Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone

 

 The latest addition to my desktop is the most flexible recording device I've yet found: The Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone. Long known for their line of high-end condenser microphones, Blue is increasingly known for their computer-ready USB microphones, like the Snowflake and the Snowball, and the Yeti is their latest and certainly greatest computer-ready microphone yet.


Advertised as the first fully THX-compliant (a standard devised by Lucasfilms) microphone, the Yeti is a large (12" tall on its removable stand), hefty, multi-pattern microphone suitable for recording, podcasting, or any other computer-related audio activity. It features four switchable patterns- omni, carodid, figure eight, and stereo- a built in headphone amplifier, gain control, headpohone volume, and a mute button. For even more flexibility you can remove it from its desk stand and mount it on a standard 5/8"microphone stand or boom.

And it sounds great, too- even better than their well-regarded Snowball series. I've been using it for recording music practice, building tracks with Audacity on my Windows and linux boxes, and with Apple's GarageBand, and making calls with Skype. The ability to record in full stereo or mono is a real plus. Up to now I've been using a variety of microphones together with various microphone preamps and an A/D converters- a mass of cables and power supplies that bad enough on the desk, but a real hassle when trying to use with a laptop away from home. The Yeti has it all in one package. It may not sound quite as good as a multi-thousand dollar condenser microphone and vacuum tube preamp, but for the money it simply can't be beat.