The blue yeti microphone has quickly become one of the most popular choices for gamers and Streamers alike. It’s a popular choice for content creators because it delivers great sound quality and is relatively affordable. While it offers Great sound quality out of the box as I found out when I purchased my own blue yeti mic, there are a few things you can do to make it sound even better. In this blog post, we will go through the best blue yeti settings that I experienced myself to make your recordings sound professional, Clear, and rich. We will also go in-depth about reducing background noise with your mic. So let’s dive in.
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Best Blue yeti mic Settings
After unboxing your blue yeti condenser microphone you’ll face a few buttons that play a major role in setting up your mic for the desired atmosphere, it’s important to set those buttons correctly in order to obtain the most perfect results.
Polar patterns: which mode do you need to choose?
It’s important to know the mode that a blue yeti mic supports, in earlier articles, we had an in-depth guide about blue yeti pattern modes. In this blog post, we’ll have a quick overview, so you get to know each mode and what it does. That said, the blue yeti mic supports four essential modes.
- Cardioid Mode: This pattern mode is the most commonly used mode by streamers and gamers as well. Because it picks up the sound directly in front of the mic. It delivers a rich and a robust sound quality
- Omnidirectional Mode: This mode picks up the voice from all directions equally (°360 radius). It’s best used in multi-person podcasts and conference calls
- Stereo Mode: The stereo mode Uses both the left and right direction to capture a wide, realistic sound equally in an opposite way. This mode is perfect for ASMR videos.
- Bidirectional Mode: Records from both the front and rear of the microphone equally. It’s perfect for dual interviews while having someone sitting in front of you.
Adjust the Gain
The microphone gains refer to how sensitive the microphone picks your voice. It controls the level of sound input in the mic. to make it simple, it’s similar to what a volume button does to a speaker. Generally. The lower the gain the better the results are. Because a higher gain means higher sensitivity, which results in picking up background noise and unwanted blusters.
The best option to do is to set the gain at around %25 and start adjusting according to your circumstances. (You can see the central knob on the backside of the blue yeti microphone).
If you’re in a noisy room, you’ll want to turn it down so the blue yeti can pick up your voice more easily. If you’re in a quiet room, you can turn it up IF NEEDED so it picks up your voice even from a distance without worrying about background noises.
The Distance
The best distance to the microphone varies from one mic to another, but the best approach is 5-8 inches. This will help ensure that your voice is clear and audible. However, The best distance to the microphone really depends on the situation that you are in. If you are in a large room then you might want to be farther away from the microphone so that your voice can carry throughout the space. Nevertheless, if you are in a smaller room, you might want to be closer to the microphone so that your voice is more intimate sounding. The same goes if you want to record voice-overs, getting close to the mic makes your sound look rich and deep. However, By being too close to the microphone, you might end up sounding muffled or fuzzy. Ultimately, it is up to you to experiment with different distances and figure out what sounds best for your particular situation.
Volume button
If you take a look at your Blue Yeti mic you’ll find a volume button. It has nothing to do with the recording input, and it doesn’t affect the quality. It’s used for playback, in case you want to attach a headphone, you can adjust the volume using the button.
Consider a Pop Filter
The blue yeti mic doesn’t come with a pop filter, but considering a pop filter or a pop screen is good to improve the overall sound quality and get better results. While it’s not essential but it’s necessary for recording voices overs and speaking to the microphone. A pop filter is a noise protection filter for microphones, it helps eliminate plosives and reduces popping sounds.
Reduce vibration noises
Blue yeti mics come with a sturdy stand that works out pretty well, you can install it on your gaming desk and use it right away. But It comes with some disadvantages, it takes some movement space, especially if you use it while playing your favorite online game, and it also picks up vibrations which make the sound a bit glitchy and not professional. To resolve this issue, consider a boom arm. It doesn’t only save you space, but it improves your sound quality by picking the perfect distance that you want without interfering with your movements.
