Product Description

Includes: tripod stand. Blue Microphones Snowball - Round and white, the Snowball lives up to it's name, and features a retro style that harkens back to the early days of audio. But on the inside, the Snowball represents only the most modern in microphone technology. Bringing you professional quality audio recording on the PC or Macintosh via USB. It's perfect for everything from soft vocals to a loud garage band. It's also ideal for professional sounding podcasts. PC Requirements - XP Home or Professional Edition, USB 1.0 or 2.0 port, and a minimum of 64MB of RAM Mac Requirements - Mac OSX, USB 1.0 or 2.0 port, and a minimum of 64MB of RAM

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32 in Musical Instruments
• Brand: Blue Microphones
• Model: BLU SNOWBALL
• Released on: 2008-04-22
• Dimensions: 5.00" h x 8.60" w x 8.60" l, 2.50 pounds

Features

• Plug and play design no software required!
• Professional studio quality performance record both vocals and instruments
• Mac and PC compatible
• Blues renowned circuit and unique two-capsule design
• Switchable mic patterns for a variety of recording applications

From the Manufacturer
Finally, a USB mic that’s not only easy to use, but sounds as good on your desktop as it does in a professional recording studio. Meet the Snowball,™ theworld’s first professional USB mic.

Whether you’re recording a guitar at your kitchen table or a complete band in the studio, the Snowball can capture it with detail unheard of before in a USB mic.

The Snowball is a direct plug n’ play mic that connects to either a Mac or PC – no additional software is needed. With its dual capsule design and unique three-pattern switch (cardioid, cardioid with -10dB pad and omni), the Snowball can handle everything from soft vocals to the loudest garage band — and it’s ideal for podcasting. Check it out and you’ll see why it’s the coolest mic in town.

The world’s first professional studio-quality USB mic, from Blue.

Features & Functionality

1. What exactly is this Snowball all about?
   The Snowball is a revolutionary microphone. Leave it to Blue to reinvent the wheel… err, microphone once again! With USB connectivity, it has never been easier to get live audio into your Macintosh or Windows desktop or laptop. Just plug it in, adjust your input level and you’re up and running.
2. Is The Snowball a dynamic microphone like the Blue Ball, or a condenser like the Blue 8Ball or Kiwi?
   The Snowball is a condenser, which, according to the audio wonks we know, has a smooth open sound with a nice, natural high-end.
3. I’ve heard that condenser microphones require something called phantom power. Do I need to concern myself with this? Does The Snowball need batteries?
   No. The Snowball derives its operating voltage from something called bus voltage, which is always present on your USB port. As long as the red LED is glowing, you know you’ve got power. The Snowball does not require batteries.
4. Do I need any special software to use The Snowball? Do I need any drivers?
   Technically, no. Depending on your application, your OS may have sufficient features to utilize the capabilities of The Snowball. But, to get the most out of your Snowball, you’ll want to have some kind of software that allows for digital signal processing and non-linear editing that will accept audio from the USB port. Some examples of these programs are listed below. As long as you are using Windows XP or Apple OSX, you will not need any drivers.
5. Can I use The Snowball with a traditional analog audio mixer?
   No. The Snowball features digital output only. It must be connected to a USB port in order to function.
6. What sample rate and word length does The Snowball use?
   The Snowball’s digital output is set to 44.1 kHz / 16-bit, just like an audio CD. But this is something that only audio geeks really need to worry about.
7. How can I select a different sample rate?
   Because The Snowball is designed for the greatest ease of operation and setup, sample rate / word length are not user-definable. Sorry, geeks.
8. Can I use more than one snowball at a time?
   Some audio editing software allows for multiple USB connections. Check with your software vendor – they should have technical support staff who can answer all of your questions about their product.
9. What does cardioid and omnidirectional mean? Why should I care?
   These are the two polar patterns The Snowball is capable of producing. If you think of polar patterns as the shape of the area that a microphone "hears," omnidirectional hears everything at equal volume from all angles (in a 360o sphere surrounding the mic), while cardioid only hears what’s right in front of it at full volume and other sounds at increasingly diminished volume as the sound source moves further away from the center of the mic (audio techs call this off-axis). You should care because one of the most useful features of a microphone is the ability to control its pickup. We like polar patterns so much, that some of our professional studio microphones have as many as nine different patterns! With The Snowball, we’ve given you the two most likely to be useful to you.
10. What is The Snowball used for? Is it a vocal mic, an instrument mic or both?
    The Snowball was designed to provide a wide range of applications where a high-quality transducer (a fancy way to say microphone) is needed, but so is ease of use and setup. Though most professional engineers prefer certain microphones for certain applications, we designed The Snowball for use with a wide variety of sources. Here are some suggested applications we came up with when we were locked in Blue’s patented anechoic think tank: instrument and voice for music production / pre-production / demos, DV-looping / dialog, podcasting, sound effects, audio sampling, interactive programming, video sweetening / post, internet telephony, internet conferencing, recording lectures, poetry slams, spoken word performances and speeches by your favorite politician – generally anywhere where you need an easy-to-use microphone and you have access to a computer with a USB port. Happy recording!
11. Do I need to keep The Snowball in the freezer when I’m not using it?
    No. This is one snowball that won’t melt!

