Justin Bieber (on the enCORE 200) with Ernie Halter at La Cave:

Read the full story here

Find out more about Ernie Halter

Ernie Halter – a Blue Mics MOB artist– came to Blue studio in July to record a new track and talk about upcoming albums. You can hear the full podcast here:

Ernie Halter- Official Blue Microphones Podcast by Blue Microphones

Kina Grannis trying out the Woodpecker

Kina’s new album will be dropping on April 15th and we got a sneak peek of her sound on the Bottle. Check it out here:

She self-released her debut full-length Stairwells in February of 2010 debuting on Billboard’s Top 200 and #5 on iTunes’ Pop Chart. On April 5th, Kina will re-release a remixed and remastered version of Stairwells – which will feature 4 brand new tracks – as well as a deluxe version that will include additional original music, select cover songs from her YouTube channel, exclusive videos and the offical music video for “Valentine,” which has amassed 7-million views on YouTube.  Also, Kina’s North American World In Front Of Me headline tour will begin on April 2 at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall.  Kina’s music is both sweet and melancholy, but always filled with hope.

Podcast

In 2007, Kina joined YouTube, made a music video and entered herself into a contest. A few months later, her video for “Message From Your Heart” aired during the Superbowl and its 97 million viewers (or 194 million eyeballs, depending on how you’re keeping track) and she walked away with a record deal.

Get to know Kina and learn how she turned a YouTube video into a Superbowl ad in our podcast.

Have you heard Danko Jones?

The first single, “Full of Regret”, is currently climbing the US radio charts quickly and the video, described by MTV Buzzworthy as “one-part Guy Ritchie, one-part Quentin Tarantino — and it’s pretty much a blast from start to finish”, features Elijah Wood, Selma Blair, Lemmy Kilmister and Mike Watt.

Blue Microphones podcast with Danko Jones will go up next week – Subscribe here!

Want to go see them?

Their US tour starts tomorrow!! Full list of tour dates can be found below. Described by Spin Magazine as the “World’s most entertaining hard rockers” and by Maxim as “sounding like AC/DC sniffing glue with Mötley Crue” this is rock in its purest form.

Frank Turner says:

“I sat down in my friend’s back room to record a song for a Bad Religion covers album. I didn’t have time to get into a proper studio so I just had my macbook and my Yeti mic. I used it to record every part of the song – guitars, vocals and some soft keys as well, and it was perfect, so easy to use, and the finished version came out great!”

Which mic do you use and why did you choose it?

I use the Blue Eyeball to webcast most of my live shows, as well as to do webcasts from my house, the van, or anywhere else I might get the urge to webcast. I chose it because I wasn’t happy with the audio quality available from the integrated laptop mic, nor with any of the other USB webcams I’ve used.

In what ways are you using the mic to get the best sound for your purpose?

Well, in this case it’s a simple as placing is as close to centered in front of the sound source as possible and setting the volume levels properly in my sound card so there’s no peaking. This distance is dictated by the camera more than the mic, because there are obviously certain things I want in the frame and the camera doesn’t have a zoom capability (which isn’t at all unusual).

What is your best advice to others using this mic?

This one couldn’t be any simpler — just plug into a USB slot and you’re off and running. I like to set a mic level in the soundcard (system preferences for mac; volume control for windows).

What programs do you use to record, edit, upload, etc your recordings?

I just use the free version of Quicktime to record audio/video (like when doing a youtube video), and I use ustream.tv to webcast live. It’s possible to separate the audio from the video once it’s recorded and tweak it in an audio-editing program of your choice, but for the stuff I do I don’t find it to be necessary. I like the grimy, live sound.

Any examples?

Here’s a video that I did last week for youtube. The video quality isn’t great, but this is due mainly to me not encoding it properly prior to uploading it to youtube. The raw .mov on my computer looks a hundred times better. Of course, they both sound great, which is my main concern. You can also check out several of my archived live shows on www.ustream.tv/jtspangler

In addition to having his remix chosen and listened to by multi-platinum artist, Xzibit, Maxwell received an amazing prize package, including: an all expense trip to Los Angeles, where he attended DJ Skee’s live DJ show, SKEETOX, at the world famous Roxy Theatre; a Blue microphone; tour of Blue Microphones studio headquarters; an interview for DJ Skee’s Radio Show, Live from L.A..; and a premium Monster Cable prize pack, with over $3,200 in gear, including instrument, mic and speaker cables, the Pro 700 Power Center, two 1000 Power Centers and the Turbine Pro Gold In-Ear headphones.

We have captured Maxwell’s amazing “Hurt Locker” remix experience on video – check it out!

Jamie Hill

We sat down with Jamie to talk about how he uses the Dragonfly mic to get the best sound:

1. How do you use the Dragonfly?

I’ve been using the Dragonflies as cymbal spot mics lately for some live work. Not as overheads — the act I’m mixing at the moment has a lot of backing tracks, which takes up a considerable amount of space frequency-wise, so I’m finding myself needing to use spot mics with severely band-limited EQs all around the kit in order to leave space in my mix for everything that’s going on. To this end, I’ve been high-passing the Dragonflies at like 3,500 Hz! My goal is to reject as much of the rest of the kit as possible, not to mention the clang-ier parts of the cymbals themselves. I’m just going for that higher-end sheen.

3. In what ways are you using the mic to get the best sound for your  purpose?

I’m using my Dragonflies to capture the high-end sheen of our drummer’s cymbals. In other words, I’m trying to pick up as little of the rest of the kit as possible, and as little stick sound as possible. With that in mind, I’m positioning each Dragonfly over a cymbal pair (left and right), in-between said cymbal pair, at the outside of the kit (on the opposite side of the cymbal from where the drummer hits it). I’m aiming the capsules maybe 10 degrees outward from straight down, and they’re about 26 inches above the cymbals. I’m actually using the cymbals to block the mics’ line of sight from the toms, the better to minimize any spill that I can. The snare still gets in there a bit, but only the top end of it as I’m high-passing the Dragonflies at 3,500 Hz, and the top-end snare spill actually helps the snare poke through the mix a bit, so it all works out well in the end.

Given that, I feel largely unqualified to talk about anything below 3,500 Hz on these mics! From 3,500 cycles up, though, they’re super. The high end is smooth, detailed, and not crispy in the least — even in 25,000-person concrete amphitheaters, which will quickly betray any shrill tendencies a mic might have.

Also, I especially love how the capsule rotates. For live work, this is a life-saver — loosening and tightening a mic stand to hone in on a position is a drag when your console is 125 feet from the sound source! I can just have a stagehand rotate the capsule a bit if need be, and the rest of the mic stays put. Genius.

4. What is your best advice to other artists/producers using this mic?

Get rid of the case it comes with and put it in a case that allows you to leave the shock-mount on!

Stardust Galaxies on iTunes

At Blue Studios:

Kahn Morbee, lead singer of The Parlotones, at Blue studio

Blue MOB artist Neon Trees was picked by New York’s Z100 with the song, “Animal.” Watch it performed:

And Blue community member Mike Posner was chosen by Chicago’s B96 with the song “Bow Chicka Wow Wow.”

Mike Posner with his Yeti at Lollapalooza 2010

Check it out in EW: