Is the Blue Yeti Desktop Mic Worth It?

As far as desktop mics go, the Blue Yeti might be the most popular mic on the internets right now. Some people really love it, while others really hate it. But is it really worth it and are there tricks to getting the most out of this mic? Let’s find out.

Btw, if you don’t care about the specs or details, just jump down to Getting The Best Sound for how to best operate this mic.

The Blue Yeti – Basics

The Blue Yeti is a USB mic that can record or stream to any computer. It’s built like a tank, tough and sturdy, and feels almost as heavy as one weighing a whopping a little over three pounds with the stand. It drops those added pounds without the stand to come in at 1.2 pounds. That doesn’t sound like much until you think of other mics that weigh less than half a pound.

This mic is sturdy. It feels like you could run over with a truck and still be able to use it. This lends itself to an overall durable feeling.

The mic stands almost exactly 12″ (30cm) when the mic is fully upright. It does fold down on itself for storage or transportation. The Blue Yeti comes in at a thin 5″ wide, which does put it into super-model status, but not for mics. So let’s just say, this is a big, sturdy mic. Rebel Wilson of mics, but it’s close.

The Blue Yeti – What It Does

The beauty of the Blue Yeti comes from its ease of use and versatility. Very few mics can just plug into your computer – without needing any drivers – and be used without much fuss. It also can do more with sound once it’s plugged in and ready to go.

Part of the versatility of the Blue Yeti comes from its polar, or pickup, pattern. A polar pattern limits how much sound the mic receives from distance. This is super useful when you’re in a big room with lots of sound bouncing around. It’s also useful when having more than one person speaking into the mic.

Since the Blue Yeti comes with everything you need get a great sound, that means it has a preamp built into the mic. The preamp is what boosts the signal of the actual mic, but it also colors the sound a bit, making a mic more punchy and less thin.

The Blue Yeti also comes with sound convertors built in, which means your computer has less work put on it for processing the sound of you mic. This makes the mic virtually stress free for any computer. This is especially important for people live-streaming who might have other apps running while recording their voice.

The Blue Yeti also comes with a couple of extra features that make it a bit more useful. First, it has a built in headphone jack. This is great for checking the gain level of your recording to make sure it’s loud enough and also not too loud and distorting the sound. It also comes with a mute button that is helpful when streaming to minimize unwanted sound.

The Blue Yeti – How Does It Sound?

It’s no big surprise that the Blue Yeti sounds great. It’s not a great as a studio mic with a great preamp and an engineer to tweak all the nobs, but that isn’t really the point. For around $100, you get a great USB mic that 97% of the population wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from the super high end studio setup.

If you really want the down and dirty, the mic sounds just about as good as any USB mic can (USB is the limitation, not the mic). This mic has an impressive 100db signal to noise ratio, a frequency response of 15 Hz – 22 kHz (more than the human ear can hear), outputs a 16bit depth and sends 48Hz signal.

What helps this mic really work are the three 1.3″ (14mm) diaphragms. If you don’t know, bigger diaphragms generally pick up more nuance from voices. That’s why you see them in studios.

That combined with the cardioid pickup pattern make this mic work.

The Blue Yeti – Getting The Best Sound

The short answer here for most people is plug in the mic, use the cardioid pickup pattern, set the level, and keep you mouth 6-10 inches away from the side of the mic with the logo facing your mouth. Whew. There’s, of course, a lot more to dive into, if you want to get the best sound possible.

WARNING! I can’t tell you how many people I see pointing the mic the wrong way. The mic should be pointed up with the side of the mic facing your mouth. From the Blue website

PICKUP PATTERNS

The Blue Yeti has four pickup patterns and they each are useful in the right context. The cardioid pattern only hears the first 12 inches or so closest to the front of the mic. That’s what most people will use. It’s best when there’s only one subject speaking and you want to get rid of unwanted room noise.cardioid Blue Yeti Mic

The omni pattern is really only useful when you have more than two people talking and you want everyone to be heard. Omni picks up everything based on how loud it is. So all that sound bouncing around in the room gets picked up too.omnidirectional pattern Blue Yeti Mic

The stereo pattern is exactly what you would think. It picks up two signals at once to the left and right of the front-facing mic. This is useful for recording instruments or even recording two people.

