Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone Review

When we talk about quality, blue yeti stands up as the first choice among all the USB microphones. These days, it's hard to find a quality microphone because sundry manufacturers are diving into USB microphone industry. We have manufacturers like Logitech who specializes in keyboards, mice, computer accessories and even sound systems. There are a lot of manufacturers who produce USB microphones as an additional product line. Sometimes, these manufacturers don’t have enough experience. The most they can offer is a fancy looking microphone. But, there are some manufacturers who are expert in manufacturing microphones only.

Blue microphones are one such company. Blue focuses on single product line – quality mics. One of their devices, blue yeti, is an awesome mic. The build quality is good and has an excellent sound pattern. The only thing that separates it from a professional studio microphone, is that it runs a USB input ( unlike high-end recording microphones ).

If you haven’t used a microphone before, on a very serious note, this microphone would be perfect for you. The price tag is quite affordable and looks like pricing of computer accessories rather than a high-end recording device.

The price for the quality of blue yeti makes it a very terrible rival!

Design and functionality
If you’ve never used microphones before, this one will seem quite large. Dimensions are 4.7 x 4.9 x 11.6 inches for width, depth and height respectively including stand. I don’t know what the pictures represent, but this microphone is a full metal body and has firm build. The control buttons although feel kind of flimsy. The only thing that can break in these microphones are the buttons so, I recommend that you configure it and use it without changing it too much.

Talking about its capabilities, blue Yeti has two ports. First one is USB input that powers it and connects it with the computer. Blue Yeti USB model has the standard sampling rate of 16 bit at 48 kHz. It also comes with a 6feet long cable. It also has an audio input jack for live headphone listening. You can listen exactly what is being captured. This saves a lot of time in audio configuration and post-production. The device has a shock mount thread underneath, but shock mount doesn’t come with the package.

On the front side, you’ll see a mute/unmute button along with a volume knob. On the back side, there are two controls. One knob controls recording pattern using which you can change between cardioid, bidirectional, omnidirectional & stereo.

The Yeti has three capsules inside. Most of the traditional microphones come only with a single capsule.

Sound quality
The microphone delivers surprisingly rich audio for the cost it comes at. The microphone is quite sensitive and will pick up background noise also. However, you can remove background noise by either treating your room or using a simple audio editing program like audacity. You can also play with your audio recording patterns to cancel some noise.
Blue proudly advertises the fact that it is “THX certified”. Blue’s Yeti was the first microphone that got certified. What this means is that THX assures that whole frequency range is delivered in the way it is expected it to be. THX certification makes it tough to point out shortcomings of this microphone, but being a condenser microphone, it has some minor shortcomings.

It is not only about yeti, all condenser mics usually pick a lot of background noise. Environment noise can be a problem, although this model has gain and pattern controls that will help you reduce the majority of background noise.

Also, it also catches vibrations. Which means if you are a gamer, and you record while keeping this microphone on the desk. It will record your button pressing noise also. Which is why it is recommended to get a shock mount. But due to giant size of the microphone, most of the shock mounts don’t fit.