Our journey with Neat Microphones continues with the Bumblebee II, a USB solution for streamers that has some powerful pros. Durable, portable, and reliable, the Bumblebee II checks in as one of the better USB microphones for someone not wanting to break the bank.
Let’s get into it.
Reliability and comfort
My journey with USB mics ran through two companies, HyperX and Yeti. The Yetis are incredibly durable when it comes to microphones for streaming solutions, as are the company’s Snowball mics (odd birds with looks, tough as nails with functionality). With multiple pickup patterns and easy-to-use interfaces, there’s not much that the Yeti can’t handle. It’s a solid microphone. So solid that it feels like you’re lugging around a weight. So much weight.
The HyperX Quadcast is colorful, stylish, weirdly complicated, but delivers good sound quality when it comes to their USB mic lineup. The Quadcast is a pretty mic that delivers what it promises at a semi-premium price ($119.99). It’s not hard to love what HyperX does by the end of their mic’s story, but their HCI is a bit sideways at times seemingly because they want to be different and stand out. Well, they’re different, and the learning curve can be a bit frustrating when you’re used to a standard.
With my limited USB mic experience due to my need for reliability and consistency with microphone delivery, Neat Microphones sent me the Bumblebee II to throw into the mix. What I have seen with the Bumblebee II impresses me and may put this microphone slightly above my Yeti-driven nature.
The Bumblebee II delivers on what it promises. It is a cardioid USB condenser microphone with a polar pattern pickup that takes in the good quality of what is being sent in front of it and tries its best to drown out the noises around it. This microphone is directional and picks up sound with little to no sensitivity coming from behind. This means when you’re talking into it, it is picking you up, but ignoring everything behind it. The pickup pattern is in the shape of a valentine’s heart, so this makes sense (you’re speaking away from the heart’s butt. Anyway, in this respect, it works. It records in 24-bit/96 kHz, and it records mainly your voice, which is what you want out of your USB mic.
The design of the microphone also allows for you to tilt it upwards if you need it to pick you up in a different way. For a tall person like myself, the microphone must be tilted back in a comfortable kick-your-feet-up-and-relax-fashion. Because the microphone is compact by design, it’s easily tilted back to accommodate the comfortable direction I want to speak into the mic. That is huge for me, as I stand a towering 5’11 (I know it isn’t towering, but it’s towering to me). What’s great about the tilt in comparison to the Yeti Blue mics is that I don’t have to loosen and tighten screws to achieve this, nor do I have to worry about hurting the USB cable. It just tilts back and stays. I like that design and it works well for the pickup.
The high quality of the pickup, the comfort, and the design of this microphone make it instantly a top contender for the microphone of choice when I’m recording audio or streaming a game. Or being trapped in a Zoom meeting. It works everywhere and how I need it to work.
Functionality
The Bumblebee II is meant to be idiot-proof and trust me I put it to the test. It comes with two buttons on the front. One is the mute button, which I don’t feel the need to go over with you. I mean, c’mon, you know what a mute button does. If you don’t, well…maybe you shouldn’t own this mic. Or any mic. Or record audio. Or stream. You know what? Let’s move on. The rabbit needs its hole back.
The knob/button above the mute button has multiple functions to it depending on color selection. When you hook up the USB, you’ll notice that the microphone starts in yellow mode, which adjusts your volume. If you press the button again it will turn blue, which handles the gain of the microphone (or how the heck loud you want to be recorded). Because the third time is a charm, if you press it again it turns green, and you get to handle the sidetone sound. There’s a lot to love about the simplicity of the microphone and memorizing what color of the button handles what functionality isn’t as bad as I thought it might be when I first started to tinker with the microphone. In fact, it’s quite genius not only on an HCI level but also on a beauty level (glow-y light, simple design look).
Beyond the two buttons/knob in the front, there are no additional pickup pattern knobs or additional gain knobs – it’s just a simple design. Love that or hate it, because I know there are some Luddites out there that must have a knob for everything, the microphone works and works well. The first time I whipped this sucker out and quickly adjusted my knob selection, my other faculty members were absolutely wowed on the Zoom call I was in regarding how good of quality they were receiving on their end. Since I am a production faculty member, it made me happy that I kept up that cool tradition of unnecessarily bringing in high-quality production performance into a faculty meeting Zoom call. Gotta be that production snob. Anyway, the bottom of the microphone features a USB-C connection to the computer and a headset jack so that you can defy Apple and use a wired headset directly connected to the Bumblebee II.
All the microphone’s functionality and designs are impressive.
Other odds and ends
The Bumblebee II is surprisingly lightweight despite its metal arms that house it on top of its plastic horseshoe base. I was surprised at how easy it was to take everywhere as opposed to its rivals the Yeti Blue and HyperX Quadcast. Say what you will, but I don’t want to lug a heavy Yeti anywhere far, nor do I want to lug an awkward, very breakable Quadcast around. I just want a simple microphone that doesn’t mind being put into a bag or being lugged around by hand. It’s nice, small, and light. It’s just that simple.
On that note, that’s all I have for you. Let’s wrap it up.
Conclusion
Full disclosure, I was down on USB mics after reviewing the King Bee II from Neat. I felt like USB mics were a tier below the XLRs and shunned them a bit in that review. For that, shame on me. While XLR-based microphones will always have a leg up on USB, there’s something to be said about a high-quality USB-C microphone that delivers what it promises at a very low cost of $99.99. The Bumblebee II is reliable, durable, simplistic, and good enough to make any streamer or audio recorder happy as Daft Punk at a rave. If you’re looking for a good mic at a low cost, take a solid look at the Bumblebee II.
