The Blue Woodpecker isn’t just another ribbon microphone. In fact, it was a microphone that almost never came to be…

When the Woodpecker was first presented to me by Skipper Wise himself (co-founder of BLUE) he said “I didn’t want to make a ribbon microphone, I don’t want to build a ‘me too’ product”. After nearly three years of rejecting every prototype until that point, finally a version was built both visually and sonically that he was ready to put his stamp of approval on–and that is what you see today.

Ribbon Microphones

Ribbon microphones are not new today – they’ve been around for many years. However ribbon microphones have made a huge comeback… well not that they’ve ever gone away, but they were typically used only in the most expensive studios. Today, you can get ribbon microphones for as low as $150, of course those really aren’t that good at all – but then again, those are the “me too” microphone designs. Although the street price is around $1000, the Woodpecker is as good as any ribbon microphone at any price point and is one of my personal favorites for nearly any instrument or vocal source.

Personal Experiences

In my own personal studio the Woodpecker has become a “go-to” microphone for me in the places I least suspected it. One of those has been on acoustic guitar. Historically I’ve never liked to mike an acoustic guitar with a ribbon microphone. Even with my Royer’s (which I loooooove to death) I just can’t get the sound I want out of a ribbon on acoustic guitar. A client of mine told me of the sound he was getting on acoustic with his Woodpecker, so I tried it myself and I was quite amazed! Personally I like the flavor of a nice large diaphragm tube or solid-state condenser around the 12th fret of acoustic to color and warm it up, but the Woodpecker provides the natural tone you’d expect from a ribbon – but with a vintage flavor that I’ve not been able to capture from other microphones. The fact that it’s also active (can accept phantom power) means I don’t have to worry about the lowest of gain situations whether I’m using it in the studio or live and on location. The picture to the left was taken of a session in my own studio.

It’s hard to believe that the Woodpecker sells for only $995 when it just sounds so good, but for me what’s even harder to believe is that I can use the Blue Woodpecker as if it were a typical condenser microphone. When it gets down to it, ribbons and condensers are quite different in many ways. Ribbon microphones have their own flavor and character but ironically they disappeared for many years from the mainstream and have only recently made a comeback, but now are available to even the most hobbyist of home recordists. But make no mistake, the sub $200 ribbon microphones are exactly what you pay for.