Blue Microphone Yeti USB Desktop Microphone, Whiteout

The Blue Yeti USB microphone is plug-and-play in MacOS right out of the box, if you are using it only for input. If you need the built-in headphone jack, it will take some reading to find out how to set it up as both an input and output device, but once you do, you can have zero-latency monitoring. The four pickup patterns are more than most of us will need, but someone will need each of them sometime, so it's a big plus to have them available. The Volume knob on the front controls the headphone jack volume. The Gain knob on the back controls the level going into your computer. 12:00 works for me. If you use this to record audio for video or multitracking, it's necessary to go into your DAW and decrease the size of the buffer because at 512 the delay is very noticeable upon video playback. I went to 128 which yielded ~17 ms of latency, which isn't noticeable with video. I haven't yet found any use for the Logitech G app, but I'm not a gamer. Note also that the Yeti has a 3/4” thread on the bottom for use on a mic stand, or hanging upside down in your podcast studio. Just unscrew the base from the sides of the mic. A studio-quality USB mic that I've been looking at for years. It's finally come down in price and is affordable for a very tiny studio such as mine.

Overall this has been a perfect microphone for me. Personally I needed it for streaming, and it's been great for that. The audio is crisp, clear, and can be tuned easily. I remember everyone swearing by this microphone years ago and I see why. It's still very relevant to this day. I recommend this to anyone looking for a good microphone for their gaming or streaming setup :)