**A Review of the Blue Snowball Microphone**

I have to say that I was a bit skeptical about this microphone at first, but after using it for an extended period, I was pleasantly surprised by its performance. The Blue Snowball is a USB microphone designed specifically for recording vocals and other sounds, and in many ways, it delivers on its promises.

One of the things that I noticed about this microphone is that it comes with its own software to manage levels and update firmware. This is a great feature because it allows you to adjust your mic gain and playback level with ease. However, there are a couple of issues with the microphone itself. Firstly, it includes its own software, which can be a bit of an overhead. Secondly, the gain is quite finicky, and it's hard to keep a consistent volume while talking. This can lead to peaking and clipping, which can cause audio distortion.

I also want to mention that one of the issues with USB microphones in general is that they can be prone to plosives, which are sudden bursts of air that can cause loud noises when speaking quickly. The Blue Snowball has a problem with this, particularly when it comes to syllables that start with a "p" sound. However, there is a solution for this - you can use a pop filter, which is essentially a screen that fits over the microphone to block out sudden bursts of air.

Unfortunately, the pop filter options are limited, and you're mostly stuck with giant flyswatter-style filters that can be a bit obnoxious. Alternatively, you could use a windscreen, but these don't quite provide the same level of protection as a proper pop filter. In my case, I was able to keep the volume at a reasonable level by adjusting the gain and positioning the microphone just so.

In terms of value comparison, the Blue Snowball is actually priced very competitively. It's double the price of the Blue Yeti X, but only a few dollars less than the full-fat Blue Yeti model that comes with a stand. However, I have to say that the Blue Yeti is a much better option if you're looking for a high-quality microphone that will last you in the long run.

For those who are just starting out with audio recording and don't want to invest in a top-of-the-line microphone right off the bat, the Blue Snowball may be a good option. It's small, lightweight, and easy to use - making it perfect for content creators on a budget. However, if you're looking for an upgrade path or plan to do more advanced audio work in the future, I would recommend considering other options.

One of my personal favorites is the Audio-Technica ATR 2100, which is both USB and XLR compatible. This microphone sounds quite a bit better than the Blue Snowball, particularly when it comes to its high-frequency response. Additionally, it has an adjustable stand that allows you to position the microphone in a way that suits your needs.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Blue Snowball microphone. While it may not be perfect, it's a great option for those on a budget or who are just starting out with audio recording. With a little bit of experimentation and tweaking, you can get some amazing results from this microphone - even if it doesn't sound as good as some of its more expensive competitors.

**Product Links and Disclosures**

As always, I want to mention that I was sent the Blue Snowball by the manufacturer for review purposes. However, I purchased it myself shortly after hearing about it because it's been a long time since there was a new Blue microphone model. If you're interested in purchasing this or any other product mentioned in this article, please use the links provided below. This will help support my channel and allow me to continue creating content for you.

**Mic Review Playlist**

If you're interested in learning more about microphones and audio recording, be sure to check out my mic review playlist in the description below. In this playlist, I review a variety of microphones, from budget-friendly options like the Blue Snowball to high-end models like the Audio-Technica ATR 2100.

