

There is a Gain control on the back to adjust the sensitivity of the mic. This helps when recording loud things, which is really what we all secretly want to do anyway. It takes some experimentation and tweaking between the Gain control and the levels in your application, but that’s easy in Garageband and Logic.

One note on the controls – don’t get too unruly with them. They aren’t what I’d call industrial-strength, but for home and office use they should be just fine.

Results

If you think I’m going to post up some samples of my guitar playing and singing, you’re nuts. It’s not going to happen. But I can tell you that the Yeti is dead simple to use and sounds much better than other USB mic’s I’ve tried in the past.

Having the headphone jack right on the mic eliminates latency, so it’s very easy to multitrack. On the Mac, it’s easy to get everything setup in System Preferences, and it’s documented well for PC, too, so it should be a snap in Windows as well.

For audio samples, you can find some comparisons in reviews elsewhere on the net. To my ears the Yeti sounds much better than other USB mic’s, and respectable for home recording compared to a “quality” studio mic.

The size is a little imposing, but it’s easy enough to position as you like it. The weight was no problem for my garden variety boom stand, and it looks cool when it’s not in use, too. It would be pretty imposing on the desktop stand for podcasting, but you could screw it into one of those radio-station style overhead booms.

Best of all, you can buy these online from our sister division, PowerMax. Their mascot is Bigfoot, so go figure – grab a Yeti Microphone today because at $149, the Yeti is a heck of a good mic. Enjoy!