Blue Microphones Baby Bottle

Played for 25+ years. Home recording on tape/cassette, PC and BR-600.
Listen on studio headphones, small monitors, hifi speakers, even PC monitor speakers.

Baby Bottle is very smooth sounding, it hasn't got the HF emphasis my other condensor mikes have but picks up a lot of detail. It tamed the slide guitar I played on a Baby Taylor when I miked at 12 inches, good balance of playing and the room, but without the metallic buzz.

I have boosted at 10k on finger picked acoustic guitars but miked the neck on my 000 and dreadnaught for useable sounds with only a little LF rolloff. It still sounded natural to me on my guitars.

It is very revealing on my voice, I could tell the quieter takes very easily from the timbre. The detail is on the midrange of notes rather than the breathy/clicky bits my other vocal mikes pick up. Again with some boost around 10k that stuff is there if you want it.

I normally use a Pod XTL at home but tried this mike on my souped up Fender Champion 600. Easy to get an excellent sound at various gain settings (amp on sturdy chair, mike 3-6 inches away, off centre of cone) but I used the preamp low cut as the mike has a bass boost that draws attention to the amp's small boomy speaker.

A big bonus is the low noise and high output of the mic. I have used it as an ambient mic pointing at a window 10 feet from a close miked acoustic and had no problem using the track.

Its tone reminds me of my Thomann RB500 ribbon mike but it's 1/4 of the weight, less bassy and I can open the door without having to put the Baby Bottle away first.

IMO it's a very good all round mike. It may be a bit smooth or vintage sounding for some but I rate it. I think you might miss the HF "zing" from guitars, percussion, and other instruments if this was your only mike. But the HF detail is there with careful mike positioning or if you use a little EQ.

20 years gigging and recording
Bass player, some guitar and reeds
Recording to DAW on Aardvark Q10, experience with tape as well
Yamaha board, KRK monitors various outboard gear
I Own AKG D112, SM57s and 58s from gigging days and a bunch of other budget solid state large dia condensers from AKG and others and a few small diameter cond. But I've borrowed and used a number of other mics over the years.

Large dia condenser (but if you're looking here, you know that)
I've used it on blues, rock and pop male and female vocals as well as flute, clarinet other reeds. Basically following the advice from Blue on placement and have been pleased.

The sound is warm and yet accurate. The recording of the flute was particularly striking, it really truly sounded like a flute and sat extremely well in the mix. And I disagree with others regarding vocals. It's excellent on vocals for most things. For raspy, nasty screamers it's probably not the thing, but if you actually have a singer with character you want to capture, I've been very pleased.

30 years playing and recording, but only the last three have I gone the home studio route. I still play live with a band in the studio, but add overdubs later in the comfort of my home. I record two channels at a time max into my laptop using a Apogee Mini-Me as a preamp and A/D converter.

Cardioid condenser. I already have one mic in this class, a Rode NTK. I was looking for something that was easier to take on the road and would easily fit in my suitcase. In my opinion, it's close to the sound of a U87, which is the mic I use in the studio. Like the U87, the sound is very clean, crisp and dry, which I personally like. I like this mic better than the NTK for vocals because it's less bright in the 10K area. The sound sits nice in the mix. I can understand if you're doing rock vocals, you might want something with more bombast, but for jazz and acoustic music, this thing is the ticket. You'd get more if you paid a couple thousand, but not much more. And I don't have a couple thousand to spend.

I am the head "B" studio engineer at a major facility in Missouri. I mostly use my ProTools HD3 rig. Main Pres: Focusrite Twintrack, Chameleon Labs 7602 and Vintech Dual 72. I'm listening on Tannoy Reveals, Mackie 824s and Yamaha HS80s.