**Bose Vox**

As always, thanks for watching and I'll see you next time on my channel. Don't forget to hit that like button if you enjoyed this review, and subscribe for more awesome tech education and content.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday we're gonna be reviewing the blue Yeti nano desktop condenser microphone a small brother to the original Yeti however I'm holding it by the stand which is of course going to give you some obnoxious handling noise because the stand is also nano sized and completely useless for most applications because to get the best possible audio out of this microphone aside from the random Peaks since there is no limiter you got a hold it kind of right by your mouth however what most people want to do is they want to put it back here set it down so I'm gonna set it down flip it into omnidirectional mode and just start typing loudly except then when I start typing you're gonna hear all of that and you're getting the room echo and things like that's not how you use the mic you want it up and close to your mouth otherwise it's gonna sound pretty garbage in all the boom on your on your desk is gonna get picked up and it's just not going to be a great experience so we're going to pump it onto a we're gonna pop it onto a mic arm here real quick and fix this situation to buddy is the best tool you can get to manage your YouTube channel you can update videos in bulk optimize your SEO syndicate to social media backup your metadata and more all with a simple browser extension head to e post voxcom /to buddy to learn more and download it for free this is a test of the blue yeti nano microphone and the cardioid pickup pattern mode what mote what most people should be using with some background noise going my air conditioner is on in the background so you can kind of get a feel for general room level noise background rejection now I'm gonna switch it to omnidirectional mode real quick which is really not how this should be used but alright now this is the omnidirectional pickup pattern mode still talking to it as close as reasonably without popping or anything like that with some background noise going this is a test this is a test and you can I mean you can get a feel for the air conditioner in the background not entirely avoidable even with my you know big fancy expensive microphones but you'll see how it handles it here now I need to go turn off the air conditioner in order to actually do this review today we're reviewing the blue Yeti nano a small USB microphone and the first one that the company Blue has actually released since the announcement that they were being bought by Logitech I'm trying to keep it in the frame here while still having it in a good position this is a $99 microphone which is only about 30 bucks cheaper than the average not sale price of the full-size blue Yeti but Amazon even has blue Yeti plus assassins creed and other game streamer bundles for only 120 bucks and that is a much better value per you know your dollar than the microphone itself so the price point is a little weird for me I'm not sure I understand it but this is a new rendition of the yeti line it looks very similar still has the same similar design same similar stand just a lot smaller and the stand is ridiculously small to the extent that no one should really be able to use this in a normal game streaming or even podcasting set-up unless your desk is up at chin level for some reason which I can't imagine that being the case that's my same issue with the blue snowball as most people want to set them on the desktop stand which picks up all your keyboard booms and mouse clicks and things like that as I shown in another sample just doesn't work these microphones sound the best they actually most of them sound pretty good for USB microphones when they're in the cardioid pickup pattern mode here and up next to your face because otherwise they start picking up a lot of weird stuff so I have this super old microphone arm that I keep as a spare that I have it hooked up to because in the Box you get the microphone itself pre attached to the stand it just attaches via these two screws to the side then it comes with an adapter to go from the quarter twenties 1/2 that's actually on the microphone itself if you want to put on on a normal tripod it should fit up to I forget the exact sizing but these standard microphone size fatter thumb screw mount and then it also comes with a fairly long microUSB cable though if you're trying to do some really you know behind your monitor or mic arm runs or something you may need a longer cable and that could cause some problems with USB stall out or what have you just don't use hubs or extension cables because those could problems on the back here you see there is an LED indicator for which pickup pattern motor in as well as a switch to switch between the two modes that it has cardioid which is meant for voiceover most streaming and YouTube related recording situations and then the omnidirectional mode which picks up everything around the microphone and is more for recording like a group conversation in a conference call things like that where you have people all over the place that you need to pick up as much as you can over on the front of the microphone you have a mute switch mutes the mic you don't get to hear it and then it has a green indicator for when you have monitoring enabled on the microphone so whether or not you can hear it in the headphone output a volume adjustment for that and then you can actually hold this button on the back and switch off the monitoring if you just want to use it as a sound card unfortunately it has a sound card the DAC in there sucks this is the whole issue with USB microphones as you can only fit so much in a small form-factor and without sacrificing too much quality and so the DAC and it isn't so great it doesn't do a good job of powering mic higher-end headphones so I didn't like it I believe your mate you're expected to control the volume for the actual computer system sound to the microphone via Windows and then the dial adjusts just the monitoring quality of the micro neck quality but level of the microphone then on the bottom here you have a standard 3.5 millimeter headphone jack