The figure eight pattern hears people on the opposite side of the mic. This is mostly only useful when two people are talking. Why would you use this instead of the stereo pattern? Well, the stereo pattern combines the sound the closer you get to the center of the pattern, while the figure eight pattern rejects sound between the two subjects. So there’s more isolation between the two sound sources.bidirectional pattern Blue Yeti Mic

PROXIMITY EFFECT

All mics have a common trait called the proximity effect. This just means that the closer you get to the mic the louder it is, and also, THE MORE BASS IT WILL HAVE.

This is why some people on the radio sound like they’re doing an impersonation of God. When you get really close to a mic, like within 5 inches, it will start getting fairly boomy (yeah, that’s a technical term). It’s not always bad, but you’ll want to be aware of it.

Along with this power comes the responsibility of controlling your plosives. Plosives are sounds that move a lot of air like Ps, Ts, and Bs. If you find that your speaking sounds like Justin Bieber trying to beatbox, you’ll want to get a pop filter. Any pop filter will work so don’t spend a lot of money on one, unless you just really want to.

So, knowing all of that, you will probably find that staying about 7-10 inches from the mic will get you the best results. If your voice sounds thin, you can move a little closer.

GAIN STAGING

The gain control knob is a great addition for this mic working with the headphones. In case you missed the tech speak, your gain stage is the loudness of your mic coming into your recorder, not its overall volume.

Why is that important? Because when you’re trying to make things sound amazing, you want to get the best quality signal recorded. That means getting the most signal without getting too loud causing distortion.

If you are recording into an app like Audacity or Garageband, just watch the meters next to your channel and make sure you never see red. If you do, turn down the gain. If you’re streaming, check your meters on whatever input device you’re using.

ONE MORE THING

The great things about a desktop mic is that it’s convenient and easy to reach. The worst thing about a desktop mic is that it’s on a desk. Being on a desk means that subtle vibrations, like typing, can be picked up by the mic.

There are three ways to deal with this. The first, if you can use the mic without touching the desktop, then do that. Simple right?! The second trick is to put something between the desktop and the mic base to insulate the

$25 Cheap Video Lighting Setup

If you’re new to video this cheap lighting setup will be one of the best investments you can make. For $25, you can’t beat this amazingly simple, yet versatile setup.

LIGHTING SETUP

Ok, here’s the goods. First, we start with this very basic dome light available at most hardware stores. I got mine for $8.

Then, you’ll need a light to put in it. Any bulb will do, but a bright, dimmable LED will be the most flexible. You’ll also want to get one that’s daylight balanced if you can. That just means the color temperature is around 5600k.

Lastly, you’ll need something to bounce the light off of. I use art board that are common in most craft and art supply stores. Mine was $8 for a 3’x4′ sheet. These are great to have around for lots of functions. You can also use the a 5-in-1 screen reflector like this.

Get all of those things together and set apart some time to play.

HOW THE LIGHTING SETUP WORKS

A lot of people will get this equipment and think it will solve their problems. Whoa there! This is just the start. You’ll need to figure out what to do with all this stuff to get the results you want.

I suggest starting with a look you like. Pick an example of a video, or even movie, with simple lighting that you like. Notice how the light falls off in the highlights and especially notice how the shadows play across the face.

Got it? Ok, let’s make that happen for you.

THE BASICS

To start with, place the reflector panel (5-in-1 or art board) right beside you with the plane of the surface facing your face. It’s kind of like a mirror. You want it to be perpendicular to your line of site. Like this.

Then, place the light facing the reflector. It should be pretty close. Where on the face of the reflector should you place it? Well, that depends on the look you’re trying to get. I usually place mine toward the top left or right corner so that the light reflects down on my cute, adorable visage.

Now, set up your camera. You will put the camera in front of you so that it can’t see the reflector and light. If you’re using a wide angle lens, just move the reflector back a little bit to that it’s out of frame.

That’s the basic setup. Does it look like you hoped? No?! Well now it’s time to experiment. Here is how I control the lighting when I use this setup.

