RESOURCE: Blue Yeti Microphone Tutorial

Tips on how to optimize the Blue Yeti rental microphones and troubleshoot common issues.

How to use the Blue Yeti Microphone

Prepare to record 

• Turn off background noise.

  • Listen to the noises in your room. Are there any noises such as AC, fans or heaters to which you have become desensitized? Your microphone is not desensitized to these noises and will pick up on them and harm the quality of your audio. 

  • Turn off AC, fans and heaters that make "white noise" or low humming noises. Close windows.

• Adjust the dials on the back of the microphone. 

  • Turn the top dial to point towards the "N" letter in the word "GAIN"

  • Turn the bottom dial to point towards the "cardioid" symbol, which looks like an upside down heart. 

Speak into the microphone

• Speak into the front of the microphone. Do not speak into the top of the microphone. 

  • You can adjust the microphone's angle using the dials on the side of the microphone to be tilted back to make speaking into the front of the microphone feel more natural.

 

 

• Don't speak too close to the microphone. Leave a distance of at least your hand outstretched from your pinky finger and thumb finger to your between your face and microphone. 

  • NOTE: The following image is meant to show the distance  you should be away from your microphone. It is NOT depicting the proper position of your microphone. The image below depicts a woman speaking directly into the top of her microphone with is wrong for this microphone. For this microphone, you should tilt it back and speak to the front of the microphone. 

 

 

Minimize errors

• If the mute button is blinking red, you are muted. If the mute button is solid red and not blinking, you are not muted. 

• Unplug your microphone to hear a playback of your audio.

  • If you are not using headphones to hear the audio from the microphone, your computer will think that your microphone is also a speaker and you will not be able to hear the playback. To hear the audio you record with the microphone, you will need to unplug the USB from your computer. 

  • Remember to plug the USB back into your computer when you are ready to record with your microphone again. 

 

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Resources

• How to Make the Blue Yeti Sound Better
• How Close Should You be to a Blue Yeti?