Depth
of Options
The mic features two recording capsules—a unidirectional,
cardioid capsule for capturing audio in front of the mic
and an omnidirectional mic for capturing audio all around
the mic. There are three main settings that you can switch
to on the mic to take advantage of both capsules and to
record in different ways.
Number
1 is the basic cardioid pattern, which works well for recording
the full voice of narration. Number 2 is a -10 dB version
of 1 that also seems to filter out some of the bass associated
with close mic work, which makes it useful for looping and
dubbing work. Number 3 is an omnidirectional mic, which
records from the rear mic capsule, and is designed to sound
“brighter”, although I noticed it picked up
more of the bass in my voice when I was recording. The 3rd
choice is great for recording wild (or “background”)
sound on set or, if you put it in a sound-dampened room,
you could use it in a homebuilt foley setup.
The
two capsules allow you to try out some pretty creative things.
I do wish they had added a Fourth setting, which would allow
you to record from both capsules, with each capsule going
to a separate stereo channel. There are times where I could
see that being useful, especially when recording sound effects.
Other than that, the options are quite good.
Performance
The performance on this mic is really clean and crisp, no
matter which setting you use.
Setting
1 is my favorite and the one I would foresee most filmmakers
will using, simply because of how versatile it is for voice
over work as well as fuller-sounding animation voices. This
setting really gives you a clean, professional sound, although
I would have liked just a touch more bass
Setting
2 was designed for singers who get too loud and often peak
the meters, which is a smart setting. As I mentioned earlier,
it’s muted quality also causes folks to sound more
distant from the mic and could be used for ADR and looping,
provided you don’t try to mix the ADR from this mic
with dialogue recorded on scene with a shotgun mic. (The
cardioid pattern present in this mic, while directional,
will not sound identical to the hyper-cardioid pattern in
most shotgun mics, which is why it would be very hard to
mix the two sources in a single scene.) Another use would
be for animated films in which greater audio realism is
being aimed for, as this would allow characters to sound
more distant and authentic.
Setting
3 picked up a fair amount of the low-frequency sound most
of us forget about, like computers whirring, refrigerators,
air conditioners, etc. Despite some of the drawbacks of
three, most of the undesirable sounds of a normal room were
at an isolated enough frequency to be removed with a low-frequency
shelf filter. As I mentioned before, its “problems”
make it ideal for background sound recording and sound effects,
plus, if you use a notch filter or run it through Sound
Soap to remove background noise, you can get a deeper
sounding voice over when you record with this.
Value
The original price for this mic was $160, which was a little
more than most of us would like to pay for such a specific
use mic. However, the high quality it recorded at made it
a good value even at the price. I did want to see the price
dropped to $100 for an easier purchasing decision for most
of us. Well, right before press time, Blue dropped the price
to $99.99, which makes it a fantastic value especially since,
with
both capsules present in this mic, it’s actually like
getting two mics for the price of one.
Final
Comments
While you can’t take it out to the set to acquire
your production audio, Blue’s Snowball may
just be the handiest investment you’ve found for acquiring
clean, concise narration audio, animation dialogue, sound
effects and, in certain scenes, ADR. For less than a third
the price of a decent shotgun mic, the Blue Snowball
is one that most microfilmmakers would be strongly encouraged
to take a look at!
