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Great Mic for kick drum and broadcast. This was the mic you hear on kick drums for the last three decades and to this day on most all broadcast radio talk shows. When you add compression to an RE 20 you will hear wonderful things from this mic. It has a bump on the low mid so it is great for kicks. Polar Pattern Cardioid is all you get from this mic as for patterns. Broadcast stations all over the world for 30 years have been using this mic for years and again it is the standard mic for broadcast in the world. I have never been to a top radio station that does not use the RE20 for broadcast voice. I love the sound of this mic but it does get a great deal of low mid sound so if you are using it on a kick drum you will have to cut about 220hz a great deal maybe even 15 db. Recently we had a few kick mics and a great deal of time to test some mics for a recent project. I was surprised that I wanted to try the RE20 as I have moved on to other mics in recent years that have caught my attention or that are well priced and that I have heard on YouTube or from recommendations from business associates in the engineering community. I will say that I really enjoyed the A and B testing we did recently. I took a D110 and had it inside the kick drum about three inches away from the beater but placed inside the kick really close. I got the drummer to do three tests one whereby he hit the drum soft the next harder and the last really hard. The D110 had tons of low end but lacked the presence that I desire in a kick drum. I turned to the RE20 and place it at the same point on the kick drum but inside the kick. I had the drummer do the exact same thing regarding the three hits on the kick drum. I was surprised at the presence of the kick drum and it reminded me of the 1980's whereby we would use this kick sound every day and the only mic we had for kick was the RE20. Back then it was the standard for kick mics, like if you listen to the first Van Halen records or Fleetwood Mac you can hear an RE20.

OVERALL OPINION

A must have for broadcast or kick drum or bass amp micing. Can take hot levels and sounds fantastic. Not the best for lead vocals on music though. The Electro-Voice RE20 is a dynamic cardioid microphone so it is limited and you should know that. Like I said it was created specially for recording, broadcast and sometimes live for horns and kick.

It does have a bass enhanced sound so be aware of that when you buy this mic but if you want a great mic for about 400.00 Ebay. GOOD BUY.