A desktop USB microphone with slightly more robust components than most of its rivals is the Blue Yeti X. That is perhaps the reason why the Yeti, its predecessor, is so well-liked by those who record at home. The Yeti offers recording results that are only somewhat inferior to those of a more studio-appropriate microphone, in addition to being reasonably priced. Whatever your opinion on USB mics, if you want to get started without spending a lot of money, they do help you get roughly 90% of the way to “excellent” recordings. Similar to photography, the performer’s and the mixer’s talent and experience are far more significant than the tools you employ. A microphone is a tool that, while it won’t do all the work for you, will treat you fairly if you put in the effort.
Design
This microphone is strong and stylish. The Blue Yeti X lacks RGB zones and loud branding, making it immediately more at home among pro audio equipment than competing microphones from gaming-first companies like Razer. The satisfyingly substantial base is finished in chrome, as are the Blue inset logos on the front and back as well as the band below the mic’s diaphragm. The smart dial on the front controls everything, including gain, headphone volume, blend, and mute. In addition, the Blue Yeti X is shaped differently than the regular Yeti. In contrast to the previous model’s three condenser capsules, this one contains four hidden behind a sharper, higher mesh portion. Inputs for MicroUSB and 3.5mm (for monitoring) are located at the bottom of the mount’s two sides. A single button at the back is used to switch between omnidirectional, stereo, figure-8, and cardioid polar patterns. This dial design is unquestionably an improvement over the previous ones, which could be a little challenging to use and felt out of place. The pattern button, however, felt a little flimsy and plastic for a product at this price, similar to the multi-function dial at the front. A word to image-conscious streamers: If you want immaculate streams, keep a cloth and some polish on hand because all the surfaces on this Yeti X show some degree of smudging when they are touched. With the exception of those minor complaints, Blue’s dependable construction continues with the Yeti X. It feels long-lasting and strong enough to withstand bumps and knocks. It’s also among the models with the best looks. With something like a microphone, less is definitely more because you can concentrate on your own sweet voice rather than having the microphone sing its presence from the desktop. Some people will favour Razer’s Seiren range’s overtly gaming sensibilities, such as the Razer Seiren X, for example, and they are well-built mics as well. However, the Yeti X also looks good in other contexts besides streaming, such as podcasting and music recording.
Blue Yeti X review: Features
Yeti X includes additional capabilities in addition to Blue Voice that make it simple to adore. The lights on the control knob can be adjusted to fit your desktop configuration. You can hear how you sound thanks to the instant mic monitoring. Additionally, by pressing the button on the back, you can switch between the four recording patterns. Multiple functionalities can be adjusted using the control knob. By holding down the button for a long time, you can change the volume of your headphones, your mic, or both by long-pressing the button. The 11 LED lights around the control knob will light up to indicate your volume level as you adjust the gain. You can tell if you are hot with the help of this live visual monitoring. You are producing distorted audio if all 11 of the LEDs turn red. It’s a fantastic upgrade for the Yeti X.
Software
The software is the Blue Yeti X’s main selling point, but it also has several standout physical accessories. An elegant way to add extra controls to the microphone without turning it like a commercial aircraft cockpit full of knobs and buttons is to use the multi-function dial at the front. Gain, headphone level, mute, metering, and blend can all be switched between by tapping the button in the dial’s center. also you will check our article on Blue Yeti X review. The latter functions similarly to a ChatMix scroll wheel on a gaming headset, but instead of balancing microphone versus computer audio, it does the opposite. Therefore, you can change your levels on the microphone itself if you’re singing along to a backing track. Additionally, even though you couldn’t quite call this an RGB microphone, you can alter how this display and the polar pattern lighting display at the back are lit using the Logitech G Hub(opens in new tab) (Logitech owns Blue). Being able to choose colors for peak, high, and normal signal levels, various polar patterns, and even your muted color makes it simple to accomplish this. The 16-Ohm impedance and 100dB signal-to-noise ratio of the 3.5mm headphone jack’s mic monitoring make it sound fairly good. Furthermore, it didn’t stutter at louder volumes. The Yeti X can also do excellent mic monitoring, so this alone isn’t enough to convince someone to choose it over the Yeti. The Yeti lacks a set of production capabilities that are included in Blue’s VO!CE software. Despite the exclamation point’s cringe-inducing tone, this is a genuine value statement. It functions essentially like a set of plugins in a DAW and gives you access to 11 presets (although you can save and share your own custom presets as well). Once applied, these mixtures of pre-tuned noise-cancellers, compressors, limiters, and specialized EQ tools (a de-esser and high-pass filter) sound polished, and you can then manually adjust the various parameters. This could be the new Yeti X’s biggest selling point, and an extra $40 doesn’t seem excessive for simple plug-ins that you can use on your recordings. Naturally, if you’ve already connected the Yeti to a DAW and used your own plugins, it’s a different story.
