Logitech Blue Yeti X Professional Microphone (2019 release) Review
Logitech Blue Yeti X Professional Microphone (2019 release) Review
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Buy it at Amazon: Logitech Blue Yeti X Professional Microphone (2019 release) [Affiliate Link]
Takeaway: Clean/clear audio, awesome live voice processing, easy to use and setup.
You’ll receive the microphone, 6.5’ microUSb cable, and a quick start guide. The guide shows you through pictures what each of the controls on the microphone does but doesn’t really do a great job explaining what everything is so it's a bit of trial an error unless you do a little research online. Note that this is a side address mic and should be upright when you’re speaking into it, do not speak into the top of it because it won’t be able to pickup your voice from that angle.
The Yeti X has a pretty similar shape to its predecessor the Blue Yeti and is about 11.25” tall in the desktop stand. Its weighted 5” diameter base has a foam pad on the bottom to keep it from sliding and provides some buffer for vibrations coming up through the tabletop into your mic. The stand is made from thick heavy steel with a matte black finish, and the Blue logo is stamped in chrome on the back. On the back of the mic itself is the input pattern selection button and LED indicators. At the base of the mic you have the headphone output port, microUSB output port, and 5/8” threaded boom and stand mounting hole. At the front of the microphone you’ll find the Blue logo again and below that the gain and settings dial. To adjust the gain, just twist the dial on the front. The blue LEDs indicate the gain. The green LEDs, on the other hand, are a live sound meter. If you short press the dial key, you’ll mute the microphone and the LED color inside the dial changes to red. It’s really subtle and might be hard to see in a brightly lit room though. If you press and hold the dial, the LEDs change to white which allow you to adjust the headset monitor volume, and if you press and hold again, the LEDs turn magenta and you can change the balance between listening to mic input and your computer’s audio through the monitor headset. All of the LED colors can be customized in Logitech's G Hub's settings.
What I noticed with this mic is that if you’re any sort of distance away from it, you’re going to want to turn up the gain. At minimum I have it set to '3 dots' or around 20-25 in G Hub (out of 100). When the gain is set to 0 the audio is so quiet it's nearly unusable, which wasn't a problem with the original Blue Yeti. With the headphones plugged into the bottom of the mic, you can use them as monitors and listen to both your computer's audio out and your mic input at the same time. You can also adjust the balance and determine how loud you want the headphone volume and the split between computer audio and mic audio. All the settings found on the physical buttons of the microphone can be adjusted in G Hub as well.
One of the things that you can do with the Yeti X that you couldn’t do with older Yeti mics is apply live filters to your voice via Blue Voice, again found in G Hub. You can select pre-set profiles or create your own and save it as a new one. Each of these profiles varies somewhat from each other, for example the AM radio sounds a bit more compressed, and you can adjust the pre-sets too to suit what you think sounds good to your ear. One thing you do have to keep in mind though is that after you close out of G Hub, your mic will still be using the profile you last selected, even after you restart your computer. Also, when using monitor headphones, you can’t actually hear the Blue Voice filter that’s applied; so what you'll hear is just your own normal voice, so it’s possible to have a Blue Voice filter applied without being aware, until you listen to the recording. So just make sure to have the sound profile you want selected before broadcasting or recording.
Let’s take a moment to look at an understand the mic polar pickup patterns of the Yeti X. If you’ve used the Blue Yeti before, you’re probably already familiar with these so you can skip this paragraph. The overlapping circles icon is for stereo mode. Just like it sounds, stereo captures both the left and right channels separately and is perfect for capturing a natural and realistic sound image, that is placement of where sound are coming from, when there are multiple sound sources in front of the mic. So if you talk into the mic while rotating it, you should hear your voice shifting to the right or left earpiece/speaker as you move around the mic. In this mode there's a 'dead' spot in the back of the mic where the pickup is buffered. The circle icon is omni-directional mode and in this mode the mic picks up all sound equally from every direction. The dimpled circle mode is called cardioid which primarily picks up sound from in front of the microphone and sounds from the sides and back of the mic are deadened so you get a really clean, clear, and crisp capture of the source directly in front of the mic. The last mode is the figure-8 or bidirectional pattern and this is ideal for when you have two speakers sitting opposite each other because there are dead areas on the sides, but the pickup from the front and rear of the mic should be clear.
After having used the Blue Yeti mic for many years, I will say that having the live voice processing is pretty awesome. Not only does it save me time in post processing because I can remove more ambient noise upfront and customize it on the fly to current sound conditions, but I think the sound produced overall is just a little bit more rich and clean sounding, even without Blue Voice filters, thanks to the new four-capsule condenser array, which is a step up from the three-capsule design of the previous model.
The last thing to cover is the screw mount on the bottom of the mic. It’s a 5/8” diameter thread, just like its predecessor so for most mic stands and booms you’ll need to get a 3/8” adapter. I recommend the stainless steel metal ones because I’ve gotten the brass ones before but they’re kind of soft and the threads strip easily on those. You’ll need to remove the Yeti X from its stand by removing the thumb screws on either side of the stand. Once you’ve attached the adapter, you can mount the mic on standard 3/8” stands, booms, and shock mounts to suit your setup.
Whether you’re a podcaster, musician, or singer, the Yeti X Pro delivers clear, crisp, and reliable sound performance for a pretty affordable price. If you’re considering between the two and can afford to spend the extra money, I definitely recommend the Yeti X Pro over the Blue Yeti, but if you’re on a tight budget or already have the original Blue Yeti you probably wouldn’t notice a huge difference unless you plan to live process your voice with Blue Voice for a completely different feel.
