Blue Spark Digital Microphone

Reviews for Blue Spark Digital Microphone

Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.0 out of 5 stars

Based on 9 reviews

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    iPad and OSX

    • Written by from Calgary

    I've had this mic for a couple months now and have had great results in GarageBand with both my iPad (3rd gen) and my 2008 MacBook Pro (unlike some other reviewers who complained about OSX.). If you're looking to expand into an entire mobile studio, Apogee probably offers a better overall system of advanced interfaces for recording multiple instruments, but if, like me, you're just recording acoustic/vocal tracks one at a time, this mic is great. I especially like the zero latency monitoring jack connected to the mic, which isn't offered on the Apogee Mic without extra hardware. Overall: works as advertised, was easy to use, great sound. Very happy with my purchase.

    1 of 2 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Really disapointed in Blues qualitycontrol

    • Written by from Healdsburg

    Bought it , brought it home and ran some a couple acoustics from my collection through it. Iphone with garageband
    Yes its extra boomy on dreads... and So fat and beautifully detailed on my 000 rosewood model.
    Listened back through dynaudio bm5s and was very impressed,
    Way better than apogee mic or tascam offering
    Ten minutes later it stopped powering up. Glitchy =non professional
    Come on Blue? it sounded good for a minute

    4 of 7 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    stopped working first day

    • Written by from Oakland

    I had the same problem as the other reviewer - except instead of 10 minutes I got about three hours of use. Then it started crackling terribly then quit working altogether.
    I guess I have to go back to the store and exchange it... Sigh

    4 of 6 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Best iPad microphone

    • Written by from San Francisco

    I have tried both the Apogee MiC and the Spark Digital microphones. Both are excellent products. If minimal size is important for you then the MiC is probably your best choice. If best sound quality is important (which it is for me) then the Spark wins easily.

    I did not have any problems in terms of sound levels or reliability with the device on either iPad or Mac Book Pro Retina with latest version of OSX Mountain Lion.

    I have two slight negatives to flag though:

    1) The Spark does not remember the gain level after being powered off. i.e. You need to set the gain each time you connect it up to your iPad or Mac. Fortunately it has an LED gain level display that makes it easy to set the gain to the same level as before (assuming you remember what that looked like on the LED display).

    2) For some acoustic guitar recording I found the bass to be slightly boomy. For most guitars this might not be a problem but with my Martin D15 which has a very rich bass it didn't sound quite right. It is significantly less boomy than the MiC though. There is also a "focus control" switch which eliminates the boominess. But neither setting captured the Martin D15 as well as a Yeti Pro microphone did. But of course Yeti Pro does not plug into iPad (only Mac or PC or XLR).

    Overall though, the Spark remains the best microphone I have tried for iPad.

    11 of 15 people found this useful

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  • 3.0 out of 5 stars

    Great until it stopped working

    • Written by from Morristown

    So the mic worked perfectly for about 10 minutes. Sounded great and felt great. Then I got an insane screeching through my headphones and it stopped working. Apple took my return great and no issues there.

    I will be buying it again and giving it one more shot though.

    To address the 2 reviews saying the volume is so low, they are probably not adjusting the gain correctly. The light in the front changes color. Blue = Headphone volume. Orange = Mic gain vol. They were likely adjusting only the headphone volume. To get to the orange/gain vol, you have to hold the button in for 2-3 seconds and then it will change to orange.

    I would give it a 0 rating, or an Unfinished rating for now until I got the new unit if I could.

    2 of 5 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great microphone

    • Written by from ETOBICOKE

    I'm doing some narration work and this is my first 'high' quality mic. I was hesitant about spending the $200 but I'm very happy I did; it's a great with a lovely sound. I highly recommend this microphone.

    11 of 15 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Not for Macs!

    • Written by from Cupertino

    The input volume is so low on a Mac that you need to yell into it from 3 inches. The input slider in sound preferences does not work, nor does Audio Midi allow the volume to be changed. It would not work on 10.6.8 or 10.8.2, on an iMac, Mac Mini, and Macbook Pro. Vendor says it's a driver issue. So although it may work for the iPad forget about OSX. I am returning it to Apple since it's useless. Too bad the vendor did not test functionality first.

    4 of 11 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Bad mic. Won't power on

    • Written by from Chicago

    Used this mic once and now will not power on when connected to my iPad or iPhone.

    4 of 9 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Recording!

    • Written by from New Whiteland

    I know Blue is known for their vintage designs, but still have to say I was blown away by how gorgeous this mic is. Setup was flawless, plugged it into my iPad (3 gen), booted up GarageBand and immediately got a great vocal sound (best I’ve ever gotten!). The front gain control made it easy to adjust the sensitivity. My friend has the original Spark for studio/XLR and this claims to be the same thing, and I’d believe it. I recorded acoustic guitar and vocals, sounds amazing! Big reason I bought this over other iPad mics was the headphone output – can’t really use headphones on a multi-track session on Garage Band without it. And it came with a cool carrying bag! Immediately satisfied with my purchase.

    67 of 69 people found this useful

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