Setting up blue yeti mic with pc
Connecting your Blue Yeti microphone to the pc has never been easier. Just connect the USB cable to the USB input in your computer, wait for a moment until the drivers get installed and you’re ready to go. That’s it
To avoid any need for troubleshooting, make sure to run a few steps
- to make sure your microphone is selected as the default mic: Go to “control panels” > “sound” > “Recording“: make sure “Blue yeti microphone” is checked.
- check the stereo Mix level: usually, this option is fine, but it’s better to check it. Sometimes it’s turned off by default which results in your microphone not picking up any sound: “control panels” > “sound” > “Recording” > select “blue yeti microphone” > click “propriety” > select “levels” from the menu > set the value to “100”
Using applications and post-production tools
OBS, Audacity, and voice meeter, to name a few, and many other applications are beneficial in making your Blue yeti microphone sound better, they come with plenty of filters, presets, noise reduction tools, and many more that you can take advantage of while streaming or recording your gameplay.
How to Reduce Background Noise on Blue Yeti Microphones
Background noises in microphones are huge issues every gamers or streamer face while playing online or recording for youtube, that’s why we specified a huge portion of this article to talk about this matter. Let’s break it down.
Reduce Yur Blue yeti mic background noise- At A Glance
- Use an equalizer to filter out low frequencies.
- Move your microphone closer to your mouth.
- Use a pop filter.
- Use acoustic panels to absorb sound waves.
- Set up a sound booth (if you have the space).
- Use denoising software (such as Audacity) to remove unwanted noises from your recordings.
- Make sure your recording environment is quiet, to begin with.
- Check your microphone’s positioning and angles.
- Reduce the gain on your microphone preamp.
- Use The Right Blue Yeti mode (Polar Patterns)
Make sure your Blue Yeti is in the right location
If you have your Blue Yeti set up in an area where there is a lot of ambient noise, you’re not going to be able to get rid of it completely no matter what you do. The best way to reduce background noise is to make sure your Blue Yeti is in an ideal location. If possible, try and set it up in a room that you can close the door to. That way, you can eliminate a lot of the outside noise that might be coming in.
Use a pop filter
Pop filters are great at reducing any excess noise that might be coming from your mouth as you’re speaking into the Blue Yeti. A pop filter’s major function is to reduce plosives by loosening the force of the puffs of air directed at the microphone. If you don’t have a pop filter, you can use a piece of foam or even your hand to place it over the top of the microphone when you’re not using it. This will help deflect any unwanted sounds away from the microphone.
Invest in acoustic treatment
If you’re serious about reducing the amount of background noise on your Blue Yeti, then you need to invest in some acoustic treatment. This can be anything from soundproofing foam to acoustic panels. By absorbing excess sound waves, acoustic treatment will help reduce the overall noise level in your recording space.
Using Software and applications
Softwares are great and must-have solutions that you can take advantage of in reducing background noise and improving the overall sound quality for your blue yeti microphone. They’re free and powerful, you just need to learn how to play around with the settings to get the best results. Let’s dive into some of the most popular ones.
Noise gate
Noise Gate is software that helps remove any unwanted background noise from your recordings. It works by essentially “gating” out any sounds that fall below a certain decibel level. This is a great way to get rid of constant low-level noises like fans or air conditioners. They are more popular with their electronic device that you can use (but it’s not necessary to have one) software solutions will definitely do the job.
while noise gate is more intended for professionals and sound engineers. I would recommend an easier, yet more powerful software you should use.
Audacity
Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application software. It’s powerful and has lots of functions including the “noise reduction” effect. Today we will only focus on this feature.
How to Reduce Background Noise on Your Blue Yeti Microphone Using audacity
“Noise Reduction” effect can reduce constant background sounds such as hum, whistle, whine, buzz, and “hiss”, such as tape hiss, fan noise or FM/webcast carrier noise. It is not suitable for individual clicks and pops, or irregular background noise such as from traffic or an audience.”