the quarter 20 tap that I mentioned and micro USB as far as how this microphone sounds and my testing just briefly it sounds fairly good the issue is it comes down to help people use it and I'll be touching on in a future video the actual blue Yeti itself since it's such a potent omnipresent microphone at this point everyone knows what it is and why most people sound horrible with it because right here it actually sounds fairly competent fairly good but if I put it into the situation that most people do now it's off camera over here you're getting reflections off my monitor you're picking up the room noise and I have a fairly quiet room right now but it's not going to sound good and you start typing in your game or playing game and it just it doesn't sound great but bring it closer to your mouth I actually talked into it this is a site address microphone which means you talk into the side that's a there's another capsule back here for the aminal directional but you're talking to this side right here not into the top not into the back if you're in cardioid mode not into the side not on to the other side you talk into the front side right here that's something a lot of people get wrong nothing irks me more than seeing people talking into the top of it because that's just not how the microphones meant to be used my favorite thing about this microphone release is the color options this comes in a variety of different color colors this is the red onyx version let me see here they have shadow gray cubano gold and vivid blue and the blue and the red onyx look really really great I figured a lot of people would be getting the blue so I went ahead and got the Onyx it looks really nice for Nana for 99 bucks it is a fairly high quality microphone I do have a couple issues with it they do include their own software to manage the levels now and update firmware so I updated firmware before I started recording this video it reflects which polar pattern you're in it shows your mic gain and can help you adjust that so if I start turning this up if I start turning that up if I start turning that up I start clipping really badly and then you can adjust your playback level which is just reflected in Windows is audio control panel my issue is is that there is no sort of limiter or compressor in the microphone which in most cases is a good thing like I normally wouldn't ask for that in normal professional microphones but something about the way these USB mics are gained the D gain is so finicky and as you've saw like it is so hard to talk at a consistent volume where you don't keep random like it is struggling for me to try to regulate my volume so that I don't randomly start picking out the microphone like it sigh it's hard to explain if you don't have a whole lot of audio experience but an issue with a lot of these USB microphones is that is if you're talking levels vary too much then it is super easy to start peaking it and clipping and causing audio distortion and things like that based on how loudly you're talking for certain syllables which is a natural human thing to do but most microphones usually are held back in a way that prevents that from happening but I've always had that issue with USB microphones specifically it's it's really weird now of course if you do too much up close voiceover with this I would recommend picking up a pop filter of some sort unfortunately for these kinds of microphones you're pretty much limited to the giant flyswatter ones that just like block your face which are obnoxious you could get a little windscreen to put on top those are those would fit naturally anyway but they do kind of muffle the sound a bit more than a proper pop filter cuz they're not made to be a pop filter those are wind screens they're meant to actually muffle air moving across it because otherwise you start to get pilosa --vs but I'm able to keep it at about 73 gain here a few inches from my face I shouldn't be causing too many plosives and it still sound alright so yeah hit or miss like I said the value comparison I mean this is the same price as the siren X it's double the price of the actual blue snowball which most people want to start with for only a few dollars less than the blue yeti that comes with a game and things like a taller stand that might might actually be useful to you because this this this one is not I certainly questioned its value but for those of you who don't want to buy used or refurbished or eBay microphones and want something new to start out with and maybe the 120 $140 price point of the blue Yeti is too expensive or you want something with more color or Frink frankly just something that takes up less space that is a big advantage over of this over or something like the normal blue yeti which is quite a bit taller than this and I mean it's even smaller than my re 20 here however Mari 20 I talk into the front here and so all of that length goes back deep into my shot instead of across my face like this one it works it's a good option it's something I would definitely recommend people pick up if that is their solution I do think starting with USB microphones if you have any intention of upgrading audio later of having any sort of audio upgrade path this maybe isn't the one to go with you can get something like the audio-technica ATR 2100 which is both USB and XLR and sounds quite a bit better and and then you can eventually upgrade to an XLR setup and then go to better audio from there and generally speaking I don't recommend condenser microphones at a desk gaming streaming setup in the first place dynamic microphones are the way to go because of that extra background sound rejection and filtration that happens but if all of those things are the ones you want this microphone surprised me with how good it sound product links Affiliate to Amazon and yadda-yadda as always will be in the description below as always in terms of disclosures I didn't give it at the start of video because I wasn't sent this early like a lot of youtubers I bought this myself as soon as I heard the announcement because it was the first blue mic since a lot of check bottom and I wanted to provide a review hit the like button if you enjoyed subscribe for more awesome tech education and check out