LIGHTING EXPERIENCE

Once you have everything set, you can adjust the position of the reflector and light to get countless lighting looks. Here’s how I adjust everything.

SOFT LOOKS

The closer you place the reflector to your face, the softer the shadows and the brighter the light. If you’re going to a really soft look, get the reflector as close as possible to your face while still hanging out of frame.

You can also soften the shadows on your face by moving the light further away from the reflector. This makes the surface of the reflected light bigger, which is the key to getting soft light.

HARD LOOKS

For harder looks, you can move the reflector farther away from you. You can also move the light very close to the surface of the reflector and for extra sharp looks, move the light to one of the corners of the reflector.

BEAUTY AND FASHION LIGHTING

If you’re trying to recreate a beauty or fashion lighting look, like you see with a ring light, you can put the reflector directly above the camera, still facing you. Then mount your light above the camera facing the reflector. This will minimize shadows on the face, while still giving you a bit of shadow to define your jaw line.

THAT’S IT

Of course, saying, “That’s it.” doesn’t mean that’s all you can do with this lighting setup. Keep working with it, and you’ll find that you can get amazing results with this very affordable lighting setup.

I hope this helps you make some awesome videos. Happy filming!

Why Your Sound Sucks and How To Fix It

Don’t let poor sound ruin your video. This article will show you four ways people get sound wrong and how to fix it.

Ok, let’s be honest. You can get all your visuals looking crispy and sweet, but if your sound is off, then the whole feel of a video is cheap. One of the worst things I see in people’s videos isn’t what I see. It’s what I hear.

Four sound problems can make your videos suck. Let’s deal with them one at a time and talk about how to fix them.

If you’d rather watch than read, check out the accompanying video.

DISTORTED SOUND

Distortion, or clipping, happens when too much sound is sent to whatever is recording it. It might be sound that’s too loud for the mic, or more likely, it’s sound that makes it past the mic alright, but then gets recorded to high on the preamp.

The preamp is the bit or circuitry between the mic and the SD card (or whatever you’re recording to). Generally, mic preamps [Mic Pres] are crappy in most cameras, but you can still work with what you have.

If your sound is distorted, you will first need to figure out where it’s getting clipped. To find out, turn on some loud music or noise in front of your mic. It doesn’t have to be super loud, just as loud as whatever it was that made your video’s sound distorted.

Now that your sound source is set, get into your camera and see if you can find some sound meters. Most cameras have something like this. Most professionals record volumes so that they peak around -12. This makes sure that the levels don’t get too high and distort while also getting the volume loud enough.

If your sound levels are too high, you can either move the mic farther away from the sound source, or turn down to mic pre in camera. I recommend the in camera fix, because you can get more signal and less background noise by keeping the mic as close as possible to the source.

LOW SIGNAL SOUND

The opposite problem of the distorted sound is the sound that’s not loud enough to hear well. If you record the sound at too soft a level, it will be hard to recover the sound when you mix it.

If you kept the sound peaking around -12 when you record, you can bring it up in editing to level it out.

One other issue lots of people have with sound that’s too soft is that they place to mic to far away. If you’re using your on-camera mic, it needs to be close to your subject to get a loud enough signal. This is why most professional videos use an off-camera mic.

ROOM NOISE SOUND

Even if you get your sound levels right, having too much room noise makes the sound unprofessional. Have you ever seen someone recording in a music studio? Ever noticed them in a super small room or with lots of sound damping material around them? That’s to kill room noise.

If you record a video with lot’s of room noise, there’s not much you can do. You might try adding music to cover up the room noise, or you can gate the voice so that the space between talking goes away (if you don’t know about gating, look for a tutorial on it soon).

The best thing to do to fix room noise is get it handled before you record.

There are two main ways to fix room noise. The first way is just treating the room a little. Most room noise comes from the sound bouncing around in the room. To fix this, hang a blanket or some other sound absorbing material close to the subject of the sound. Moving blankets are great for this.

If you can’t treat the room, you can try to get a mic that only picks up sound close to your subject and then get the mic as close to them as possible.

