| Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics, LLC | |
| Type: | Subsidiary |
| Founders: | Skipper Wise Mārtiņš Saulespurēns |
| Trade Name: | Blue Microphones |
| Industry: | Audio equipment |
| Owner: | Logitech (2018–present) |
| Foundation: | October 1995 |
| Location City: | Westlake Village, California |
| Location Country: | U.S. |
Blue Microphones (legally Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics, LLC) is an American audio production company owned by Logitech that designs and produces microphones, headphones, recording tools, signal processors, and music accessories for audio professionals, musicians and consumers.
Blue Microphones was founded in 1995 by American session musician Skipper Wise and Latvian recording engineer Mārtiņš Saulespurēns. The company's name is a backronym for Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics. The company was founded in Latvia. The company is headquartered in Westlake Village, California, United States.
Blue Microphones’ first creation was the Baby Bottle, a professional XLR microphone used widely by musicians for recording. In the early 2000s, Blue's perspective pivoted to manufacture microphones for collaborating with other aspiring creatives online, synonymous with the needs of the developing consumer world of technology in the 1990s. The Westlake Village company created a low-cost condenser microphone called the Snowball for use with music recording software GarageBand in the late 2000s. The size, shape, and weight of the Snowball was created to that of a regulation softball. The Snowball microphone became popular[1] with aspiring pro musicians and dedicated hobbyists as an alternative to renting time in a recording studio.[2]
With the popularity of the Snowball, Blue Microphones continued to manufacture USB microphones. Their top-selling microphone to date, the Blue Yeti launched in 2009. The Blue Yeti has had many special iterations, including the Yeti X, and Yeti Pro.
From 1995 - 2004, Blue microphones were manufactured in Latvia. In 2005, the production moved to China, with some microphones being built in the United States.
In 2008, Wise and Saulespurēns sold the company to Transom Capital, a private equity firm in California.[3]
In 2013, The Riverside Company acquired Blue Microphones from Transom Capital. Intrepid Investment Bankers advised Blue Microphones in the transaction.[4]
In July 2018, Logitech announced plans to acquire Blue Microphones for $117 million USD.[5] In June 2023, Logitech announced they would relegate the Blue brand to audio processing technologies, and use the Logitech G and Yeti branding for future microphone releases.[6]