In fact a co-worker and I used Snowball microphone to create a screen cast to show off Six Apart’s Movable Type last year. It will definitely make podcast recordings, audio chat, and voice overs sound a lot better. There’s no question that the Snowball is a huge jump up from just about any integrated laptop microphone or cheap auxiliary jack one. To use the external microphone, I had to either set it as the default device in the control panel or manually choose the device from within an application such as Audacity. Mac OS X Snow Leopard also detected the device right out of the box. Windows XP with Service Pack 3 took a bit longer, it required contact Windows Update before it worked. Windows Vista was also able to recognize and setup the device instantly.

Starting with Windows 7, the Snowball was detected and automatically configured in seconds. The unit stands sturdy and has a unique retro look that catches glances. There’s a red LED indicator on the front and the USB port resides right below the mode setting switch on the back. The unit also has a standard threaded connector, so it can attached onto any standard microphone stand. Rubber tips on the legs of the tripod are a neat addition as they offer a strong grip and reduce vibrations. The tripod extends upwards, rotates a complete 360 degrees, and even allows tilting the head back and fort. The box includes the baseball-shaped microphone, a tripod stand, and a USB cable. It’s quite affordable, easy to setup, and produces great results.īlue Microphones includes all the essentials to get started with podcasting or recording audio. The one I’m taking a look at today is the Snowball.

The California-based company, Blue Microphones (Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics), produces many high quality retro-looking audio products.

For the audio portion, a new market has introduced USB-based microphones, that produce surprisingly good recordings. Those components might be great for video chat, but not for producing semi-professional content. Although most laptops now feature built in web cameras and microphones, they often produce mediocre results.

Snowball blue mic no sound windows 10