RØDE Introduces New 25% Lighter Microphone Blimp That Will Help Minimize Vibration Noise

If you've done any sort of sound work, a microphone blimp attached to your boom pole is an absolutely essential piece of kit. One of the more affordable/solid options out there is the RØDE blimp, and they've just announced a new version that has been made 25% lighter, and has a number of useful new features designed to minimize the noise from boom pole vibrations. Check out their introduction video below:

And their description:

Now featuring the Rycote® Lyre suspension system, the Blimp provides the ultimate in microphone suspension and isolation. Constructed from a single piece of hard-wearing thermoplastic, the Lyre provides superior acoustic suspension to traditional elastic solutions, and will never wear out, sag or snap.

The Blimp’s handle has also been completely redesigned, reducing the product weight significantly, while increasing the ergonomics for handheld use. Housed inside the grip is a heavy-duty Mogami cable which splits via a junction box to a highly-flexible thin cable inside the Blimp, to minimise the transference of vibration to the microphone.

With the lightweight design of the handle and suspension system the new Blimp design is over 25% lighter (550gm without microphone or DeadWombat fitted).

The Blimp attaches to any standard boompole via 3/8" thread attachment at the base. The Universal Blimp Mount is available as an option to remove the handle when the Blimp is being used primarily on a boompole to reduce weight.

The Dead Wombat windshield, caring brush and tail/patch cable are included.

And some photos:

The past version of this blimp is the only one that I use for sound with their NTG-3 microphone, and it's a great sound setup that doesn't break the bank but performs essentially flawlessly when you need it to. Unfortunately they mentioned that the new shock mount system isn't compatible with the old one, so you'll have to purchase a completely new one.

The new blimp should be shipping in the next few weeks, and while it doesn't seem like there is a price yet, I would expect it to come in somewhere near the price of the old one, between $300 and $500, but unless you're treating it poorly, it should be a purchase that lasts a long, long time. We'll update when we know the final price.

Link: RØDE Blimp with Shock Mount and Wind Shield