Now this looks interesting. Out of pure luck I just found out about this new broadcast microphone when double-checking that I had the right URL for Blues website. I haven’t received any press release about it, and all that I can find about it on their website is a one page PDF filled mostly with the regular marketing blurb.

A few things worth to mention:

• It’s Blue, so it looks great.
• Features “phantom power pure dynamic technology”. I don’t know if it means anything or if it’s just marketing gibberish, but it requires phantom power.
• Supposedly has consistent sonic quality whatever you plug it into. Yeah right, like you can just remove the mic preamp from the calculation. Allow me to enter skeptic mode.
• Has a bass roll-off switch.
• It will be released in August and I’ll try to get ahold of one for review.

Blue Microphones

I just received a press release with new pictures on the Blue Microphones Snowflake (previous post), apparently the first pictures were of a prototype. Since I think this mic is drop-dead gorgeous I’ll post them. I don’t know anything about the quality of the mic. Blue calls it “the portable first professional USB microphone”, a statement that possibly could be criticized from more than one angle. If I ever lay my hands on one I’ll let you know.

Blue Microphones

Flux have released a new freebie plug-in called Stereo Tools for RTAS, AU and VST (Windows and OS X). Stereo Tool offers controls and visual feedback for the stereo stage.

From the Flux press release

Stereo Tool features ultra precise controls of input gain and individual pan for left and right channels. A phase inverter is available for each channel. A global stereo pan and a stereo width setting are also implemented to complete the management of the stereo signal.

Stereo Tool also offers an accurate visual feedback reflecting the signal content. A vector scope display, Peak meters for both inputs and outputs, and a phase correlation meter permanently monitor the signal.

As all Flux:: plug-ins it features 64 bit floating point processing, up to 8 FS (384 KHz).

Flux

Acon Acoustica (previous post) have been updated to 4.1. Among the new features that I can think of that’s specifically of interest for podcasters we find a multi-band compressor (only in Acoustica Premium), enhanced de-crackle feature (also only in Premium), and batch processing wizard for processing multiple files at once.

Check out Acon’s website for details.

Speaking of updates, M-Audio have updated their Session software to 1.6.3. Go to M-Audio for details.

If they’re made for broadcast they should work well for podcast right?
More →

I’ve reported about the M-Audio MicroTrack in the past. M-Audio have now posted a couple of users stories from established sound editors, journalists and editors. Keep in mind that it’s M-Audio that makes this product so it’s very biased, but nevertheless, might be a interesting read.

MicroTrack user stories at M-Audio

Here’s a link to a big mic shootout at Transom. There are a lot of out-of-this-world-priced microphones there, but there are decently priced as well up for tests. Perhaps this can help you in your next microphone purchase?

Via: Control Rool - Mixin’ it with Dr J