Ciernan “Excoundrel” Lowe is known the world over as a key voice in esports. He’s been “casting” – announcing events – since his UK university days, working for the National University Esports League. The first microphone he bought for the task was a Blue Yeti – and throughout his career it's a brand that's been a part of his passion right up to the present day.
Initially, Lowe was casting for university tournaments using the simple in-built microphone on his computer. But when he reached moments of high drama in matches, he noticed a lot of peaking in his voice – where amplifiers capped out his voice and left it sounding distorted. He realised that to make the jump from amateur to semi-professional – and to avoid having to rein in his enthusiasm – he'd need a better microphone. He chose the Blue Yeti.
“It was touted as the entry-level mic for anybody interested in streaming or commentating,” says Lowe, who has used Blue microphones for the last eight years. At the time, Lowe was looking for a way to upgrade his streaming and commentating presence without blowing the budget. “A lot of content creators – whether they’re musicians, casters or streamers – come to a point where you need to upgrade from your bog-standard kit to something that sounds a little more professional,” he says. And so, like many others, Low did his research and hit upon the Blue Yeti as his microphone of choice.
The side-address condenser microphone has long been loved by those dipping their toes into the world of professional content creation and who are looking for a little more oomph in their audio. It’s Blue’s best-selling family of USB microphones, harnessing the company’s tri-capsule technology to provide pristine, studio-quality recordings without needing in-depth technical knowledge or experience in equipment setups. “Your voice is your product,” says Lowe. “If you’re not doing your product justice by giving it the best-quality hardware to showcase it on the online stage, then you’re going to lose part of that power.”
Lowe had frequently been told he had a good radio voice – it’s what got him into the casting world. But, he says, “I needed to capitalise on that by having something that could make that transition into an online stage. That’s where the hardware was so important. If I didn't have that, then realistically, no one would pay attention. Because if you're not able to make your voice sound as good, or as close to as good as it can in real life, then when it comes to online content, people might not pay attention.”
As Lowe began progressing up the ranks of casters, and gaining more and more prestige among his peers, he started to think about how to upgrade his hardware to take him to the next level. The Blue Yeti’s four different pattern settings were already varied enough to allow him to tackle any kind of work he was asked to do – whether it was commentating on the latest esports tournament or doing a voiceover for a commercial client. The audio files produced by the Blue Yeti could also be tweaked further through software or additional mixers, such as Blue Voice’s suite of broadcast vocal effects that include a variety of preset options created by professional sound engineers – but he decided to make the leap from the ease of using a USB microphone to a more tailored device: an XLR microphone. It was a decision made harder by the ability to combine Blue Voice with the Blue Yeti microphone to produce professional standard results without an upgrade.
“What I liked about the Blue Yeti is that it is a good entry point, and is not ridiculously expensive,” says Lowe. “It's good enough quality that it will last you for a long time.” Indeed, his research on audio quality led to the realisation that it’s possible to make a USB mic sound as good as an XLR mic, if you have the correct room setup – and that can be as easy as installing sound-absorption panels to soundproof the room, which is just what Lowe did.
Still, many of Lowe’s colleagues and peers already had their own dynamic XLR microphones produced by a competitor – and one of them lent him their XLR microphone to try. Lowe decided to conduct tests within his own studio, comparing the competitor XLR with a Blue Spark, the large diaphragm of which combines with Blue’s custom JFET design, ensuring the capsule’s backplate is evenly charged, delivering consistent, transparent sound at all times. “For a fifth of the price, I was getting very, very solid sound quality [from the Spark],” says Lowe. “I could barely tell the difference between the two.”
Lowe is a stickler for quality, and is determined to get the best equipment to portray his voice in the best possible way. “I wanted something more physical,” he says. “I wanted something that was at the top end of audio quality.” Trusting his prior experience with Blue microphones, he knew that the Blue Spark would give him that quality – plus the reliability he had come to love from the Blue Yeti.
It’s a route that Lowe would recommend to other content creators – whether amateur, professional, or somewhere in between. "It just shows that you can achieve a good setup on a budget,” he says. And it's an approach that can get you casting at the highest levels, just like Lowe. “There's only so much you can do with your voice alone,” he says. Sometimes, you need a little help from the hardware.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