I chose this mic because I was at another studio in town and had a chance to use the Bottle mic. I was very impressed. My budget doesn't really allow me to spend thousands on a mic without spending a couple of months trying to convince the owner that we need it so I went out and bought the Baby Bottle thinking it would have similar characteristics . I have used this mic on everything from hip hop vocals to upright jazz bass and more often than not, I have been disappointed and ended up switching out mics. I have ended up liking it for a couple violin solos and also for some female vocals. There is something odd with the high mids. Something kind of unnatural. A little brittle, even.

Been recording music for 15 years, own a commercial home studio. Record to ProTools using mic > Avalon M5 > RNC > Digi 002.

My first LDC was an MXL V67. It was too muddy for my taste. Next was a Blue Baby Bottle, then AKG C414 uls, & AT4033.

I wasn't convinced at first about the Baby Bottle but the more I listen critically these days the more I've realized what a great mic it is. This is based on the mics I own, though - I haven't had the opportunity to hear other mics in the $500 range so there certainly may be better choices out there.

VOCALS:
The 'trick' to the Baby Bottle is how it sits in a mix. It sits in the middle/front which many people describe as a smooth sound after hearing it compared to the AT4033, V67, & 414uls. The AT4033 & V67 sit much more upfront in the mix compared to the Baby Bottle, which can be good for some things (the AT4033 excells at in-your-face rude rock/punk/some country) but can also lend to a flatter (read: cheaper) quality in the over-all mix. Yes, it actually sounds more expensive. Kind of like listening to John Kerry compared to George W. Bush in the 2004 debates. Do you prefer the shit-kickin' dolt or the well bred peace-keeper? Either way, they both have a place in the world (though I'd love to see one thrown against a wall until it's diaphram fell off).

The Baby Bottle has less low bass response than the 414uls, more mids than the 414uls and less presence than all the other mics, which makes it a very good combination for many female lead vocalists, though it can sound dark. It has excellent 'body' (as opposed to the V67 for example, which lacks soul if you can excuse the expression). As far as men go, I dislike this mic on my own voice. I have a mid/deep voice which in conjunction with the Baby Bottle makes a mid-range barking noise - very disappointing. Sounds like the mic is overloading. I've found the AT4033 to be most suitable to my voice of the mics I own for this reason - but again, the AT4033 doesn't sit in the mix as well as the Baby Bottle. Bummer, eh?

The Baby Bottle pics up a lot of room sound, a lot more compared to the AT4033 and more than the 414uls in cardioid. This can be bad (very bad) if you record in a crummy sounding room - take heed on that note.

GUITAR:
Not as good as the 414uls (the moat flat of the mics I own) on acoustic guitar but it's pretty darned good. The Baby Bottle boosts the midrange and can't match the 414uls treble. If I didn't have the 414uls I'd happily use the Baby Bottle for acoustic guitar though. Better on electric guitar than the 414uls. Adds very useable mid range. Also very good on elec bass amnps compared to the 414uls (though it doesn't get the deeper lows that the 414uls can reach).

So, is it worth $550? Yeah. But before you buy it (or any mic) decide what the mic will be used for (I know that sounds stupid but trust it). Try as many mics as you can in your budget range (easier said than done, I know). If there's anything true to share about mics it's that there's no magical mic that sounds good on everyone. This mic will be helpful to round out a studio that already has a few mics.

Playing for 12 years, recording for a few.

Hello everybody!
I bought this mic when I was setting up my home studio and I was trying to find the best condenser for my money. I guess this mic could fit that description, but it is definetly not the only mic you want to have in your cabinet, not a swiss army knife, as they say.
This is a very powerful mic - high output and amazing sensitivity. As far as the frequency response goes, I'd say it's bright but still full, and has that little hump in the 2K range that gives it a certain richness - more on this later.
People talk about vintage mics having a "larger than life" sound, and this one does, but almost to a fault. It sounds great on vocals - they're rich, big and full and stand right out in the mix - my friend prefered it over his Neumann 107 - but when I try to use it on acoustic guitar (for the record, it's not a very nice guitar) the mids that gave the vocals their presence turn nasty and aggressive in my opinion. The guitar comes out sounding too big and a little out of control. Basically this mic picks up every single little detail of your sound and smacks you in the face with it, so if it gets too much information, like a strummy acoustic, or overhead drum placement, it will end up getting sort of garbled and turn sonically overwhelming. But it can be magic in the right situation.
So it's definetly worth the money, and I'd say it compares with a lot of top of the line condensers in its sheer quality, but not in its versatility. I give it an eight because it really is a fantastic mic and I don't regret buying it, it's just got its own thing going on and you might have to learn how to use it to your advantage before you get your money's worth.