SIMPLE TRICK: If you don’t have an off-camera mic, use a smartphone placed close to your sound source and record their voice on it. You can always sync them up later.

THIN OR MUFFLED SOUND

The last sound problem many people have is it sounding too thin or muffled. Again, the best way to fix this is before you actually record.

For muffled sounds, this usually happens when something blocks the high frequencies of your voice by creating a barrier. Think about cupping your hands in from of your mouth and speaking. That’s muffled.

Since you’re probably not doing that in your videos, the problem is often some kind of barrier around your mic. Make sure the mic has a direct line of sight with your subjects mouth. If you’re using a smartphone, make sure the mic isn’t blocked.

Thin sound often happens when a mic is too far away. Make sure to move your mic as close as possible to your voice. This is just a good general rule for sound recording.

Ok, changing sound in editing. Most editors have some way to EQ sound after recording it. Obviously, if your voice is muffled, you need to make it brighter. Most people will go straight to the high frequencies and add a bunch of those. But you can also try bringing down the low-mid frequencies to kill the muffles.

If you have a super, specific EQ like a parametric EQ, most muffles and muddy sound lives around 200-300Hz. Turning those frequencies down is always where I start.

PRO TIP: Subtractive EQ (bringing down frequencies) colors the sound less than Additive EQ (adding frequencies).

For thin sound, you can crank up the low-mid EQ. That’s frequencies around 400-500Hz. There’s really no need to crank up the lows since most voices don’t have frequencies below 200Hz.

REFERENCE SOUND

Hopefully, all of this has cured your sucky sound woes. But don’t just tweak away at your sound and hope for the best. Before you render, do this one thing.

EVERY PROFESSIONAL I KNOW DOES ONE THING.

Compare your sound to a reference. Just find someone who sounds like what you want and switch back and forth between your sound and theirs. If it doesn’t sound close, keep tweaking it.

The more you do these adjustments to your sound, the better you’ll get at it and the less time it will take.

Reference Audio
PASADENA, CA – AUGUST 20: Singer Chris Martin of Coldplay performs at the Rose Bowl on August 20, 2016 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How to Get Started in Video

Video

So many people are trying to start using video more in their business and marketing. They’re right to do it, too. Video is the fastest growing medium for marketing right now, and it’s not likely to slow down any time soon. So here’s what I tell people who are looking to get started in video production.

Watch the video for this article on YouTube.

I’m going to say something bold and possibly unexpected, but just hear me out, ok? What you need to get started in creating videos isn’t gear.

You need to start training your eyes to see like a video producer.

Look around right now. Do you see anything worth making a video about? No? Creatives are always seeing more in their surroundings. So video creators are going to see more than others.

Being a video creator is like being a great chef. Great chefs understand the basics of food and they are always thinking about how to combine ingredients and techniques to make something new or better. They just see things differently.

Like video creators, it’s not because they have magic eyes or super-human powers. They’ve actually trained themselves to look for certain things. The aren’t just using their eyes to keep from bumping into things. They use their eyes to see potential.

Video Ingredients – Potential

I once read an interview with the music artist Bjork. If you’ve ever listened to her music or seen one of her videos, you understand that, whether you like her music or not, she is incredibly creative.

In the interview, she said something like

Anyone who can’t walk into any library, open any book, point to any word in the book and write a song about it is a coward. – Bjork

I was challenged. She saw potential for songs everywhere and relentlessly (and bravely) plunged ahead.

If you want to get started in video production, you can do yourself a lot of favors by challenging yourself like that. Look around again. Pick one thing you can see and imagine a video telling its story.

FOR EXAMPLE:

I’m currently looking at a set of earbuds. I can think of the life of those earbuds. Starting out brand new, still in the store, waiting to be bought. Then being purchased and used. I can think of ways to instill the excitement of being freed from the packaging and hearing music for the first time.

The life of a set of earbuds in my home involves lots of time in pockets, some great tunes, some hard conversations. Eventually, earbuds get lost or broken. and their story ends.

Even while I was writing this, I was thinking of shot lists, plot-lines, tension and release, lighting, music, perspectives, and color.

That’s what video people do. They mix the ingredients to capture attention, provoke engagement, and tell stories.