Please note: as there are so many different software packages that are compatible with The Snowball, we are compiling a list of software we’ve tested and assured compatibility. We will publish that list shortly along with detailed instructions explaining how to use The Snowball with each package because, as you can imagine, they are all different! In the mean time, we suggest consulting your software’s manual, user forums and technical help lines. Here are a few to get you started:

Software Setups
How to get audio from my Snowball with…

• Garage Band
  1. Go to Preferences->Audio and select the Blue mic as the input device (it will only show up when The Snowball is plugged in).
  2. Create a vocal track and select the Blue mic as the input device for that track.
  3. You may need to adjust the Snowball’s input level in the control panel if you experience any distortion (crackling).
• Logic 7
  1. Open the Audio and MIDI setup program in your Apps->Utilities folder.
  2. Create an Aggregate Audio Source (Audio menu - open Aggregate device editor).
  3. Add the devices you want to use to the aggregate device (Built in audio and Blue mic).
  4. Change the audio device in Logic's audio preferences from Default to Aggregate.
• Sonar
  1. Select "USB Audio Device" ( 1, in, 0 out) from an audio track.
  2. From within that subcategory, there are 3 selections: Left USB Audio Device, Right USB Audio Device, and Stereo USB Audio Device.
  3. Select Left or Right for mono audio tracks.
  4. Press "R" to arm the track for recording.
  5. Roll disk.
• Adobe Premier Elements 4 (Windows Vista/XP)
  1. First, make certain that your Snowball has the latest firmware update. With this latest update installed, you'll be good to go. If you should experience any problems getting the program to recognize the mic, Adobe recommends the following:

     If the device does not allow you to record, then your microphone is not being detected as a valid input device in Premiere Elements. You can use an open source program called ASIO4ALL, which is a device driver that essentially wraps existing WDM devices, like USB microphones, as ASIO-compatible sound devices. Use the following steps to utilize this tool:

  2. Quit Premiere Elements.
  3. Visit the following web page and download the latest available version of ASIO4ALL: http://www.asio4all.com/
  4. Install the software, and restart the system if asked to do so by the installer.
  5. Make certain that your microphone is plugged in.
  6. Launch Premiere Elements.
  7. Go to the 'Edit->Preferences..>Audio Hardware' menu option.
  8. For the Default Device, choose the ASIO4ALL option.
  9. Click the ASIO Settings button, then select your microphone from the list of devices, click Exit, and then click OK on the Preferences dialog. Close and then restart Premiere Elements.

Hardware Platforms

• Windows Setup Procedure
  1. Under START MENU open SOUNDS AND AUDIO DEVICES control panel.
  2. Select AUDIO tab; insure BLUE BALL USB MIC is selected as DEFAULT DEVICE.
  3. Click on VOLUME; select appropriate volume level.
  4. Exit control panel.
• Macintosh Setup Procedure
  1. 1. Open Apple menu -> SYSTEM PREFERENCES.
  2. Double-click SOUND preference file.
  3. Click INPUT tab.
  4. Double-click BLUE USB BALL MIC under CHOOSE A DEVICE FOR SOUND INPUT dialog box.
  5. Set input volume to the appropriate level.
  6. Exit SYSTEM PREFERENCES.

Customer Reviews

Great Product. Strangely it works on my Vista Laptop!
When I first received this mic,I had a laptop with XP. Very crisp and clear professional sound quality. I couldn't beleive my ears when I first heard such amazing quality. Unfortunately,my laptop had failed out on me in the beginning of this year s I was forced to buy another one (but this one I have has Vista). I heard alot of reviews on this site that this mic isn't compatible with Vista,but strangely when I plugged in this microphone into my comp it managed to work just as good as with my first computer. I heard from a friend that if you lower your screen resolution to 32 bits it'll work for Vista. I rate this product 2 solid thumbs up!:D

Excellent product, if you're not on Vista
I purchased my Blue Snowball through a third party seller on amazon about a month ago, and I can honestly say that this is a great product. All three of its built in modes work great, especially the -10 db Cardioid, which is excellent for recording in noisier areas. I use it for amateur voice acting and narration on a variety of projects, and it has produced excellent quality recordings the entire time. Though, if anyone intends to use this for vocal recording, I suggest that they also acquire a popscreen, which can be found here on amazon, or can be built by hand with instructions here: http://jakeludington.com/project_studio/20050321_build_your_own_microphone_pop_screen.html

However, I would only recommend this to users whose computers use Windows XP or lower, since Vista compatibility with this product is unpredictable. Blue tech support has been less than diligent with the customers who wanted a fix for Vista, citing issues with USB compliant devices that Vista has had since it's release. There are gain updates that can make it work scattered across the internet, but I was never able to get them to work properly with my copy of Vista Home Premium. This would have been a deal breaker for me, except that after a year of struggling with it, I was fed up with Vista anyway, and downgraded. After that, the mic worked perfectly. Blue insists that its newer models support Vista, but I haven't encountered any corroborating evidence.

So, in summary, this is an excellent mic for anyone wanting to get into the Podcasting or VA fields, but be warned, it doesn't play nice with Vista.

Works Great on the Mac with Wiretap
I can't speak to the Windows experience, but I can assure you this little USB microphone gets the job done on the Mac. There's no white noise hiss and the recordings is plenty loud and warm. I use Wiretap for most of my recordings, but I don't need to do any post-production work to remove hiss or pop. Buy it.