I love my Blue Yeti Microphone, but it creates problems for me when I connect my audio devices to my laptop for video conferencing. I often have to fiddle with the Linux sound settings after I connect everything in order to fix the interesting assumptions that Pop!_OS has made about which audio devices perform which jobs.

If I don’t pay attention, then I can’t hear anything through my Bluetooth headset, which annoys me at the best of times, but embarrasses me (just a little) when my client sees me fumbling at the beginning of a session.

Solution

Remember that the last connected device wins. This means connecting the devices in this sequence:

1. Blue Yeti Microphone
2. Bluetooth headset (SX-991, in case you wondered)

That’s it. If I connect them in the other sequence, then I get no audio through my Bluetooth headset.

Explanation

The Blue Yeti Microphone also acts as an output device (speaker, headphones), because it contains a built-in monitor for the microphone. I can connect wired headphones to the microphone to hear how I sound through the microphone while I’m speaking. I don’t use this feature, but I have it available. Accordingly, the Blue Yeti Microphone advertises itself to the operating system as both an input and output device, so Pop!_OS chooses it as an output device when I connect the microphone by USB.

Worse, sadly, Linux doesn’t always detect the microphone correctly, leading to other problems. Evidently, audio on Linux is hard. I accept it as it is and I forgive it.