Blue Yeti Nano

IT MAY BE SMALLER, BUT IT’S JUST AS MYTHICAL.

STANDING ABOUT HALF as tall as its revered, full-size predecessor, the Yeti Nano from Blue Microphones manages to squeeze almost all of its successful heritage into a pint-sized package. Much of what was great about the star USB microphone from a decade ago has been retained, with some control refinements made to complement its new form factor. While it loses a physical gain control, the companion Sherpa app includes this and, once set up, it shouldn’t need to be tweaked all that often. Another concession the Nano makes is that there are no longer stereo or bidirectional pickup pattern options, but the two retained modes – cardioid and omnidirectional – are easily the most useful and now get a nifty physical switch and indicator light. Similarly, the mute button and headphone volume dial have been combined to save space, and the results are sleek.

The plug-and-play simplicity is back and, in conjunction with its newfound portability, makes for a great mobile studio when paired with a laptop. Whether using the cardioid (directed) or omni-directional (surround) modes, the recording quality is clear, well-balanced, and newly available in 24-bit encoding rather than 16-bit. Without a pop-filter, the microphone did surprisingly well at handling vocal plosives, making it a pretty promising unit out of the box. For streamers, podcasters and field-recorders, the Yeti Nano is a solid, no-fuss option. It’s an all-round improvement on its full-size friend unless you’re reliant on a dedicated hardware gain control and those extra pickup patterns, in which case you’ll likely be able to grab the bigger Yeti sibling at a discount.