Blue Microphones Snowball USB Microphone Bundle

This is an amazing microphone. I am using it with Audacity recording software and the quality is really impressive. I was able to get good sound quality for my acoustic guitar with very little effort. I also have recorded vocals and it comes out sounding natural, not thin or pinched as some mics will. As advertised, you just plug it in and go, no additional software to install. You will need some type of recording software to use it properly. I have tried it with several software packages including Audacity, Goldwave, Sound Forge and Acid. Works well in every case, although Audacity is my favorite. I highly recommend this mic, it is a great value.

This mic is a major disappointment. It is a great idea and *when it works* it honestly sounds very good (at least within this price bracket and as a USB mic). Unfortunately, that's where the praise stops. I've had this for almost two years, used it off and on and it's had constant problems. First was the extremely low gain (fixed eventually with a firmware update) and from then on it's gotten more and more flakey about working at all (on both XP and OS X - Tiger and Leopard). Now I can't even get it to recognize when I plug it in most of the time. But hey - at least it lights up. I've done a LOT of searching online to try find suggestions to try get this thing working, but honestly all I'm finding is a ton of great PR "reviews" where everybody talks about what a neat product concept it is. Unfortunately, this mic does not deliver the goods and to make things worse, Blue's customer "support" on their forums is the worst I've ever seen. (Seriously, you owe it to yourself to check t... Read more

I was surprised how big it was I expected something a tad smaller. I got this for a Mac Pro using OSX Leopard 10.5.5. Only tested with voice so far no musical instruments. The sounds is pretty good though I found one has to be fairly close to the mike in order to get clean background noise-free sound and a good volume, i.e. level of recording. The sound quality of the recordings is very good with a very nice range. Setup was a snap. Plug-it in and go to the Sound Control Panel in System Preferences under the Mac OSX and select the sound input to USB Microphone - that's it. I recorded with it in Soundtrack Pro and worked really nicely.

I am not a tech savvy person. This year I joined a professional group that meets in Web format - in an Interet room with capability for both audio and web cam (video). At first, I was simply typing in my responses, and not making use of audio or video. I was encouraged to get a mic, but was really in deep doo doo when I went to research them. Then I remembered a Podcast done by someone in my field, who had just purchased this mic. They were raving about the quality and ease of use. On this basis, I made my purchase. I recently used it for the first time, and it passed with flying colors. I highly recommend the Snowball for both its quality and ease of use. I am actually having fun with it! I should probably also mention that I am using it with a Toshiba Satellite laptop.

I recently moved into a new home where I don't have room to setup a full home studio. I was jonesing for a way to quickly record some songs without setting up mixers and amps and the like. So I bought a Snowball and plugged it into my MacBook Pro. Within seconds I was recording in Cubase and Garageband. This mic gets an A+ for ease of setup! I am delighted with the audio quality considering this is $100 mic. My Taylor guitar sounds crisp and clean and my vocals are mostly free of unwanted color. The mic does not compare to something like a Rode NTK tube mic in warmth, nor does it provide the crystal clear sound of a Blue Bluebird, but for a fraction of the price the sound is nice. This mic will not replace more expensive mics in the studio, but it will let you setup a quick studio wherever your laptop is. It's great for the singer/songwriter type performance with a guitar and a vocalist. As long as you have realistic expectations for $100 mic, I think you will be thrilled with th... Read more