my mic review playlist for other recommendations in the description down below I'm a Bose Vox and I'll see you next time oh yeahtoday we're gonna be reviewing the blue Yeti nano desktop condenser microphone a small brother to the original Yeti however I'm holding it by the stand which is of course going to give you some obnoxious handling noise because the stand is also nano sized and completely useless for most applications because to get the best possible audio out of this microphone aside from the random Peaks since there is no limiter you got a hold it kind of right by your mouth however what most people want to do is they want to put it back here set it down so I'm gonna set it down flip it into omnidirectional mode and just start typing loudly except then when I start typing you're gonna hear all of that and you're getting the room echo and things like that's not how you use the mic you want it up and close to your mouth otherwise it's gonna sound pretty garbage in all the boom on your on your desk is gonna get picked up and it's just not going to be a great experience so we're going to pump it onto a we're gonna pop it onto a mic arm here real quick and fix this situation to buddy is the best tool you can get to manage your YouTube channel you can update videos in bulk optimize your SEO syndicate to social media backup your metadata and more all with a simple browser extension head to e post voxcom /to buddy to learn more and download it for free this is a test of the blue yeti nano microphone and the cardioid pickup pattern mode what mote what most people should be using with some background noise going my air conditioner is on in the background so you can kind of get a feel for general room level noise background rejection now I'm gonna switch it to omnidirectional mode real quick which is really not how this should be used but alright now this is the omnidirectional pickup pattern mode still talking to it as close as reasonably without popping or anything like that with some background noise going this is a test this is a test and you can I mean you can get a feel for the air conditioner in the background not entirely avoidable even with my you know big fancy expensive microphones but you'll see how it handles it here now I need to go turn off the air conditioner in order to actually do this review today we're reviewing the blue Yeti nano a small USB microphone and the first one that the company Blue has actually released since the announcement that they were being bought by Logitech I'm trying to keep it in the frame here while still having it in a good position this is a $99 microphone which is only about 30 bucks cheaper than the average not sale price of the full-size blue Yeti but Amazon even has blue Yeti plus assassins creed and other game streamer bundles for only 120 bucks and that is a much better value per you know your dollar than the microphone itself so the price point is a little weird for me I'm not sure I understand it but this is a new rendition of the yeti line it looks very similar still has the same similar design same similar stand just a lot smaller and the stand is ridiculously small to the extent that no one should really be able to use this in a normal game streaming or even podcasting set-up unless your desk is up at chin level for some reason which I can't imagine that being the case that's my same issue with the blue snowball as most people want to set them on the desktop stand which picks up all your keyboard booms and mouse clicks and things like that as I shown in another sample just doesn't work these microphones sound the best they actually most of them sound pretty good for USB microphones when they're in the cardioid pickup pattern mode here and up next to your face because otherwise they start picking up a lot of weird stuff so I have this super old microphone arm that I keep as a spare that I have it hooked up to because in the Box you get the microphone itself pre attached to the stand it just attaches via these two screws to the side then it comes with an adapter to go from the quarter twenties 1/2 that's actually on the microphone itself if you want to put on on a normal tripod it should fit up to I forget the exact sizing but these standard microphone size fatter thumb screw mount and then it also comes with a fairly long microUSB cable though if you're trying to do some really you know behind your monitor or mic arm runs or something you may need a longer cable and that could cause some problems with USB stall out or what have you just don't use hubs or extension cables because those could problems on the back here you see there is an LED indicator for which pickup pattern motor in as well as a switch to switch between the two modes that it has cardioid which is meant for voiceover most streaming and YouTube related recording situations and then the omnidirectional mode which picks up everything around the microphone and is more for recording like a group conversation in a conference call things like that where you have people all over the place that you need to pick up as much as you can over on the front of the microphone you have a mute switch mutes the mic you don't get to hear it and then it has a green indicator for when you have monitoring enabled on the microphone so whether or not you can hear it in the headphone output a volume adjustment for that and then you can actually hold this button on the back and switch off the monitoring if you just want to use it as a sound card unfortunately it has a sound card the DAC in there sucks this is the whole issue with USB microphones as you can only fit so much in a small form-factor and without sacrificing too much quality and so the DAC and it isn't so great it doesn't do a good job of powering mic higher-end headphones so I didn't like it I believe your mate you're expected to control the volume for the actual computer system sound to the microphone via Windows and then the dial adjusts just the monitoring quality of the micro neck quality but level of the microphone then on the bottom here you have a standard 3.5 millimeter headphone jack the quarter 20 tap that I mentioned and micro USB as far as how this microphone sounds and my testing just briefly it sounds fairly