blue ball first impressions

eeldip

eeldip

New member
(just posted this on tapeop, but i thought you guys would like some thoughts on this as well)

again they got me. passing a guitar center on my way home from work on payday. blue ball in the mic case. last one. dont need another mic, but...

first off, i guess i didnt read much about it, but i assumed it was the size of a golf ball. nope, its bigger than a softball. funny thing to hold and sing into - for once a non-phallic mic! sing into a breast instead of a dick! no denying it looks cool. very flash gordon deco with a tinge of annoying new cal arts style design.

the mount seems to work well, you screw it right into a mic stand and it can rotate (with the stand) and pivot. but you surely arent going to "sqeeze it in" anywhere. close micing a snare in a crowded set? no way.

since i had only an hour or so to test it last night i did a vocal mic shootout with it against a beyer m88tg, a sennheiser md441, and an ev 408 (my other round dynamic mic).

impressions: it is not as detailed as the way more expensive 441. it is not as smooth as the more expensive m88. not as peaky and agressive as the cheaper 408. all in all, i wouldnt pick it for my voice.

i listened to the ball a bit, then became focused on comparing the 441 and the m88. what great mics! 441 was detailed without being gritty on top, picked up a lot of breath and air in a condenser like way, but contained it in a dynamic like way. the m88 was creamy and bright without being annoying in the least bit, it has a wonderful way of dealing with ssses and smacking sounds.

moving over to the blue ball was a bit of a let down. the top end was pretty nice- smooth but not as polished sounding as the m88. (it reminded me of an re16 actually, which is a pretty decent vocal mic. i wish i still had mine around to compare them head to head.) the mids sounded pretty natural, and the bass was under control- unlike the m88 which absolutely needed a low cut (but once you cut it... sounds so good). i would guess this is due to having a bit less proximity effect.

anyway, tonite ill try it on drums, and if i have time, a guitar amp.
 
A RE15 or RE16 doesn't have as much "air" and detail as a M88 when you compare
them directly. They do have a tone similar to a RCA 77 ribbon microphone
on vocals, so they're a great budget way to get that retro 50/60's sound.

Chris
 
Cool, thanks for the quick review... I'd like to know how it works out on drums, so please post the results. Thanks

Oh, and so far I kind of get the feeling your not going to keep it...
 
well, i just concluded that it isnt as good of a vocal mic as two of the most respected world class vocal mics.

it isnt bad. considering the price, i think it is a great way to buy a new "good" dynamic mic. i paid $150 for my m88 (although, i have to get it worked on- the big disadvantage of buying used) and 225 euros for my 441. the blue ball comes in around the same price as those, and is a clear step down, but i got it NEW... a new 441 is like $600 and a new m88 is $300. they should be in another class.

so if you are afraid of buying used mics for some strange reason, its a great deal.

and i think i forgot to be properly emphatic about how cool it looks. i had a friend over who doesnt give a shit about mics and she looked at it and said, "what the hell is that?".

"a mic, it just came out like today or yesterday"

"whoa, it looks cool!"
 
pretty worth it.

wouldnt be my first fancy dynamic mic. wouldnt be my second. but for those that have lost count. totally worth it.

it will never go back in its case. it is sitting on top of a stand right now on display, i dont see any reason to put it away ever.

and think of this: you stick someone in front of an m88 and they think, "oh a slightly more fancy sm58". you stick someone in front of the blue ball, and they think they are going to be singing to ming the merciless! or better yet his hot daughter!
 
tonite maybe.

i am going for drums first. i want to hear what the top end does to cymbals and snare. might be nice...

since there is almost no way it is going to fly as a close snare mic, i think i am going to try it in front of drums/oh role, against a 57, the 441, and maybe my m260.
 
May be you could try the Blue Balls on the bottom of the snare with a SM57 or M201, or whatever you use on the top ... and just for fun, please try the Blue Balls in the kick too. thanks
 
I heard it was supposed to be good where a 57 is good, guitar amps, snare...
I've been screaming at people about the 441 forever now, and the more I tell them it can be had used for $250, the more people go out and buy a $400 cheap condensor.
I dont get it. Its one of the best mics ever made.
I would like to have an M88 too, I will eventually.
Peace.
 
you are right. bottom of the snare is a place where it would fit.
actually now that i think of it, it might work really well with shell micing the snare too- plenty of room for that job. and it might work well because the mic is pretty bright...
 
ok, day two of blue ball testing didnt go well for the blue ball at all. in fact, it went so badly that i am going to run it through a few more tests then take it back to GC to compare it to the ones that they (might) have there (if they havent sold out again). i have a feeling that blue ball number 0000142 is a lemon.

i had only about an hour to check it out, so take my experience with a grain of salt. but i did a chest level 5 foot back drum kit test. this is one of my favorite positions for all sorts of mics, and i figured it would be a good way to start. i ran the blue ball against some regular dynamics: the 57, a 441 and a m88tg. also i tried out the beyer m260, cause it is my favorite mic in this spot. and for good measure i threw an earthworks omni up (to check the room sound- see below). instead of using my earthworks lab pre today i used my gaines audio mp1- a decent, neutral transformer based pre. it has a little high end swish and some bass enhancement compared to the earthworks pre and i generally prefer it for "whole drum kit" mic positions.

all i can say is that the blue ball sounded like total garbage in this app. and i mean TOTAL GARBAGE. like there was something terribly wrong with it. or someone had secretly replaced it with a $5 mic.

then i sang though it and compared it to yesterday's voice recordings. it sounded about the same. suddenly, the stuff that i thought wasnt so hot about it reminded me of the terrible way it captured a drum set.