I've been a musician for 15 years and have been recording for about 7 years starting with 4-track cassette and moving on to 8-track reels, and finally moving into digital reording about 4 years ago. I just recorded my band Lithium Zero in our personal/home studio and the results were excellent. We recorded most tracks on a Yamaha AW16G and mixed on a PC based Cubase SX and Motu 1224 system with Event TR8-N powered monitors.

The BLUE Baby Bottle was used all over our cd. We used it on the bottom head of the snare drum, in front of the bass cabinets (SWR 2x12), in front of a Messa Nomad 55 guitar amp and Marshall 4x12 cabs. We used it for all the vocals and are extemely happy. I have used other, cheaper microphones that were ok. The AT3035 was pretty good for the money. I like the Rode NT1. But after going to a pro studio and using $2000 microphones, we didn't want to use a cheap mic. The Baby Bottle has a beautiful sound that rivals mics 4 times its price. It sounds absulutely amazing on guitar amps and even worked great in front of the bass cabs. Much better than any of the dynamic mics we used or even going direct. I Do have to say that I used a JoeMeek "Brittish Channel" preamp most of the time which also gets high marks for recording guitars.
The vocals were really good. I honestly would have liked a little more tube saturation on his voice, but the Baby Bottle really heald its own and gave us great tracks that were sparkling clean and smooth and the fit right into the mix. One of our songs was recorded in a studio where we had access to a $2000 Lawson tube mic which was the sound we really loved. But at $500 for the Baby Bottle, we get way more versatility, and most people can't tell the difference. We didn't have the option to spend $2,000. We definitely got the best mic for the money.

I've been recording music for about 2.5 years, I tend to record bands at my home studio and stuff like that. I track onto nuendo from a Focusrite Penta Preamp.

This mic is awsome for vocals and acoustic guitar. The only thing I've had trouble getting a good sound out of is for drum overheads. The good and bad thing about this mic is that it is very truthful because of its flat frequency response. Oh yeah also, except for the BLUE Dragonfly, this is mic delivers the best tone for a guitar amp. Its also very quiet, which I absolutely love cause of my home studio grounding problem. Lastly, it has great pressance in a mix.

From the above review:

"The only thing I could see happening but probably not, would be if they made a tube mic."

But we DO make a tube mic! Two of them in fact... The Bottle ($4995) and The Cactus ($3295). In fact, The Bottle features eight interchangeable capsules for a total of eight distinct tones and polar patterns. The Cactus is a large-diaphragm nine-pattern tube condenser. Just wanted to let you know they're out there!

Best,

Eric Boyer, Director,
USA Sales, Training Operations,
Blue Microphones 818.879.5200 www.bluemic.com

I've been playing and making music for over 7 yrs now and bought a digi 001 about two yrs ago now. Since then I've been working with my DAW and would hard to work without it.

The Baby Bottle is an all around condenser microphone, and is a pure cardoid. I've been using the microphone as a singing mic and for drum overheads. I haven't really used it for any other purposes yet but I have to say it does do an awsome job for such little money paid for it. I had heard BLUE makes pretty good microphones if you can afford them so I decided to start off with this one. In my opinion this mic sounds super through my mackie 8 bus. Well it sounds better than the preamps that are in my digi 001. The only thing I could see happening but probably not, would be if they made a tube mic. But then again there goes that good price tag to an ugly one. I would highly suggest this mic to anyone who is confused about what kind of mic they want for certain applications. There is no confusion about the baby bottle.