Blue Microphones: Perfect for podcasting – Review

As someone who has recorded and produced almost 700 podcasts I’ve seen a lot of microphones which suggest they are fit for this purpose, and while they all work and do a good job, what podcasters need is a great job.

The two microphones I’ve been testing from Blue fall into the great job category – assuming you get the one fit for your purpose.

First up, the Rasperry – this little fella plugs into your smartphone and allows you to get a real on-the-go recording setup going without much fuss.

There is no specific app that Blue have developed, unlike Rode or Shure who have an app to complement their product.  But, that said, you can turn to almost any recording app – frankly Motiv by Shure and Rode Rec by Rode are excellent.

The Rasperry was good for individual audio recording, keep the microphone close and front on. However in a duo or group recording almost everyone is going to sound off-mic.

This device is perfect for someone looking to record an audio track for a video, or a spoken word one person podcast. Amazing sound quality for such a small microphone.  Will set you back just shy of $300 in Australia.

Rasperry’s big brother the Yeti though, that’s a different story.  This is high quality stuff – sure, it’s no Sennheiser or Shure one person microphone that you’ll find in a fully equipped studio, but with a wide variety of settings there is some real flexibility here.

In single person recording mode you could use cardioid or onmi-directional.  While in a two person setup you could use stereo or bi-directional – depending on how you want the audio to fall into the track.

You could certainly record a group of people around the Yeti, but in reality any more than two is going to sound distant and really should be configured with a microphone for each guest.

The Yeti plugs into your PC or Mac via USB and you can use Adobe Audition or Audacity – software for audio recording – to record in real time.

In both cases, you just then need a few tweaks and top and tail your audio and you’ve got yourself a podcast!

The Yeti is $240 at EB Games

Web: Blue Microphones / Yeti: EB Games