my first thought was that perhaps it had a real wide cardiod pattern, and that the crappy sound was my room (i was mostly comparing it to hypercardiods- and i know from plenty of experience my control room doesnt sound great with drums). this is why i put my earthworks in that spot. nope earthworks sounded fine.

then i decided to check the off axis response. so i sang a really terrible song into it about where i was singing. like, "i am singing right into the mic, about 3 inches back, i am slowly moving backwards, i am slowly moving back in, now i am moving up above the mic, ..." and so on. as i moved off axis, i could hear just a little funny resonances, like some of the attenuation wasnt so good for some bad frequencies. i tried this song with the 441, and as i moved away, the highs very nicely rolled off and the signal dropped, but no strange resonances. (there could be a couple explanations for this besides the blue ball having bad off axis response... but...)

anyway, i was so mad at the blue ball that i stopped testing it. i swear i have a bad one... this mic cant be that bad in this application. the 57 just blew it out of the water! and the 57 was the worst sounding of the bunch (although, all things considered, pretty good).

the good news is that it was another shining day for the 441. i still prefered the m260, but this is the position that i learned to love because of the m260. the 441 was only a notch behind it. certainly the 441 had better, tighter bass and really decent cymbal sound (better than the earthworks even... but i think cymbals are an instrument that needs something slightly inaccurate to mic them, otherwise they are just too harsh for me). but it just couldnt beat that meaty ribbon sound with the snare and toms, and the wonderful ribbon cymbal sound.

anyway, the point is that so far the 441 has been in the top 2 for every test. i have a strong feeling that this mic would be, bar none, the best all around mic for a home project studio like mine. little early for the final call on this but i will say, anytime someone starts the, "what $200 LD condenser mic should i get", i'll have to say, up that to $250, skip the LD condenser and get the 441.

today, i think i am going to check it with all of my different preamps to see if perhaps it is very sensitive to phantom power. (another possible explanation for its bad performance) if it is, i am going to get rid of it. i dont need this sort of headache when i am dealing with a dynamic mic! if it isnt, i am still going to go back to GC and see what is up.
 
Thank you for the very interesting report on the Blue Ball... I've really been thinking about getting one but I'm not so sure now... I'll wait to hear what your final conclusion is. Thank you very much for sharing your findings with me and I'm looking forward to hearing/reading your final report/review. Thanks again. :)
 
well, it could just be MY blue ball.

you could go to a store and quickly compare it to another mic.

if they all are as bad as the one i have, you should be able to figure it out in a moment or two.



another thing is that my blue ball was the last one at the GC, and it was sitting the glass display case. it might have been abused in some way before i got it...


i dont want to get too down on it before i know the whole story.
 
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And another mic that you don't want to buy is the Audio-Technica AT3035. I gave $200 bucks for that mic, and it sounds like shit. I sounds like some one is boosting the mids and cuting the lows. I tryed it on vocals, guitars and drums and hated it on all of them. I'm going to sell it. Maybe i can get $180 for it at the most.


Zeke
 
ahhh yes, banjo center. The blue ball, thanks I'll pass. They'll be going for 59.99 in 3 months. I actually went into a guitar center about a week ago. There's one about 4 blocks from my studio and sometimes I need things on the fly. I always do a quick walk-through when I'm there to see if there is any decent used gear. Actually the fucking store manager practically starts shoving gear into my face. I went into the "pro" audio room and heard a salesman talking a load of shit to some poor sucker who someone was giving $25,000 put together a studio. This poor guy new almost absolutely nothing. The sales rep was talking about how he had one of the biggest most well equipped pro-tools studios in the area, blah blah blah then he turned around and saw the nubmeister. I was paid help this retard install his pro-tools rig, wire his patch-pay, etc. Then he called me back a few weeks later because He couldn't figure out how to get sound into his computer! needless to say he immediately stopped jabbering when he saw the nubmeister. I started cracking up and said to the customer "you poor bastard" and left. fucking banjo-center.
 
eeldip said:
anyway, i was so mad at the blue ball that i stopped testing it.
Click to expand...

I hear it makes a good softball.

Seriously, I'd be very suprised that BLUE would release a total piece of garbage. Not all of thier mic's are for everybody's tastes, but if your is as big a piece of trash as it seems to be, there's got to be something wrong with it. Maybe there are some bugs that havn't quite been worked out yet. If you try another, let us know how it goes.
 
eeldip said:


anyway, the point is that so far the 441 has been in the top 2 for every test. i have a strong feeling that this mic would be, bar none, the best all around mic for a home project studio like mine. little early for the final call on this but i will say, anytime someone starts the, "what $200 LD condenser mic should i get", i'll have to say, up that to $250, skip the LD condenser and get the 441.

Click to expand...

A-fuckin-men baby. I been preaching it too brother. Spread the word!
What always baffles me is how people come on and say 'whats the best mic for $300" and I say "used MD441" and they say "oh" and then go buy an NTK (insert whatever other mic here) and come back and say "doesnt sound right for blah-blah or doesnt suit me or blah blah). All they gotta do is listen to me once and they will be proud of thier purchase, yet I never convince anyone over a cheap condensor. I guess its ugly compared to an NTK or an AT 4050, but I think its cool looking. Makes a nice coversation piece cause people always go "damn, check THAT out" and I always include that Stevie Nicks actually used this very mic live before I bought it from her on ebay.
People get a kick out of that.
I just smile.
Its a good mic people. Check it out.
Peace.
I guess I'll never know why.
 
tubedude said:
What always baffles me is how people come on and say 'whats the best mic for $300" and I say "used MD441" and they say "oh" and then go buy an NTK (insert whatever other mic here)...
I guess I'll never know why.
Click to expand...

because used mics dont have marketing departments. my guess at least.
 
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