Blue Snowball Review- The last microphone you'll ever need?

[AlTech]

The Blue Snowball is a microphone by, you guessed it, Blue Microphones.

 

And if you thought I was going to spoil something here then just read the whole thing  (for what it's worth, I did consider spoiling the conclusion a bit)

 

And before we go any further, it just so happens that I'm in a punny mood cos my Blue Snowball is actually Blue. I'm not joking .

 

You can thank Amazon for mine not being White since they refused to ship me any model except the pink one, the orange one or the blue one.

 

 

 

In the box you get very little except for the unit itself which you have to attach and put together.

 

I also bought a cheap Pop filter from Dragon Pad cos I was worried it would sound bad without it.

 

It does however take up a bit of desk space and does require some tinkering for you to put it in exactly the right spot. I say this because, otherwise you might have the mic too close to your keyboard OR too far away from you. Both of which can be problems for recording.

 

 

 

I wanted to test out the Blue Yeti and see how it sounded and so I did several things.

 

First of all I decided to play with some friends on Steam and used the Steam Voice Chat with my Snowball.

I played CS:GO , a game where communication is essential, in order to test it out. My friends could easily hear me when playing and had no difficulty hearing what I was saying. So far so good.

 

Next I wanted to install audacity so that I could see what it would be like in a semi-professional working environment.. For this test I recorded some dialog whilst running the air conditioning in the background and someone else was having as skype call a few rooms down the corridor (audible to me but not the snowball).

 

I exported it at the highest quality FLAC settings. Needless to say I am not the most confident person on earth when speaking into a microphone or speaking in general. It still sounded super good nonetheless.

 

Here is the recording -> Blue Snowball Test recording.flac

 

As you can no doubt tell it has good background noise isolation as both the air conditioning and skype call in another room was not audible. it only captured my voice.

 

It comes with 3 presets, I'll be honest, I never experimented with these and only used the 1st.

 

One thing to note is where Blue Microphones cut corners to save cost. Firstly, the snowball records 16 bit Audio, It also uses Polycarbonate plastic which also reduces costs and finally has no mute switch.

 

It also has one less preset than the Yeti as well as the Yeti using 3.5mm headphone jacks and AC power in vs the Snowball's USB Type B to USB A cable port.

 

The Blue Snowball also comes in a variety of colours such as blue, green, white and pink.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

The Blue Snowball is a great microphone. No scratch that, It's amazing. It is great for recording on YouTube, recording narration or sounds effect and is highly affordable. At half the price of the blue Yeti, it is something you seriously should consider if you need a microphone. It is wonderful to use and has no software at all included. This might sound bad but it's great because it just works and works really well. The LED above the Blue Logo helps to tell if it is working or not. the Microphone has a mostly solid build quality.

 

Sure, the Blue Yeti allegedly (from comparisons between the Blue Snowball and Yeti) sounds slightly better. But if you want an amazing Microphone for really cheap then this is the perfect Microphone for you.

 

So is this the last microphone you'll ever need? In most cases yes, this is perfect. If you are want to do Professional audio recording or singing, a professional grade microphone should be considered. Otherwise this is the last Microphone you'll ever need.

 

Thanks for reading and listening to my voice . Like this if you liked it! Leave a comment if you've had experiences with either the Blue snowball or Blue Yeti or if you have any questions about them.

 

I'm AluminiumTech and until next time, stay audible!

 

Link to buy it -> https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Snowball-Microphone-Textured/dp/B000EOPQ7E/ref=sr_1_3?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1465650206&sr=1-3&keywords=blue+snowball

 

Link to buy pop filter -> https://www.amazon.com/Dragonpad-filter-Microphone-Flexible-Gooseneck/dp/B008AOH1O6/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1465650206&sr=1-4&keywords=blue+snowball

[SQZY98]

Sounds good! I remember swashin disliking this microphone, but I don´t know why anymore.

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, SQZY98 said:

Sounds good! I remember swashin disliking this microphone, but I don´t know why anymore.

Thanks ! Ohhhhhhh..... I see what you did there!

[minibois]

6 minutes ago, SQZY98 said:

Sounds good! I remember swashin disliking this microphone, but I don´t know why anymore.

He also hates the Yeti. To me it just kinda seems like "it's popular so that's why I don't like it" mentality.

He, and some other YouTubers, always hate on these two microphones to the point where they act like they are literally Hitler. Of course without saying what the better alternatives are..

[SQZY98]

19 minutes ago, Minibois said:

He also hates the Yeti. To me it just kinda seems like "it's popular so that's why I don't like it" mentality.

He, and some other YouTubers, always hate on these two microphones to the point where they act like they are literally Hitler. Of course without saying what the better alternatives are..

I guess it's best to stay with the "Don't blindly believe what others say" guideline...or at least always use two/more resources. Objectivity is something to retain here, especially for people with huge audiences. *spreads hate and swims away*

[ALwin]

On 6/11/2016 at 3:11 PM, AluminiumTech said:

So is this the last microphone you'll ever need? In most cases yes, this is perfect. If you are want to do Professional audio recording or singing the Blue Yeti or Blue Yeti Pro should be considered. Otherwise this is the last Microphone you'll ever need.

I just saw this review today and when I saw this paragraph it made me laugh.

 

Seriously, if someone wants to do professional recordings, NONE of these mics will be what they want to get.  These mics are designed for amateurs and enthusiasts to use.

 

There are a ton of other mics out there on the market, of various types for a variety of uses.

[AlTech]

3 hours ago, ALwin said:

I just saw this review today and when I saw this paragraph it made me laugh.

 

Seriously, if someone wants to do professional recordings, NONE of these mics will be what they want to get.  These mics are designed for amateurs and enthusiasts to use.

 

There are a ton of other mics out there on the market, of various types for a variety of uses.

Fixed that.

[ShadowCaptain]

On 25/06/2016 at 11:24 PM, ALwin said:

I just saw this review today and when I saw this paragraph it made me laugh.

 

Seriously, if someone wants to do professional recordings, NONE of these mics will be what they want to get.  These mics are designed for amateurs and enthusiasts to use.

 

There are a ton of other mics out there on the market, of various types for a variety of uses.

 

Or even an amateur that wants the best sound quality and isolation

 

The snowball is the BOTTOM of acceptable microphones if we are being realistic

[ALwin]

7 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

 

Or even an amateur that wants the best sound quality and isolation

 

The snowball is the BOTTOM of acceptable microphones if we are being realistic

Indeed, and some of the better ones cost less than a Yeti or Yeti Pro.

 

On June 26, 2016 at 4:18 AM, AluminiumTech said:

Fixed that.

Thank you.

[remi22]

Cool one! If i have free money will have one.