Customer Reviews

Blue Microphones Ringer Universal Shockmount for Ball Microphones

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I love the snowball microphone. It does all that it is supposed to do. The Ringer is a sharp looking item which also does what it is supposed to do. The problem I have had with the Ringer is the thumb screw on the side. It is made of a soft metal and broke easily. All I need to make my Ringer work is a new thumb screw. I have REPEATEDLY emailed and explained the problem and requested a new thumb screw, which they have happily agreed to send me. But nearly six months later, I still do not have the simple thumb screw and I still am unable to use the Ringer with my Snowball. Recently, I have needed another microphone and I thought I would get the Baby Blue Bottle condenser mic, but after the awful experience I have had with Blue, I won't buy one. A company can have a great product but if they can't deliver on basic customer service, then they can not get my repeat business. I would not even be making this review if I had simply received a thumb screw so I could use the Ringer. Therefore, if you buy this product just be aware that if you have even a small problem you will be on your own to solve it.

Blue's [[ASIN: B000H18RYS Ringer Shockmount for Ball Microphones]] is all it's cracked up to be. It is well-designed, well-constructed and does a fine job of isolating a microphone from extranious sources of noise. As suggested in Blue's product literature, the shockmount can be used with other microphones in addition to Blue's Ball, 8-Ball, Kick Ball and Snow Ball, for which it was designed. It even worked fine with an AKG C1000S, though it took some careful fingerwork to get the AKG clip screwed down in the Ringer and it looked a little askew. Blue's Ball microphones and the Ringer Shockmount are larger than I'd imagined and look absolutely cool together: retro and modern all at once. What a shame the shockmount was given a mediocre rating by a person who reviewed it without taking it out of the packaging (for lack of a mike stand, no less). At least he noted how well the 8-Ball worked. (There is a joke here, somewhere.) I wish I could make up for that grossly off base review by rating the Ringer Shockmount seven or eight, but five is the top rating available. I would suggest using a good quality stand with the Ringer; it might be top heavy paired with many of the cheap, flimsy mike stands currently on the market. Thoughtful counter-weighting using a solid boom will resolve most difficulties and facilitate creative mike placement possibilities. Note that these are studio and performance rather than desktop considerations. Although I find no reason to doubt their compatibility with the Ringer, I have no experience with the Snow Ball, Blue's tripod stand, or for that matter, with podcasting. As far as the Ringer Shockmount, as with all Blue products I've purchased to date, I'm very pleased and impressed!

This looked like a good product and a great match for the Snowball microphone. However, upon fastening the Snowball to the center ring microphone mount, I noticed a rattling noise anytime the assembly was moved. Turned out the metal bracket that the microphone mounts to was wobbly in the center (isolated) ring and would make a rattling sound if the shockmount was moved in the slightest. Tightening the screws that hold the mount to the inner ring seemed like a good idea except that the design kept things from clamping tighter together. Adding shims would have solved the problem but seems inappropriate given the price of this shockmount.
Since zero stars is not an option, I rate this product a one star and have returned it.

This is a fantastic Shock-mount. I bought it to go with my Snowball, but it also works well with the blueball and any other mic with a mic clip that you need isolated.

She is kind of big, so on camera not as classy or stylish as I would like.

WHat else can I say. It's a shock mount. LOL.

(update at the bottom)
Don't get me wrong: I love--LOVE--Blue. At least their mics. This shockmount, however, is such(!) a far cry from the excellence one should expect from this company that I'm leaving this with no more than the single star it earned.

For starters, their thumbscrew--an exceedingly critical part of this whole thing--is made of two pieces. Rather than being constructed as a single, integral piece, there are two pieces crappily soldered together: the 'key' (i.e., the nickel-sized disc you grab on to to loosen or tighten it) has been stuck into a shallow trough in the remaining screw's head--almost as though the screw itself were a sort of wide-mouth flat-head screw with a nickel being used to loosen and tighten it.

Here's the deal: The design of the joint intended to be tightened BY this screw is so poorly done that, when I was hand(!)-tightening the thing until my Blue Kickball mic wouldn't tip over, the key broke off in my hand. That's right: I--no muscle man, mind you--broke the two pieces apart with my hand when trying to tighten it enough to do its job. In fact, if you zoom in on the picture here, you'll see that there's no way to tighten that large of a gap with a simple screw. It would involve bending the metal so much that the threads would no longer line up if you did. Ridiculous.

(I have since taken it to my local hardware store and three of us couldn't come up with enough washers--rubber, locking, you name it--to get the job done. I ended up slapping a hose clamp around the darn thing so that I could at least have something for that night's gig.)