If you weren’t doing that, it’s totally fine. It just means you need practice with the ingredients.

Video Ingredient – Perspective

There’s a memorable line from the animated movie Ratatouille. In it, food critic Anton Ego says something important about his work.

Mustafa: Do you know what you would like this evening, sir?
Ego: Yes, I think I do. After hearing a lot of over-heated puffery about your new cook, do you know what I’m craving? A little… perspective. That’s it. I’d like some fresh, clear, well-seasoned perspective. Can you suggest a good wine to go with that?

Perspective is a funny word. It means representing something accurately, like drawing two-dimensional objects from a specific place, but also it means giving your personal view of something.

What I’m talking about is the latter. How you see things is unique to you. When you add that to video production, it gives you an amazing tool. Your unique perspective will constantly inform your work.

Perspective also gives you something else because you can always change your perspective. If something isn’t interesting, all you really have to do it look at it in another way. Get closer, move up or down, change the angle. Do whatever it takes to make your subject stand out.

Bonus tip: go to the camera, don’t bring the camera to you.

A lot of people see something interesting, take out their phone and just start shooting. Using perspective means looking at life in new ways. So instead of bringing the phone up to your eyes, take your eyes up or down to where the phone is. Shoot from the hip, literally. Try looking at things from the ground up.

The point here is to change your perspective and find the best shot.

That’s how video producers train their eyes.

Video Ingredient – HSL Elements

Maybe you’ve played around with graphics software before and know what HSL is. If you haven’t, here’s a big help for learning new video ingredients. HSL stands for Hue, Saturation, and Luminance. Those are the most basic ingredients of video.

You can break everything we do down into a hue (how red, green, or blue it is), it’s saturation (how vibrant or muted the colors are), and its luminance (how light or dark it is). When you start playing with HSL you’ll learn how each of these ingredients effects visuals.

Some videos use bright colors to imply life and energy. Some videos use muted colors and shadows to create a more ominous feel. As a video creator, you get to decide what you want and how to get it into the camera.

It really is that simple. And, at the same time, it really is that complicated. But it doesn’t have to be that hard. Deciding what you want to do in your videos is the harder part of the work. Getting it ready to view is actually the easier part. That’s why video producers always make more than videographers.

I hope this has been helpful. My next post on How to Get Started in Video will dive into how to capture images and make all the technology work for you.

How to Make Your Video Look More Professional with Staging and Blocking

Video

Staging and blocking aren’t just for big movie sets. You can up to perceived quality of you videos with just a couple of tips about staging. You can also use several blocking tricks to be more engaging with your audience. Here’s how.

First of all, let’s be clear about what I’m talking about. Staging is just everything in the background or midground of your video. You might have heard about staging from your realtor friends or on HGTV. Basically it’s where you place everything. And by where, I mean, some things need to be placed where no one can see them. So it’s also decluttering and cleaning. Staging makes a conscious decision about everything in your video.

Blocking is more about where the subject or subjects of you video are. It’s also where they move to if your to if your videos have movement in them. Blocking really becomes important when you start using it together with composition. More on that later.

Staging For More Professional Videos

Like I wrote earlier, the biggest tip anyone will ever give you is to be intentional with your staging. Look at everything in your scene and ask yourself (or others) what does that communicate about your scene? If it doesn’t help you convey the meaning of the video or help you connect with your audience, get rid of it.

You should also ask yourself if there’s just too much going on. A cluttered set distracts viewers from the subject. So if there’s a lot of bric-à-brac in your shot, clear it out.

One more tip about staging and brands. If you’re building a personal brand or a new business brand, staging can help you imply values. If you’re brand is all about old school scotch, staging similar to something like Mad Men can’t go wrong. If you’re brand is focused on journals for women, staging it in a wood shop probably isn’t going to connect very well. This where knowing your audience and what they like will help.

Blocking For More Professional Videos

Blocking can be a simple or complicated as you can make it. A lot of people reading this make videos where the subject never moves. That’s probably ok. But you can add a lot more to your video making by thinking through blocking.