Blue Yeti X review: Sound Quality
Behind the gleaming metallic microphone mesh is a four-capsule condenser array, up from the original’s three and significantly more than the Yeti Nano’s two, which effectively means that the Yeti X records sounds admirably.Our voice is loud, clear, and crisp when using the Yeti X as our microphone during various Fast Charge livestreams, and the presets offered by the VO only serve to enhance that. CE computer programme. It’s a delight for our Discord multiplayer friends as well; several of them commented on how crystal-clear our microphone sounded during sessions of Call of Duty: Warzone and No Man’s Sky. Instead of the three capsules found in the original Yeti, the Yeti X features a four-capsule condenser array. However, we discover that it sounds almost exactly like the standard Yeti in its default configuration, which means that it still sounds fantastic. Like many sensitive condenser mics, the Yeti X is nonetheless adept at picking up background noise, such as the audible clicks of our keyboard. However, we discovered that our voice was loud, clear, and full when we listened to our voice recordings and Twitch archives. This was true even when our voice was being heard over the obnoxious anime beat’em’up sounds of River City Girls. No matter if we were playing Gears 5 or having a Discord conversation, my friends always said they could hear me clearly.
Performance
With a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz, the Yeti X can record audio at up to 48kHz/24-bit quality. This frequency range also applies to the integrated headphone amplifier. The microphone was immediately identified by Garageband, and we were able to start recording right away. It’s crucial to use the gain knob to achieve a stable clean level because there is no DSP. This is made simple by the LED metering, but it’s crucial to rely on your ears rather than your eyes because it’s possible to overload the mic’s capsules. Having said that, we discovered that getting a crisp, clear signal was simple enough in all four patterns. The Yeti X uses internal dampening to reduce plosives to a minimum. The Yeti X doesn’t come equipped with a pop filter, so some users may still choose to use one, which is never a bad idea. That is unfortunate given that the majority of the competition does, but the Yeti X’s grille and internal foam combination perform admirably on their own. Our vocal recordings in cardioid mode were crisp and clear, but less sculpted and more transparent, with possibly slightly more low-frequency response, similar to what we hear with some competing, non-DSP models, such as the significantly more expensive $400 Sennheiser MK 4 Digital. The Yeti X often sounds fuller more mids, more lows, and more crisp high-mids than a DSP mic like the Shure MV51. But depending on whether you use the MV51 in flat mode or one of the DSP presets, it can sound very differently. In flat mode, it lacks some of the low-mid presence that the Yeti X can capture. So, the Yeti X may have a tendency to have richer-sounding vocals—at least before EQ is applied—but that richness is balanced by excellent high-mid and high-frequency clarity and detail. The Yeti X sounds a little more crisp in the high-mids on vocals while also picking up a little more of the rich low-mids when compared to the Blue Yeti Nano, a $100, more portable member of the Yeti lineup.
Blue Yeti X review: Price
The Blue Yeti X is a capable USB microphone perfect for podcasting, streaming, and pretty much anything else involving audio for which you’ll need a microphone, but that capability comes at a high price. The Yeti X costs £159.99/$169.99 for the standard edition and £189.99/$199.99 for those who want the World of Warcraft Edition, whereas the Yeti Nano is targeted at the low-cost market. That’s significantly more than products like the Trust Gaming Fyru and HyperX SoloCast, so be sure to use the additional recording modes and software features that are unique to the Yeti X, or you might be able to save some money. Look at the top microphones for streaming and podcasting to see how it stacks up against the opposition.
Conclusion
The Blue Yeti X USB microphone is so excellent that we are debating giving up our XLR setup. Although XLR has the potential to sound far better than USB, the Yeti X’s Blue Voice processing takes it above “good enough.” And USB is much more straightforward and clean. The Yeti X is the best upgrade for part-time YouTube or Twitch creators. Without needing to spend more money than you are earning from your material, it has the ability to make you sound more authoritative and competent. also you will learn our article on Blue Yeti X review.
