Mārtiņš Saulespurēns

After receiving an early copy of GarageBand recording software from Apple Computers, Saulespurēns and Wise developed a microphone that connected directly to a computer through the USB port. Although there were other USB microphones in production, the BLUE company's Snowball microphone was the first directed at professional sound recording. In 2005, Apple decided to stock the Snowball with its store products which dramatically boosted the popularity of Blue Microphones. Saulespurēns and Wise sold their company to Transom Capital Group in 2008.

Saulespurēns worked as an audio engineer for the Latvian Conservatory of Music when he met American session musician, Skipper Wise. In 1995, they created the Blue Microphones company to repair and refurbish vintage microphones for which parts were no longer available. "Blue" was an acronym for Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics. Under to the encouragement of New York City recording studio owner Walter Sear, Saulespurēns and Wise developed their own line of microphones. The BLUE microphone was base upon an old RFT Bottle design but without the internal power supply, making it a quieter and smoother.

Saulespurēns was born and raised in Rīga, Latvia. He graduated from Riga Polytechnical Institute (now Riga Technical University) in 1974 with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering. In 1967, Saulespurēns was a drummer in an R&B band, for which he bought a damaged LOMO 19A-19 tube condenser microphone and refurbished it to use for recording.

Mārtiņš Saulespurēns (born 1943) is a Latvian-American audio engineer who co-founded Blue Microphones with musician Skipper Wise. Saulespurēns also developed the tunable capsule for contemporary microphone design and invented the Champagne Microphone Cable.