Again, blocking is just the placement of the people in your scene and any movement they have. Blocking can be affected in huge ways by combining it with composition and framing.

Suppose you have a shot where you want to show someone using their smartphone. You could just have them framed in the same way as the rest of the shot. However, a better way to shoot it might be to have them looking down at the phone with the camera just behind it. You might also do the same shot looking over their shoulder so you can see what they’re looking at. Watch about 10 seconds of this ad I made to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Conclusion

Combining staging and blocking with composition will make your videos seem much more intentional and professional. With just a little bit of effort, you can up the quality of your videos and make them stand out among your competitors. It really isn’t difficult, and it gets easier the more you do it.

Check out the accompanying video here.

How to Make Your Videos More Professional with Composition

Video

One of the easiest, most cost efficient ways to make your videos more professional is with simple composition. Composing a shot really isn’t all that simple though. But there are some tips that can help you start looking more professional right now.

There are a lot of ideas out there about composition. A beautifully composed shot is magic for conveying the vibe of your video. There’s actually a lot that goes into that shot. Where you place the subject or subjects of your videos is important. But also where they face (blocking), what surrounds them (staging), their perspective, how they’re framed, and even the size of their body in proportion to the rest of the shot.

Here are just a couple of tips that will save you from looking like an amateur.

Video Composition – Rule of Thirds

We’ve come a long way in the analysis of great art. The more ew’ve seen about great works of art, the more we realize a pattern in it. The subject is rarely centered in the shot. In fact, the point of interest in the shot is almost always in a third position of the shot. This started with the Phi Grid.

Anywhere along the red line is where our eye naturally travels. The focus is more and more clear as you spiral down into the corner where the horizontal and vertical thirds overlap. Like this.

Both of these examples use the lower right third as a point of interest, but you can use any of the thirds lines to create focus in your videos. And if you can frame your subject in the places those lines meet, you can create even more focus.

I could write several posts about this, and many people have. Just keep in mind as you shoot to know where your subject is in the frame and where you want your viewers eyes to focus.

Video Composition – Perspective

Great cinematographers have played with perspective in so many ways that their audiences rarely even notice anymore. In the movies you watch, can you remember a specific scene where the camera made it look like you’re looking down on the subject of the story? Probably not.

You can use this technique too for your videos. Most interview style videos will place the camera slightly about eye level of the subject of the interview. This makes several things happen.

First, the viewer relates to the person more easily because they see them as a peer or slightly below them. All those phrases about looking up to people or looking down on them – they aren’t just phrases. They represent very real situations in our physical lives, and they are seated in our psyche. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’ve seen this use of perspective enough to believe that it works, even if only in our subconscious.

Second, placing the camera slightly above the subject makes them look up slightly creating more imposed interest on their part and minimizing of any sagging skin. Nothing’s worse than forcing someone to have a double chin because you put the camera too low and they’re having to look down. I see this a lot from people doing video from a webcam. Seriously, don’t do it.

Video Composition – Growths and Amputations

A lot of composition is simply looking out for unintended distractions. Enter growths and amputations.

A growth in when you have something that seems to grow out of a person. The worst is when it’s something obvious like a tree growing out of someone’s head. This is one of those composition tips that catches everyone off guard. You really have to watch out for it creeping into your shots.

This picture just doesn’t work on so many levels, but the biggest, by far, is the distraction of the small tree growing out of this guys head. What happens in a shot like this is the viewers eyes don’t know where to land. It’s obvious to our brain where we should look, but our eyes are distracted by the high contrast background. I’m sure this was probably a compromise shot, where the photographer was trying to get the subject out of the direct sunlight.

Luckily, this shot didn’t also fall victim to the second problem of amputation. This is where you cut off limbs at the joint, making it seem like the limb was amputated. I don’t want to create a gross picture in your head, so trust me, make the frame end in the middle of your subjects limbs, not at the joint.

Conclusion

There really is so much that could be written on composition. The best teacher will always be experience. You just need to get out there and shoot. But you can also shortcut that by analyzing your shots and other people’s too. Look at the ones you like and break apart their composition. Look at the ones you don’t like and ask yourself what’s wrong with it.

You can see the video for this post here.

 

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