RIP BLUE Microphones

We’ve got a pair of bottles at my studio with a decent selection of capsules. Those mics sound pretty darn good, though I confess they’ve fallen out of favor as our mic collection has grown. They’re also quite a nuisance to set up due to their unusual size and weight distribution.

You use the Softube plugs and weep.

An electronics manufacturer has been running summit for a few years though. Maybe they will buy it?
fohonline.com/newsroom/on-the-move/blue-partners-with-jmp-electronics-to-manage-summit-audio-brand/

Your thoughts are in line with mine!

Many years ago, I reviewed the Kiwi and placed it being midway between a U87 and a U87ai. IYKYK! And you do know.

I doubt it, it might piss off another customer, plus they are strictly an OEM and support, no real RND or development. Logitech probably forgot all about Summit.

My experience was as follows IIRC,

The B0 was an edge terminated cap and had a 251 kinda vibe being extended in the lows and highs but was really, really bright
and so I thought it was good for airy BV's but way to etched for my tenor vocals.

The B6 was a back to back center tap cap and they said like a C12 but I never got that (as that would be edge terminated in variety)
and to me was like a U67 on steroids. In fact the Bottle body has an EF86 tube in it and the B6 cap worked well with that particular style of tube
but it was still too etched and bright for my vocals but I did record a few baritones on it and I thought it sounded very good, very modern.

The B7 was imho simply awful, so wooly .... like a Sennheiser M147 ..... sounded like it had some cotton wool in with the cap! U47 like erh No! Epic fail imho.

The B1 was a SDC and really sounded fantastic  - amazing on acoustic guitar and percussion but on that huge body, crazy hard to place!
I thought about keeping the B1 and using an adapter on one of my AKG 451 bodies - wish I had to be honest - silly me!

The B8 was a gift from BLUE (long story) and to be honest I don't remember it sounding anything special - but I only used it a couple of times.

I bought into the whole B0 = 251. B6 = C12. B7 = U47.

Only to discover I'd fallen for the marketing and the caps sounded nothing like that at all.

In fact the B6 on the EF86 body is essentially the basic Bottle mic and in that respect it's most like a 67 (minus the top end roll off)

The KIWI uses the B6 but it's different and on the solid state KIWI it just works so well.

I lost $1750 with my Bottle experience .... you live, you learn!

As I said I sold the Bottle and caps and bought a Wunder Cm7 which to my ears actually sounds like and behaves like a decent U47.

Those are the guys, hence the cheap USB microphones.

The B4 was their M50 style cap. I had a pair with my Bottle Rocket Stage 1s.  I thought they were fantastic in the room. 

The B0 was really nice on my voice if I wanted a really bright pop sound. It was just too bright on a lot of other vocals.

The B6 is totally like a tweaked out U67. Much more open on the top end, but really nice in some ways. It worked better on more voices than the B0.

I liked the B7 on my Bottle Rocket Stage II, but it’s more mellow than the FleA 47 I tried it next to. Still, it was my 47 style mic for a while. From clips I heard I think it sounded better on the Bottle Rocket Stage II than the Bottle. 



I too loved the B1. I actually thought my voice sounded stellar on it, especially when I sang opera through it. 

The new capsules were:
B9: C800G
B10: M49 (sounded more like an M149 to me)
B11: U67. I liked this one a lot. It was a little dark, but had that vintage 67 thing going for it. I recorded a whole EP with all vocals on it. You can hear that here:

schaeburmusic.wixsite.com/voyages/media

Yes.

I never owned those caps and so unfortunately I can't comment on them.

The two stand out caps I did use were the B0 and B1 and as I said I wish I'd kept those caps and used them on a different body
like an AKG SD series with an adapter.

My main beef with the Bottle was, I personally didn't like it's fundamental tone coming from the large O/P transformer and EF86 tube.
It had this unique slightly grainy, gritty edge that permeated into all the caps tone and was just a bit too OTT for my more conservative
tastes.

I don't know what it is about the KIWI but it doesn't have that sound at all and just sounds very smooth, detailed and musical
perhaps it's because the B6 cap on the KIWI benefits from the KIWI being solid state? The KIWI impedance converter electronics
are solid state discrete class A with a transformerless output stage.

Also, imho the KIWI looks gorgeous, of every mic I've ever owned it's the best looker :-)

 


 

I had a Kiwi and a Cactus. They were good mics with quirky designs that did not age well for me, and were sold when I bought better mics and compared results.

Kiwi sounded very clean. Cactus sound was colored and “thick”, a character mic. I have seen descriptions of Cactus as “dark”, to me, thick and saturated is a better description.