Blue Microphones Y
eti Pro
BLUE MICROPHONES Yeti Pro
This versatile desktop USB microphone packs in a wealth of innovative features whilst keeping the price within reach of the home recording musician…
Words: Tim Slater SHOULD I BUY ONE?
Our test subject feel so utterly in love with the Yeti Pro that he insisted on buying it! The Yeti Pro is indeed a monster but in the nicest sense. It offers incredible versatility thanks to the dual analogue/ USB options and multiple polar patterns whilst delivering fantastic and very satisfying results. The Yeti Pro is ‘snow joke.
THE GOOD BITS: SRP: £209.00
Blue Microphones have developed a range of products that specifically cater for the musician who records directly into their computer and besides coming up with a range of microphones that look undeniably cool (check the Snowball USB mic for proof) Blue mIcs also feel very self contained. The Yeti Pro desktop mic maintains this satisfying ‘plug in and go’ approach whilst also claiming to be the world’s first USB microphone that features high quality 24-bit/192 kHz digital resolution via a choice of a fully analogue XLR output and a conventional USB port. This belt and braces approach is also reflected in the mic’s four individually selectable polar pattern options and a triple capsule array that offers four separate pattern modes for recording solo or multiple vocal and instruments within virtually 360 degrees of audio capture.
Desk job The Yeti Pro has a handsome
retro-modern design that bears a passing resemblance to an old broadcast microphone from the 1930s. The Yeti Pro’s swivel-mounted cradle angles the mic for optimum audio-capture and despite its relatively imposing appearance the Yeti doesn’t take up too much desktop real estate. The controls are easy to access and comprise of a Master volume control with an adjacent Mute button on one side of the chassis, with a rotary Mic gain control and the Polar Pattern selector knob on the opposite side. The patterns offer a choice between stereo, cardioid, omnidirectional and bidirectional modes – with a helpful accompanying manual that explains the purpose of each patterns – and the set up is very simple; either plug directly into your computer via the mic’s USB output or else use the analogue XLR jack to connect to your computer via an external interface. The mic is dually compatible with PC (Windows 7, Windows Vista, XP
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www.playmusicpickup.co.uk Contact: Blue Microphones -
www.bluemic.com
Home Edition or XP Professional USB 2.0 required; minimum 256 MB RAM) or Mac (OSX 10.6.4 or higher, USB 2.0 required; minimum 256 MB RAM).
In use The Yeti Pro’s headphone socket allows for latency-free monitoring during recording and the audio quality through the ‘phones is very impressive, both close-up and used at a distance of roughly two meters from the recording source. The gain control offers more than sufficient protection from clipping caused by overloading the input and listening back to the recording afterwards via monitors, the high quality of the recorded sound is extremely good. The recorded sound on a solo vocal using the Yeti’s Cardioid setting sounded very natural and whilst the
vocalist we used as the guinea pig for this test has a demonstrably powerful voice the mic easily coped without complaint. Recording an acoustic guitar using the Cardioid mode also produced very pleasing results; the guitar’s natural tone was reproduced accurately and cleanly, with no hiss or other extraneous background noise or interference. One minor point regarding the four recording modes is that the pattern setting symbols are rather small, the Cardioid and Omnidirectional modes are particularly difficult to tell apart but fortunately the Yeti Pro is so sensitive that it’s easy to tell the modes apart when you test the settings. There is definitely a lot more to the yeti Pro and we will be testing it further over the next few months and reporting our results. PM
THE NOT SO GOOD BITS: Pattern-setting symbols a bit hard to read.
Great sound quality, very versatile.
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