As for the instrument front-end, my electric guitar was recorded cleanly and without issues, though the recorded waveform suggested that the recorded signal might have been polarity inverted somewhere along the line, as transients always headed downwards rather than upwards. So, overall, it’s a pretty versatile microphone that is insanely well built and that also sounds surprisingly well! What do you get in the Box? There’s a reason why the AT2020 (XLR Version) is part of almost every music studio, and that is because when taking cost-effectiveness into account, there are few microphones that can stand up to it. Audio quality is exactly what you would expect from a studio microphone. It captures 24-bit/96kHz sound, which is the same bitrate as the Razer Seiren and beats the Blue Yeti's 16-bit. That being said, it's extremely difficult for the average human to tell the difference between something recorded at 24-bit versus 16-bit. You'd basically need to be an audio engineer with an acute ear for nuance in sound. Overall, it's excellent and offers higher quality recording than most people will typically need.

As far as mic’ing up guitar cabinets, it actually performs a lot better than expected, and even when recording acoustic guitar, it also did a more than decent job. Vocals came across in a well-balanced way staying solid without being muddy and clear without sounding glassy or shrill. I couldn’t find a frequency-response curve for this mic, but I suspect its presence peak isn’t too ferocious in the crucial upper mid-range region, and it should suit a wide range of voices.

Tutorials

This microphone has probably the best build quality I’ve seen so far of any USB mic, especially if you consider the price; it’s all metal and very heavy, plus the mic desk stand -which already comes installed on the mic- is very heavy, meaning that it won’t slide around the desk easily. Since the AT2020 is a plug n’ play microphone, you should have absolutely no issues getting it to work; simply connect it and that’s it, you can now record! One thing to be mindful of is that you can be recording a signal from the instrument input without realizing it—if something's plugged in, the only way to ensure it won't creep into what's meant to be a vocal-only recording is to kill its gain level completely, or simply unplug it. It seems like common sense, but the point is that both inputs are live, always, and need to managed and monitored if your intention is to record only one or the other. Of course, it can be used for recording acoustic and classical guitars as well, which is what I used it for before getting some of the other microphones I own.

Of all the functions, the monitoring feature is my favorite thing. Other mics require you to turn monitoring on either in software, or they're always on or always off. The ability to toggle it on and off built right into the mic itself is rare and very handy. Other than that, the mic supports line-in instruments to be plugged directly into the mic, and that’s definitely awesome especially if you’re like me and you like to record yourself playing an instrument while singing along. I did test out the mic with a couple of songs on the guitar, and the recording quality is excellent. Personally, I felt the recording was clearer than what we used to get with the Blue Yeti, even before any noise reduction or editing chains were applied on it.Additionally, this microphone is plug and play both on Windows 10 and MacOS, meaning that no drivers are needed; simply connect it and it works. In cardioid, the mic only records sounds from the front, making it perfect for recording a voice-over, or for recording music (which is what I mostly used the mic for).