All user reviews of 3/5 for the Audio-Technica AT2050

The AT2050 is a large diaphragm condenser microphone; it has a 10 dB pad and more than one pickup pattern on it. The most recent instrument that I have used this microphone with was a great piano. Now it didn’t sound like the best microphone but it still sounded pretty good for 200 dollars.

OVERALL OPINION

The tone was really warm; it just was not as natural as I would have liked it to be especially with the piano. Having a natural sound is the whole purpose of using a real piano instead of a keyboard patch. I have also heard this microphone with guitars acoustic and electric; and also heard it with woodwind instruments. It sounds pretty much the same across the board, the sound is warm but it is not natural. It will just feel like something is missing and as a part time engineer when I get back to my Pro Tools and SSL boards to put a good mix on stuff you can really hear when the sound is coming through those monitors; something is just missing to me!
But at this price you can still get some very good recordings and on vocals it sounds much more natural and clean. One thing I can say about this microphone is that it is pretty consistent no matter what you put it with. It will give you a pretty even sound across all instrument and vocal types. The strange thing was, I had it up to a Yamaha guitar amp and it did not have at unnatural sound. There were effects or anything, but maybe the amp just gave it the push that this microphone needed to have a more natural sound.

The frequency range is 20Hz to 20kHz and you can change the polar patters from omnidirectional, cardioids or figure 8 quickly to get the sound that you will need to get.