To use The noise reduction effect in Audacity you can follow those steps:
Step 1: Get noise profile
- Select the area of your recorded voiceover which only includes voice (this is probably at the beginning of your recording or any other area) that has a minimum of 0.05 seconds of length (a longer noise profile is better) I would suggest 0.2 seconds or more.
- Click “Effect” > “Noise Reduction.”
- Click “Get Noise Profile.”
That’s it. Now you got your noise profile, let’s apply the parameters in the next step
Step 2 – Reduce the Noise
- Select the entire recorded audio or the area from which you want to reduce the noise
- Click “Effect” > “Noise Reduction” > “ok”
Note: you can use the default values (recommended) or Use the lowest value that reduces the noise to an acceptable level. Higher values than required may cause the noise to be even quieter feel free to play around with the settings)
Using Voice meteer
unlike audacity, voice meeter is an application that changes your microphone settings and applies effect while you’re in-game or live streaming. Voicemeter uses plugins to apply filters and effects in order to reduce background noise for your blue yeti mic. Like “Denoising”.
While professionals reconned using those plugins in post-production purposes for a very reasonable matter: keep in mind that most of these denoising plugins have very high latency not suitable for live situations!
So you should keep that in mind and better try it out yourself with different plugins and check the results
Using OBS
When it comes to live-streaming and screen recording for gaming purposes. There is no better software than OBS. it’s a free and open-source application made specifically for gamers and streamers.
Fortunately, OBS delivers noise reduction effects using “noise gate” audio filter. If you ask yourself how to reduce background noise on blue yeti, here’s the answer:
- Click on the “Settings gear” in the Audio Mixer section > select “Filter“
- Click the “+” and select “noise gate” from the menu
It’s as simple as that. The default value is set to -30dB and that’s the most suitable to start with.
Or you can watch this video instead for a more in-depth guide and tips
Wrapping up
Experiment with different settings: There are a lot of different settings on the Blue Yeti that can help reduce background noise. Playing around with things like gain and volume can help eliminate any unwanted sounds. You might have to experiment a bit to find the perfect setting for your needs but it’ll be worth it in the end when you have crisp, clean recordings with no excess noise.
you can explore more about audacity and how to use a condenser microphone in this article: How To use a condenser microphone – Beginner’s Guide
FAQs
Why is my mic quality terrible?
If you experience choppy or bad sound quality with your microphone, you’ll have to run a few troubleshooting steps. First of all, check your mic cable if it connects perfectly to the USB port, secondly, make sure your gain and polar pattern knobs are selected at the desired levels, as you don’t want your mic to pick up sound for a different location where you are. Next, check your software settings and make sure your drivers are installed, and the recording level is at least %90, then run a few recording samples if the issues persist, unplug your microphone cable and plug it in again, then restart your pc and let it install the driver and give it another try. If you still have issues with low or bad recording quality then this is most likely related to hardware issues and I’m afraid that your mic is broken. In this case, you should contact the customer support of your mic supplier or consider a new one (make sure to invest in a good quality USB mic).
Can you improve the audio quality?
Yes, even if your mic produces a low-quality sound, or has background noise in it, luckily. Plenty of software with advanced options like background noise canceling, quality enhancers, and many other features and presets that can be used to improve your audio quality at a professional level! guess what! you don’t have to be a pro audio editor or a producer, most recent software like audacity and voicemeeter banana comes with user-friendly interfaces and tons of presets that you can apply with a few clicks.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Blue Yeti microphone is a great choice for gamers and streamers who are looking for ways to improve the sound quality of their voice recordings. In this article, we’ve outlined the best settings for the Blue Yeti microphone depending on what you plan to use it for. We hope that these tips help you get the most out of your Blue Yeti and improve your gaming or streaming experience! luckily, those settings apply just fine with any USB condenser microphone you have.
