Most
of us would love to be able to record clean audio for narration
and voice overs in our editing bay, without having to mess
with trying to set up a home audio studio. While superior
dynamic range can be reached with some of the true studio-designed
mics, the amount of trouble required to get them converted
to a computer connection with Phantom power for your editing
bay becomes overwhelming quickly. Of course, you could always
get one of the new USB adapters that’ll let you convert
non-phantom power mics to USB, which run you about $70.
However, you then have to either plug in a hand-held vocal
mic (which won’t yield very professional results)
or your production shotgun mic (which won’t yield
the deeper sound associated with voice overs.)
The
folks at Blue decided to help us out when the owner’s
daughter complained that she couldn’t record quality
audio on the USB mic that came with her computer. Blue normally
creates very pricey studio microphones, so almost no one
would have expected them to throw their hats into the USB/podcasting
mic market. However, with a personal interest in seeing
a quality mic brought out for USB, Blue created the Blue
Snowball.
Looking
like a cross between a plastic Snowball and a chainmail
modern art sculpture, the Snowball rests on a well
design steel mic stand (which comes with it) or in the Ringer,
an optional shockmount you can buy separately.
With
that said, let’s take a look at the new Snowball
and see how it can make life easier for microfilmmakers.
Ease
of Use
The mic is designed to be so easy to use that there’s
not even any software that comes with it. Plug it in directly
into your computer, in either a USB 1 or USB 2.0 port, and
your Windows XP or Mac OSX machine will instantly recognize
the mic. Unfortunately, most audio/video programs, from
consumer-programs like Premiere Elements 3.0 to pro programs
like Audition 2.0, do not auto detect this mic and will
need you to manually configure it. (It seems that most programs
still look for traditional plug-in mics and get a bit confused
by USB connected ones.) While this is a bit of annoyance,
it’s not very difficult to do, so it doesn’t
detract much from it’s ease of use.
Now,
most folks will test out a mic in the most convenient program
as soon as they plug it in. For windows users, that would
be “Sound Recorder.” Make sure that, if you
use this program, you set it to “CD Quality”,
or you will not be impressed with the sound you get. This
is because, for some bizarre reason, the default setting
on “Sound Recorder” is the ear screeching setting
of “22.050 khz, 8 bit, Mono – Radio Quality”(a
description that is only believable if the radio in question
is from the turn of the 20th century), rather than the “44.1
khz, 16 bit, Stereo – CD Quality”, which will
let you hear how the mic actually sounds.
The
sturdy, stainless steel mic stand with rubber feet that
is included with the mic is very simple to set up and lock
down. Once screwed in, it’s head can pivot or tilt
to allow you to custom position the angle of the mic, which
is very handy. The stand itself raises to height of about
seven inches, pushing the top of the mic to a total height
of about 11 inches. While this might not be tall enough
for some narrators, the tripod legs of the stand are narrow
enough to easily be propped up completely with a standard
size novel or telephone book. For a more controllable solution,
the Snowball can also be used with any standard thread
microphone stand.
