Don’t Buy The Blue Yeti For Podcasting - You’ll Thank Us Later
You’re brand new to podcasting, welcome to an exciting world of creativity, possibility, and wonder! Okay, that’s a bit much, but we know you’re excited to get started. You’ve finally decided to pull the trigger on your show, and you’re ready to buy a microphone.
You open Amazon - type in “Podcast Microphone” - the search results return multiple options, but the one you’ve probably seen others use, and the one that shows up at the top because it’s paid advertising is THE BLUE YETI (in a deep voice with reverb). You see the price at around $120 and think to yourself, that looks cool, and it’s affordable. “I’ll take that one.”
Wait for just a second! Let us steer you in a different direction if we may.
What’s the big deal? We’ll tell you the big deal.
1) The form factor of the Blue Yeti is not ideal for podcasting
Notice I said “not ideal”, I didn’t say it won’t work. But here’s the catch: the Blue Yeti comes with a desktop stand, so if you don’t know any better, you’ll set it on your desk - far far away from your mouth where your vocals come from - and this will be an issue. Have you ever heard a podcast where it sounds like the person is sitting far away from the mic? It’s because they are. And the Blue Yeti does this to you right out of the box, with that stand they include that looks cool and easy to use.
The closer you are to the capsule of the microphone, the clearer and fuller your vocals will sound. Ideally, you want to be between 2” and 5” away from the capsule of the microphone. Some people “eat the mic” and sit very close to the capsule. But a good rule of thumb is “the closer, the better.”
Now some people will boom the Blue Yeti closer to their mouth, and this will work better than the tabletop stand it includes right out of the box, but many people don’t know that this is an option and will set the mic on their desk and record away, not knowing why their audio doesn’t sound like the other guy’s.
2) The Blue Yeti Has Multiple Pattern Settings That Not Everyone Understands
I’ve had the conversation before. Someone will call me and ask me to help them fix their podcast audio, because it’s not sounding great. They have the Blue Yeti, it’s working, but it doesn’t sound great. Nine out of ten times, they have the microphone on the wrong setting, AND they’ve placed the microphone on their desk, far away from their mouth.
Microphone capsules have a “pattern”, or an area where vocals are most sensitive on the head of the microphone. The Blue Yeti has four settings: cardioid, omnidirectional, bidirectional, and stereo. You have heard of one or two of these, but do you know what they do? Inevitably, someone will set the microphone to omnidirectional, or stereo because it’s one of the first two settings.
The setting it SHOULD be one if one were to go against our suggestion and use a Blue Yeti, is cardioid. The Blue Yeti is mainly a condenser microphone, which typically has a higher sensitivity anyway. If you accidentally set it to omnidirectional, the mic will pick up sound equally in all directions - not just your voice coming from one side, but every other sound coming from every direction. Again, it is not that this mic won’t work for podcasting, it’s that as a beginner mic, it’s easy to misuse and cause yourself trouble with your podcast recordings, not understanding what is the issue.
And on a personal note, the Blue Yeti just doesn’t sound all that great.
3) For the same amount of money, you can purchase a great mic option!
ATR 2100x XLR/USB Podcast Microphone
Actually, for less than $125 you can purchase a great mic option. For a beginner microphone that is plug-and-play through USB (like the Blue Yeti) we recommend the Audio Technica 2100x XLR/USB combo microphone. This is a dynamic microphone with a cardioid pattern that means the mic capsule picks up only the sound that is coming directly into the head of the microphone.
Now the same thing applies here, the ATR2100x comes with a tabletop stand and is prone to be set far away from your mouth, however, being only a cardioid pattern, you won’t be as deceived on how to use it. It’s one pattern, points at your face, and is hard to misuse in ways that the Blue Yeti is easy to misuse. We do also recommend a boom arm to bring that microphone within 3” to 5” from your mouth.
This microphone is also versatile in that it has a USB and XLR option. USB makes it easy to plug and play straight into your computer, and be recognized by your computer as an external microphone source. XLR will allow you to use this microphone on a mixer or digital recorder as well. It also features a headphone jack for monitoring when recording to your computer.
We fully understand the appeal, and why people will gravitate toward the Blue Yeti as their first podcast microphone. But in our experience, there are much better microphones in the same price range that function and perform on a higher level - and we recommend going that route.
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If you’re still up in the air as to what kind of equipment to buy for your podcast, fill out the form and let us help you save money, buy the best gear, and get your podcast off the ground.