Buy it at Amazon: Logitech Blue Yeti X Professional Microphone (2019 release) [Affiliate Link]
Takeaway: Clean/clear audio, awesome live voice processing, easy to use and setup.
You’ll receive the microphone, 6.5’ microUSb cable, and a quick start guide. The guide shows you through pictures what each of the controls on the microphone does but doesn’t really do a great job explaining what everything is so it's a bit of trial an error unless you do a little research online. Note that this is a side address mic and should be upright when you’re speaking into it, do not speak into the top of it because it won’t be able to pickup your voice from that angle.
The Yeti X has a pretty similar shape to its predecessor the Blue Yeti and is about 11.25” tall in the desktop stand. Its weighted 5” diameter base has a foam pad on the bottom to keep it from sliding and provides some buffer for vibrations coming up through the tabletop into your mic. The stand is made from thick heavy steel with a matte black finish, and the Blue logo is stamped in chrome on the back. On the back of the mic itself is the input pattern selection button and LED indicators. At the base of the mic you have the headphone output port, microUSB output port, and 5/8” threaded boom and stand mounting hole. At the front of the microphone you’ll find the Blue logo again and below that the gain and settings dial. To adjust the gain, just twist the dial on the front. The blue LEDs indicate the gain. The green LEDs, on the other hand, are a live sound meter. If you short press the dial key, you’ll mute the microphone and the LED color inside the dial changes to red. It’s really subtle and might be hard to see in a brightly lit room though. If you press and hold the dial, the LEDs change to white which allow you to adjust the headset monitor volume, and if you press and hold again, the LEDs turn magenta and you can change the balance between listening to mic input and your computer’s audio through the monitor headset. All of the LED colors can be customized in Logitech's G Hub's settings.
What I noticed with this mic is that if you’re any sort of distance away from it, you’re going to want to turn up the gain. At minimum I have it set to '3 dots' or around 20-25 in G Hub (out of 100). When the gain is set to 0 the audio is so quiet it's nearly unusable, which wasn't a problem with the original Blue Yeti. With the headphones plugged into the bottom of the mic, you can use them as monitors and listen to both your computer's audio out and your mic input at the same time. You can also adjust the balance and determine how loud you want the headphone volume and the split between computer audio and mic audio. All the settings found on the physical buttons of the microphone can be adjusted in G Hub as well.
One of the things that you can do with the Yeti X that you couldn’t do with older Yeti mics is apply live filters to your voice via Blue Voice, again found in G Hub. You can select pre-set profiles or create your own and save it as a new one. Each of these profiles varies somewhat from each other, for example the AM radio sounds a bit more compressed, and you can adjust the pre-sets too to suit what you think sounds good to your ear. One thing you do have to keep in mind though is that after you close out of G Hub, your mic will still be using the profile you last selected, even after you restart your computer. Also, when using monitor headphones, you can’t actually hear the Blue Voice filter that’s applied; so what you'll hear is just your own normal voice, so it’s possible to have a Blue Voice filter applied without being aware, until you listen to the recording. So just make sure to have the sound profile you want selected before broadcasting or recording.
Let’s take a moment to look at an understand the mic polar pickup patterns of the Yeti X. If you’ve used the Blue Yeti before, you’re probably already familiar with these so you can skip this paragraph. The overlapping circles icon is for stereo mode. Just like it sounds, stereo captures both the left and right channels separately and is perfect for capturing a natural and realistic sound image, that is placement of where sound are coming from, when there are multiple sound sources in front of the mic. So if you talk into the mic while rotating it, you should hear your voice shifting to the right or left earpiece/speaker as you move around the mic. In this mode there's a 'dead' spot in the back of the mic where the pickup is buffered. The circle icon is omni-directional mode and in this mode the mic picks up all sound equally from every direction. The dimpled circle mode is called cardioid which primarily picks up sound from in front of the microphone and sounds from the sides and back of the mic are deadened so you get a really clean, clear, and crisp capture of the source directly in front of the mic. The last mode is the figure-8 or bidirectional pattern and this is ideal for when you have two speakers sitting opposite each other because there are dead areas on the sides, but the pickup from the front and rear of the mic should be clear.
After having used the Blue Yeti mic for many years, I will say that having the live voice processing is pretty awesome. Not only does it save me time in post processing because I can remove more ambient noise upfront and customize it on the fly to current sound conditions, but I think the sound produced overall is just a little bit more rich and clean sounding, even without Blue Voice filters, thanks to the new four-capsule condenser array, which is a step up from the three-capsule design of the previous model.
The last thing to cover is the screw mount on the bottom of the mic. It’s a 5/8” diameter thread, just like its predecessor so for most mic stands and booms you’ll need to get a 3/8” adapter. I recommend the stainless steel metal ones because I’ve gotten the brass ones before but they’re kind of soft and the threads strip easily on those. You’ll need to remove the Yeti X from its stand by removing the thumb screws on either side of the stand. Once you’ve attached the adapter, you can mount the mic on standard 3/8” stands, booms, and shock mounts to suit your setup.
Whether you’re a podcaster, musician, or singer, the Yeti X Pro delivers clear, crisp, and reliable sound performance for a pretty affordable price. If you’re considering between the two and can afford to spend the extra money, I definitely recommend the Yeti X Pro over the Blue Yeti, but if you’re on a tight budget or already have the original Blue Yeti you probably wouldn’t notice a huge difference unless you plan to live process your voice with Blue Voice for a completely different feel.
Buy it at Amazon: Logitech Blue Yeti X Professional Microphone (2019 release) [Affiliate Link]
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