Recording - December 2010 - 29

this is not a digital toy but a real analog synthesizer, and its pitch and control ranges will drift with temperature. Played by itself, the monotron makes a variety of cool sound effects; you can drive the filter to self-oscillate, and the LFO can be turned up fast enough to enter the audio range and create some really snarly timbres. But the real magic is having the MS-20 filter available for processing external sound sources, and for that alone, the monotron is worth a serious look for any sound designer with a few dollars to spend on a really fun and funky holiday gift.—MM Blue Yeti and Icicle Yeti, $149; Icicle, $59; www.bluemic.com Blue Microphones has been a forerunner in the realm of quality USB audio components since the release of the Snowball USB mic some years ago; we reviewed the ultraportable Snowflake in our October 2008 issue. Blue’s newest offerings are the Yeti, a high-end USB mic with a number of unusual

features, and the Icicle, a simple and affordable USB preamp/converter that allows any mic to attach directly to your computer. Both units are class-compliant USB devices, attaching to any Windows PC (XP or later) or Mac OS X (10.4.11 or later) computer and appearing automatically without any drivers to install. The Yeti tries to be a one-stop shop for USB recording and monitoring, offering a 3-capsule array with four polar patterns—omni, cardioid, bidirectional (figure-8), and a dualcapsule stereo mode. Blue explains in the manual how to place the Yeti vs. your source to alter the L/R balance, but doesn’t say anywhere what sort of array the capsules are in; to our ears it sounds like a conventional closely spaced stereo array like you’d have with most portable field recorders. [Blue informs us that it’s actually an XY “plus one” array, “for achieving quality stereo separation with a good sound.”—Ed.] We tested the Yeti with vocals, voiceovers, and a few different acoustic instruments; it has a lift at about 1 kHz and another at around 5 kHz (the size and precise placement of the bump depends on the pattern), making it somewhat darker than many other condenser mics. In our era of screechy cheap condensers, this isn’t a bad thing. It sounded very nice on male vocals, voiceovers, and acoustic guitar and dulcimer. The Yeti’s a big heavy mic, in a very solid 2-pound enclosure that comes with an attractive swiveling desk stand. It can also be mounted on a conventional mic stand. The back side of the mic has knobs for pattern selection and gain; the front (address) side has a Mute button with flashing LED and a knob for the headphone volume. Headphone volume? Yes, the Yeti includes a goodsounding D/A converter and can provide stereo output from your computer via the 1/8" TRS headphone jack on the mic’s underside (next to the USB connector), as well as zero-latency monitoring for vocalists singing into the Yeti. Our one complaint with the Yeti’s build quality was with the mic gain and headphone volume knobs, which were very loose and wobbly, unlike the tight and solid rear-body pattern switch. The mic operates at 16bit/48 kHz, a good choice for the video and podcasting applications that it seems to be largely aimed at, but it would do a good job at recording a solo performer at a distance in stereo mode as
RECORDING DECEMBER 2010

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Recording - December 2010

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