Why not the Yeti?

Picking the Right Microphone for Your Podcast

Tiphany on the beautiful Blueberry mic by Blue (image: Greg Sais)

My partner, David Sais, is a professional audio and dialogue editor and is not a fan of the Yeti mic for home podcasters. Now don’t get me wrong, we love Blue microphones. The Blueberry is probably the most beautiful microphone ever (see my pic above and let me know how much you love this mic.) So I had a conversation with David to ask him…Why not the Yeti?

David: There are two reasons I’m not a fan of the Yeti for home podcasters. For one, it is a condenser microphone, and secondly, it’s confusing for many to use.

Tiphany: Ok- Let’s start with your first point- What is a condenser mic and why would a home podcaster not want one?

David: In order to better understand where I’m coming from, I should explain a bit about microphones in general. The two kinds of microphones you’ll hear people talk about are condenser and dynamic, with how they convert soundwaves to electrical signals being the difference between the two. Put very simply, a dynamic microphone uses permanent magnets, whereas a condenser uses power, or as I’m sure you’ve heard it referred to as phantom power to create those signals.

A dynamic mic functions in much the same way as any speaker does only in reverse with the movement of a coil in a magnetic field creating an electrical signal that gets sent through the wire to your recording device. A condenser, or capacitor mic if you’re in Europe, uses two plates referred to as a diaphragm and a backplate, that are very close together with air between them. Soundwaves cause the diaphragm to move, and it’s the air pulses that are created between the two plates that send the signal to your recording device.

Tiphany: That is interesting- now that we know the difference between the two types of mics, how does that affect the home podcaster?

David: The difference between a dynamic and a condenser microphone is due to their difference in sensitivity to sound. A dynamic microphone is commonly used for capturing loud, strong sounds (drums or loud vocals), particularly in a live setting, whereas a condenser microphone is used to capture more delicate sounds and higher frequencies (studio vocals for example), particularly in a studio setting. It is for those same…