Reviews for Blue Microphones Snowball Microphone

Purchased after some humming and haaaing after reading the reviews here on apple. But asked questions and looked at some other mics. I decided to come back to this mic and figured I could return it if I faced problems. I have found this to be a fantastic mic. It eliminated the fan noise problems I was having with my other cheapo mic. I use it for voice in podcasting. Easier to use than easy. I use SnapX Pro, Quicktime Pro and works great. In short I could not have asked for more ...

I am a saxophone player, and I was searching for something that I could record with and listen back to my sound in order to critique myself. When I got it, it was definitely unique looking; when I plugged it in, the setup took less than 30 seconds, and the sound quality was simply amazing. My sister came into the room after I had recorded, and I played back the recording across a PA system, and she turned around thinking that I was playing. That's how great the quality is. I use the snowball to record with quicktime as well as garage band, both of which are very easy to use with this mic. The second position (-10db) is great for wind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone. Great buy!

This mic is something that I use for recording my voice for music, and for recording my acoustic guitar. So far, this has been an excellent microphone! I'm no pro by any means, but I just wanted to start out with something that I could use easily and for a decent price. I'd totally recommend this mic.
Just to emphasize how easy to use this thing is, I was creating a song on my mpb the other night at a place other than my home. I had one of my friends listen to the song, and she loved it, and she asked if she could help or be in it. So I pulled the mic out of backpack and recorded her singing for the song right then and there, in my car. All you have to do is just plug it in. It worked and sounded wonderful!

I'm using it as a high quality recorder for lectures, podcasts, and presentations. The sound quality is good (much better than passive mics). It's easy to use, and it does look pretty cool.

The drawback is that it's bulky (I could theoretically use a handheld digital recorder). But it does give very nice sound for podcasts.

I have a number of mics, including ones that cost several times what the Snowball costs. I also usually record in a sound treated room.
With the Snowball, I get very high quality sound right at my desk. I don't dampen the reflections behind the mic or do anything to the room, I just plug and play.

This mic sounds nothing short of amazing. If you can't get this mic to sound good, you shouldn't be using a mic at all! I havent' tested it with guitars or (singing) vocals yet, but for podcasting, this is all you need.

Oh and it works perfectly with the Camera Connection Kit and iPad as well.

So, I'm feeling a bit foolish for all the money I spent over the years on expensive microphones and preamps...The Blue Snowball is really that great :) I'm sure there are subtle differences in sonic quality between the Blue Snowball and my other microphones and preamps (AKG 414 CTLII with D.W. Fearn VT-1 for vocals and stereo pair of Neumann KM184's with True Systems P2 Analog for acoustic guitar), however I must admit that to my untrained ears the Blue Snowball sounds pretty good for $100 (and much less fuss to setup and work with). I have to admit that I'm not a professional recording engineer (just a home studio singer/guitar player/song writer), but I think that most people in the home studio category would enjoy the simplicity and economy of the Blue Snowball.

I bought this mic to record my band's rehearsals. I needed a mic that was easy to use. I also wanted one that sounds better than the $20 USB mics you normally find.

My mac recognized the Snowball immediately - easy to use. I tried to record with setting number one, but had less than excellent results. When all else fails, read the manual.

I switched to setting number two and wow! My band has never sounded better! I called Blue tech support about the problem I had with setting number one. The guy was very cool and confirmed that this setting is very sensitive - for low volume recording only.

All in all, the mic works great! This mic probably doesn't sound like the $5000 mics that Blue makes, but it works perfectly for me. The cool looking stand is a nice plus.

I bought this with the intent of doing VO work, I had been using an analog XLR condenser mic hooked up to a transformer to a digital recorder/converter and did not like the bulk of the setup or the light hiss I would get if the setup was not totally isolated from the table by a rubber mat. So a year ago I read the reviews on here that were glowing about the mic and thought it would be the perfect setup for what i wanted. As soon I got it I new something was wrong. It had such a low gain it was barely useable 2 inches from my face. If you used a pop filter it would put you out of useable range. My Macbook has a more powerful mic than this. I looked around and found that there was a firmware update and I used it. Walla, Gain fixed, however then it had a bad mid-high distortion w/overloaded lows. No way near good enough to use for paid work. So I have given it to my dad as a mic to use on skype. Long story short Its 10% better than a logicrap Mic at 300% the cost. If you want a good usb mic go get a AudioTec or a real blue mic and find a good XLR converter.

I purchased this microphone in order to have a simple plug-in-and-play device for recording vocals in GarageBand. The mic works as advertised, but I found myself a bit disappointed in the sound quality. I know for $150 you cannot expect a great microphone, but this mic is from B.L.U.E., which is a world-renowned microphone and pro audio company that got its start restoring vintage Neumanns and Telefunkens. Also a bit irritating is the need to go into system preferences and change the sound input source back and forth from line-in to USB Snowball. But overall, this mic delivers on the promise of being a simple and easy to use mic for non-critical applications.

This mic is a great tool for the musician or podcaster looking to do good wuality home studio recording. The sound quality is great and has very little noise. When i first set it up the recording sounded aweful but i realized that it is best to plug it in after you have opened your Garage Band project. For some reason plugging it in before makes for a noisy track and low volume recordings.