Blue Microphones Snowball USB Microphone Bundle

Customer Reviews

Excellent value

2008-05-23
Excellent value. I use it with Garage Band and it interacts flawlessly. No noticeable lag time, crisp clean sound, omni-directional flexibility.

No luck on Windows XP

2008-04-11
Bought this mic on the positive reviews here - could not make it work on my Windows XP system. Manual stated that latest firmware was already installed, and no drivers required. I went to the website, and found many issues in the forum on use with Audacity, and in general not working.

Brought my Samson USB from home to try - no problems at all.

Be sure you verify that it will work on your system from someone already running - wished I had looked into the company forum prior to purchase.

Seems like the Mac people have had better luck than the Windows users.

Also, included stand does not work good. You can raise the mic, but it does not stay - just slides back down.

Impossible to set up

2008-02-09
I heard many good things about the Snowball microphone and so i decided to purchase one. Big mistake. This microphone won't even playout through your speakers, the only way to use it is through a program like garage band, gross. I just want to record vocals into Magix Music Maker, sure it records them in, but you can't listen to what you're recording. Sorry Blue, better luck next time.

Great Product! Recommend it!

2008-02-08
This Product is great. bought it couple of days ago and when I got it, the first impressions with this Snowball Microphone were amazing.
I do not sing or record that loud instruments, so if you are someone like me, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU TO GET THEIR FIRMWARE ONLINE (EVEN ME, THAT USE MACBOOK PRO COULD INSTALL THE FIRMWARE CAUSE IT'S COMPATIBLE WITH MAC'S AND PC'S)!
So it's overall a great product, when I recorded my bass and guitar thru this days, It captures the low sounds really well, and when you really push into the chords pretty loud, it doens't go out of balance or anything. It's such a great product. The manual is a little weird and their website is really weird to find the updates for the firmware of the snowball! Took me a while, but o well, it worked and that's what matters to me.
I have been using it for a long time, and will use it for a longggg time!
My rate is 9.5/10 or 4 stars!

PROS:
Great quality, great product, almost PERFECT! Highly Recommended!

CONS:
It has a weird screw to choose the height of the snowball that I really don't understand why they did that, and the last one is that they should send a cd with the choices of firmwares, so you don't have to go to their website and search for it for hours till find it like i hafd to do!

This is a great microphone!

2008-01-28
This is a great microphone! I am playing acoustic guitar and singing songs into an iMac. Simple, fast and easy to use.

Not very impressive

2008-07-22
This microphone sounds fine if you place it right next to your mouth, but people standing more than two feet away sound distant and muffled. I've turned up the gain in my imac settings and my garageband settings and have been unable to get a recording that sounds any better than a cheapo microphone.

I've come across quite a few online reviews that report a similar problem.

Pretty disappointing.

No better than the $20 mic at Radio Shack

2008-07-10
I fumbled with this mic for over a week trying to get it to perform the way the specs say that it should, but I could never get the input volume to perform properly. I'm very technical, so I reviewed the settings and upgraded the firmware the way it was recommended. Still, I could not get the mic to work properly without my mouth touching it as I speak. This is a common complaint, according to other reviews.

This mic was definitely NOT worth the money. For this level of performance, save your money and go to Radio Shack.

Terrible product, even worse support

2008-07-10
While I fully believe that I received a lemon, Blue's support staff claimed that my four Macs running Leopard were to blame for the Snowball not being recognized and/or only sending an over-modulated static signal. All of my Macs have successfully used other USB mics without additional drivers, so I do not believe Blue's assertion that these problems are Leopard's fault. Apple sells this product in its own stores. It wouldn't if it were truly incompatible with its OS. Blue's support offered no help except to suggest that return the product for a refund.

I would have been happy to receive a replacement, however, the unhelpful and seemingly uninterested help from Blue has made me decide to never buy another Blue product.

Podcasting bliss

2008-06-25
This has been a joy to use. It worked straight out of the box with no configuring required. Combined with the free tools Audacity (for sound recording) and Levelator (for setting levels), it is perfect for podcasting. I'm using it with Windows XP; can't vouch for other operating systems.

Do Not Get This Microphone If You Have Vista

2008-06-20
I normally am skeptical of the really harsh reviews left on any website so I'll be honest up front and say I was caused a ton of hardship by getting a computer with Vista and trying to make this microphone work with it. While in Windows XP you get good quality sound and it works as advertised, it is completely useless with Windows Vista.

I would like to give it a five star review for it's performance but I cannot give the highest rating knowing that people may purchase this product and find that they've spent $100 for something that does not work with their machine. If you have Vista, do not buy this microphone. Blue does not provide an update for Vista for this product.

If you have Windows XP, it's excellent and well worth the investment.