good the issue is it comes down to help people use it and I'll be touching on in a future video the actual blue Yeti itself since it's such a potent omnipresent microphone at this point everyone knows what it is and why most people sound horrible with it because right here it actually sounds fairly competent fairly good but if I put it into the situation that most people do now it's off camera over here you're getting reflections off my monitor you're picking up the room noise and I have a fairly quiet room right now but it's not going to sound good and you start typing in your game or playing game and it just it doesn't sound great but bring it closer to your mouth I actually talked into it this is a site address microphone which means you talk into the side that's a there's another capsule back here for the aminal directional but you're talking to this side right here not into the top not into the back if you're in cardioid mode not into the side not on to the other side you talk into the front side right here that's something a lot of people get wrong nothing irks me more than seeing people talking into the top of it because that's just not how the microphones meant to be used my favorite thing about this microphone release is the color options this comes in a variety of different color colors this is the red onyx version let me see here they have shadow gray cubano gold and vivid blue and the blue and the red onyx look really really great I figured a lot of people would be getting the blue so I went ahead and got the Onyx it looks really nice for Nana for 99 bucks it is a fairly high quality microphone I do have a couple issues with it they do include their own software to manage the levels now and update firmware so I updated firmware before I started recording this video it reflects which polar pattern you're in it shows your mic gain and can help you adjust that so if I start turning this up if I start turning that up if I start turning that up I start clipping really badly and then you can adjust your playback level which is just reflected in Windows is audio control panel my issue is is that there is no sort of limiter or compressor in the microphone which in most cases is a good thing like I normally wouldn't ask for that in normal professional microphones but something about the way these USB mics are gained the D gain is so finicky and as you've saw like it is so hard to talk at a consistent volume where you don't keep random like it is struggling for me to try to regulate my volume so that I don't randomly start picking out the microphone like it sigh it's hard to explain if you don't have a whole lot of audio experience but an issue with a lot of these USB microphones is that is if you're talking levels vary too much then it is super easy to start peaking it and clipping and causing audio distortion and things like that based on how loudly you're talking for certain syllables which is a natural human thing to do but most microphones usually are held back in a way that prevents that from happening but I've always had that issue with USB microphones specifically it's it's really weird now of course if you do too much up close voiceover with this I would recommend picking up a pop filter of some sort unfortunately for these kinds of microphones you're pretty much limited to the giant flyswatter ones that just like block your face which are obnoxious you could get a little windscreen to put on top those are those would fit naturally anyway but they do kind of muffle the sound a bit more than a proper pop filter cuz they're not made to be a pop filter those are wind screens they're meant to actually muffle air moving across it because otherwise you start to get pilosa --vs but I'm able to keep it at about 73 gain here a few inches from my face I shouldn't be causing too many plosives and it still sound alright so yeah hit or miss like I said the value comparison I mean this is the same price as the siren X it's double the price of the actual blue snowball which most people want to start with for only a few dollars less than the blue yeti that comes with a game and things like a taller stand that might might actually be useful to you because this this this one is not I certainly questioned its value but for those of you who don't want to buy used or refurbished or eBay microphones and want something new to start out with and maybe the 120 $140 price point of the blue Yeti is too expensive or you want something with more color or Frink frankly just something that takes up less space that is a big advantage over of this over or something like the normal blue yeti which is quite a bit taller than this and I mean it's even smaller than my re 20 here however Mari 20 I talk into the front here and so all of that length goes back deep into my shot instead of across my face like this one it works it's a good option it's something I would definitely recommend people pick up if that is their solution I do think starting with USB microphones if you have any intention of upgrading audio later of having any sort of audio upgrade path this maybe isn't the one to go with you can get something like the audio-technica ATR 2100 which is both USB and XLR and sounds quite a bit better and and then you can eventually upgrade to an XLR setup and then go to better audio from there and generally speaking I don't recommend condenser microphones at a desk gaming streaming setup in the first place dynamic microphones are the way to go because of that extra background sound rejection and filtration that happens but if all of those things are the ones you want this microphone surprised me with how good it sound product links Affiliate to Amazon and yadda-yadda as always will be in the description below as always in terms of disclosures I didn't give it at the start of video because I wasn't sent this early like a lot of youtubers I bought this myself as soon as I heard the announcement because it was the first blue mic since a lot of check bottom and I wanted to provide a review hit the like button if you enjoyed subscribe for more awesome tech education and check out my mic review playlist for other recommendations in the description down below I'm a Bose Vox and I'll see you next time oh yeah\n"