if you’re saying all home studio mics are not going to cut, it then I need to start exploring other options.
Not exactly where I was going with that. I meant don’t believe the promotion and ads. “…and retire to Arizona.”
The Snowball is OK, but it was never intended to be anything other than a fooling-around microphone. The Yeti has hope, but I have to drop for a while. The Yeti has some tricks.
As we go.
Koz
Which Yeti? They’re up to… four different ones? I think. That’s a promotion trick. It’s not whether you should get a Yeti, it’s which one. Hijacking your decision tree.
Did you get it new? The first Yeti came out of the box as a very respectable microphone with a broken instruction book.
Where’s the front of the microphone? They’ll be happy to tell you that at the back of the instruction book in fine print. They changed it when everybody on earth started using their Yeti wrong. It’s a big deal. It’s a directional microphone and it only works right one way.
This is from one of their later efforts. Yes, it’s a side-fire microphone like studio microphones.
Turn off all the Windows Helpers. All the enhancements and effects and the microphone boost. All gone.
See that your face is about a Hawaiian Shaka away from the side grill on same side as the company name.
Reach around back and select the heart (kidney) pattern. Three, I think, and turn the volume control almost all the way up. Go all the way up and then back down a snivvy.
Now run Audacity. Audacity may not allow you to change the recording volume. That’s normal with a digital microphone. It’s supposed to run all the way up.
See what the blue waves do when you announce something.
If you get blue waves, announce a test and post it. If it’s still clearly broken, post back what happened.
https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html
Koz
The Yeti has one serious problem. It doesn’t have an Off/Green/Red light.
Many microphones have a light somewhere that remains dark when you’re not even close to being loud enough, Green when your volume is just about right, and Red when you’re getting too loud—too close to overload. In the case of the Scarlett interfaces, the knob actually changes color.
The Yeti does have a light on the MUTE button, but it only has two jobs. It’s on at all when the microphone is connected, and it flashes when the microphones is silenced (muted). That’s it.
That’s why you have to meet in a dark alley with people you don’t know to get the secret oral teachings of what to do. Was that too harsh? Even the newer Yeti Nano doesn’t do any better. It’s fancier, but no better.
That means in real life, you have to be able to see your recording computer to get the volume indicator. That also means your computer can’t make any noise. At all. I have a silly line that if you can tell your computer is on just by listening, it’s going to be a long day.
[/rant]
Koz