Electro-Voice - RE20

ElectroVoice RE20 (bit bulky but doable), but for live use it's more realistic to just use the desk EQ, is that not an option?

RE20 is great at rejecting background noise and built like a tank… use one for work and music in an untreated room, it’s great

Came here to say, RE20 and the RE320 are great workhorses!

I used to love the RE20 for everything. Hell, I even influenced its history. But more often than not, I prefer the SM7B.

Test engineer for a gaming peripherals brand here. SM7B, not because it isn't a great mic, but because it has now become the "grail" mic for amateurs who don't know any better. It's just the blind leading the blind. This is more of a streaming/Podcasting thing than the audience here, but I still feel like it's worth mentioning as it's practically become a meme at this point. I'd love to see a bit more variety open up in the space. The RE20 is the obvious choice. I'm sure the combination of the most common color being that ugly grey that doesn't look good on-camera (in a typical streaming setup at least), despite the black version costing the same amount, and the fact that Electro-Voice just isn't as well-known outside of the pro audience as Shure, which makes a good variety of products that lean more towards consumer audio than pro audio.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of posts in /r/microphone about fake TLM103s. I don't imagine that it will replace the SM7B in the gaming space (where I work these days) for most people for the reasons of its significantly higher cost and the fact that most gamers/streamers are in untreated spaces, making it more challenging to get good results from a condenser microphone. When I started my job, it was mostly USB microphones, and as people have been upgrading to XLR, you've seen them gravitate towards dynamic mics, especially in more recent years (since I don't see entry level condensers like the AT2020 as much as I used to). Still, I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct for more of the market that is streaming more music-related content than just gaming. The fact that I'm seeing so many posts about fakes and people asking if they have fakes helps demonstrate that. And yep, you're definitely right about people just copying others being unfortunate. This is especially true with vocal microphones since voices are so personal and varied. They also often don't realize that there are other factors that matter too, like microphone technique, preamps, etc.

Yeah, they're both great! My point was more that it's insane how much more popular the SM7B is in the amateur space. Honestly, due to its minimal proximity effect, I think the RE20 is a better fit for a lot of amateurs who won't really know much or anything about microphone technique. The difference in sound signature really doesn't matter in most of these amateur use cases either.

SM7b, SM57 or RE20 for mics. They are industry standards, multi purpose and you will use them for decades. Buy cheap interface with lots of preamp gain and sell it next year for better one.

I'll be that guy. If there are two of you you should both be using dynamic not condenser mics. Is your room treated? Do you have a decent audio interface? (RODEcaster Duo is top of the line IMO) As for mics. At my station I use an EV-RE20. By far the gold standard for broadcasting. After that the Sure SMB7 after that you can get away with the rode Podmic provided your room is sound treated and you have an interface like I mentioned above (focusrite is also good) Don't go cheap on the interface or mic. Sound matters

The way I see it is RE20 is the euro version of SM7B as it became more popular there. RE20 is definitely a nice mic and I recall Kerim Lechner (Krimh) call it the elephant dong. Definitely nice to have. I noticed SM7b works better with lo-z capable preamps as that surprisingly causes the volume to jump up 5-10dB!

421 with a good sounding drum and preamp I think sounds great on a tom, but those sound best an amp paired with a ribbon. Re20 sounds good on a kick, great on a floor tom, particular vocal, or bass cab. Sm7b through a dbx160 makes all the difference. SM58 as a talkback drum mic squashed can sound great. I’ve made a lot of records and those mics are work horses for a reason.

If long-term goals include creating and recording your own MIDI-based tracks, then do go the computer route. **Headphones**: You’ll need a pair of closed-back headphones that will let you hear what you are singing *to* without bleeding back into the microphone. This is the easiest one, because I can make a specific recommendation: [Sony MDR7506](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000AJIF4E). These have been a professional studio standard for decades, because they are inexpensive, reliable and accurate enough for tracking. (I wouldn’t try to mix on them, but you’re not doing that yet. Mixing is better on open-back headphones or monitor speakers, which aren’t good for tracking, so you’ll still need these even if you get into that later.) **Digital audio workstation (DAW):** A DAW is software that does what a multi-track tape recorder and a mixing console did in analog studios. It might be simplest to use whatever the folks with whom you are working use. I like [Reaper](https://www.reaper.fm/); it’s not very expensive, and has a free trial which you can extend indefinitely by responding to a nag screen... so if budget is really tight, you *can* put off paying for it until you’re able. Reaper is very flexible; it might not be the simplest for beginners, but there are many tutorial videos on YouTube to clear up anything that isn’t obvious. Here are a couple [articles](https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-best-daws-the-best-music-production-software-for-pc-and-mac) comparing [DAWs](https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-audio-editing-software). **Audio interface:** The audio inputs and outputs built in to a computer are not suitable for musicians. Here’s an article about audio interfaces: [MusicRadar: Best audio interface 2025](https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-best-audio-interfaces). I recommend avoiding anything that does not have its own ASIO driver. (If the instructions say to use ASIO4All, pick a different interface.) ASIO is a method of communicating between the interface and your computer; on Windows, working with anything other than ASIO will become annoying sooner or later. (The explanation is a bit lengthy.) I have not used this device, but if you’re only interested in recording your voice (and later, potentially, some MIDI, but no other audio), [Scarlett Solo](https://us.focusrite.com/products/scarlett-solo) is probably a good choice. **Microphone:** The choice of microphone depends greatly on the singer’s voice and style. It’s all but impossible to make a blanket recommendation. A lot of us with baritone voices like the [RE20](https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RE20--electro-voice-re20-broadcast-microphone-with-variable-d). (It’s known most for voiceover and broadcast work, but it’s actually quite useful for lower male rock vocals as well. Because it is directional but has minimal [proximity effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_effect_(audio)), it can be very useful when acoustically treating the recording space is impractical.) Sopranos, especially those with breathier voices, often prefer condenser microphones. I know this is probably impractical, but the only real way to make a choice you’ll be happy with is to find a way to try out different microphoes and see which captures your voice to your liking.