Additionally: The entire thumbscrew/hinge apparatus, rather than being built integrally into the frame of the Ringer, is instead flimsily screwed to the Ringer's outer ring up under the 'cap' located just above the thumbscrew itself. After removing the thumbscrew and bottom half the the hinge just to get at them, I've tightened the two tiny, unstable screws on mine as tight as I dare go a few times now and they keep loosening back up to their previous quite-wobbly state just by looking at the thing. Maybe some super glue will do the job?

This very cool looking shockmount had a real opportunity to knock it out of the park. By its fatally flawed design, however, it shall remain relegated to little more than a lesson (hopefully) learned on their part. I have three of their mics and will be buying more; I've had very good, friendly, responsive luck with their Customer Service folks (on this matter specifically and others); I wish them the best in their future, but I would tell you to pass on this unfortunate exception from Blue's otherwise stellar quality. And, since Blue have discontinued their entire Ball line with the exception of the USB Snowball mic, this product could just be skipped altogether if you spend an extra few bucks getting their much better sounding, feature-laden Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone instead.

**UPDATE, 3/8/11: Within a week of contacting Blue about this, a replacement screw was mailed out. When that failed to address the problem, an entire replacement -- of their significantly improved overall design -- was mailed out free of charge. The good folks at Blue made everything right in a timely and friendly manner. It would've been nice to've seen their design get the proper evaluation prior to its release and thus avoid this hassle (and negative review) in the first place, but they've clearly lived and learned and significantly(!) improved their Ringer. I'm glad I own it now, and it holds my Ball mic wonderfully at all angles.

The shock part of this is fine, but the mount part needs a lot of work.

Problem 1) Once locked in, the mount part of it wobbles back and forth. It's loose and no amount of tightening will fix it, looks like they tried already and stripped out the screws at the plant. Now Blue was very accommodating and sent me a new one which is better but it still will wobbles about a 1cm back and forth at the top. I ended up using some super glue to stop this. At home this is ok, but in a studio or regular recording use it probably won't stand up for long.

Problem 2) The swivel arm, you just cant get it tight enough. The screw is made of very soft metal and the swivel is flat metal on flat metal so it never really gets right enough and a good push will knock it over. Once it's on a mic swivel arm I don't think it will last long. It might but I'm not sure.

Pro * It does the isolation part well and if I can keep it immobile it will do a fine job, just needs an update (version #2 ? )

I picked this up along with the Blue Snowball microphone and I'm quite disappointed. It's made of solid construction, but the locking mechanism is terrible. It won't hold the weight of the Blue Snowball microphone and after twice watching my mic smack the table due to the lock mechanism slipping, I refuse to use it anymore.

Also, when I was taking the Snowball out, it was a little hard to unthread it due to how the thread mechanism works. If you try it, DO NOT tighten the Snowball down very much or you'll have an awful time trying to get it back out.

Overall I can't recommend the product, at least for the Snowball. It looks great, feels great, but it can't handle the weight of the Snowball reliably.

The mount works with the BLUE Snowball microphone to isolate the mic from vibration. It also increases the articulation of the mic so it can hang from a boom. Mount and mic are very good. BUY THE MIC AND MOUNT TOGETHER! I purchased the two seperaty, (only the mount from Amzon) and had a thread compatibility problem. Mount didn't fit mic nor the stand. Amazon was ready and quick with another mount, but I still had to send the mount and mic back to the manufacturer. BLUE fixed it all, but it took a couple of weeks. Back in business now and mic and mount working great.

The outer ring is very loose and unstable where it joins the stand mounting bracket. This allows the outer ring to rock back and forth, which IMO negates the benefit of the shock mount. Everything else looks find. The vendor has agreed to send me a refund after I send it back. He thinks that they're all like this. This seems like a real oversight on the part of the manufacturer.

I bought mine a few years back, but I am so disappointed with the Blue Ringer. When Blue products hit the market, they seemed fantastic, but the quality has really gone downhill since the early days. Like others have said here, the Ringer does not stay stable and rocks back and forth where the mount connects to the ring. There is a small gap there that can be stopped up with a folded Post-It note or by tightening the two screws on the bottom of the ring, but any fixes to keep the Ringer from rocking are only temporary. The soft aluminum on the mount and thumbscrew are easily stripped. Worst of all, I could not get the microphone to "center" properly -- if I screwed on the mic enough that it doesn't rotate anymore, the front of the mic points toward the side of the Ringer! The nub underneath that is supposed to set the mic into the proper position was so tight it couldn't be turned (loosened or tightened), and I ended up chewing up the soft metal with channel locks to see if I could correct the position, and still no dice. Eventually I gave up and chucked it in the garbage.