First we are going to go over the blue yeti, and all of its pro's and con's. The blue yeti stands about 12 inches tall, weighing about two pounds if you include the weight of the stand it sits on. It has four different modes it can record in, cardioid, stereo, omnidirectional, and bidirectional. However, when I used this microphone for my YouTube channel, I only used the cardioid setting. The cardioid setting for those that are unaware, only records what is in front of it, so myself. Where all the other modes pick up sounds from various directions. It also has a very nice headphone jack built in that you can plug headphones in and use while you are recording. I found this very handy and it was a pleasant addition I did not foresee. What I really love about this microphone is the sound quality it can produce. I sound really good coming through it, but that is where my positive feelings towards this microphone end.
The downsides to this microphone weighed very heavily for me and pushed me into trying a different microphone the AT2020, but we'll talk about it later. The issues I had with the yeti had nothing to do with how I sounded, but that it picked everything else up in my room. In every recording I did, you could hear my computer fans when they sped up once I begun recording. I did not have much money so I couldn't afford to soundproof my room. There were different tips and tricks roaming around on the internet on how to cut the extra noise down, however, none of them were very effective for me. Either my voice was becoming too muffled, or it was still there just as before. More issues I had stemmed from the enormous size and wight of the Yeti. Normal accessories were not very compatible with this microphone and the Blue accessories are quite expensive. I did not test all of the various accessories that may have worked, but those that I did were not very useful. The microphone stand I currently use with the AT2020, which can be found here, was not nearly strong enough to hold the yeti up. But if you have the extra cash to invest in a good setup and accessories, this can outperform the AT2020 in the right conditions.
The microphone I currently use for all my videos is the AT2020. It is light, small, standing at about 5 inches tall, weighing one pound with its stand. It does not have any extra recording modes, nor a headphone jack to plug into to, but that was alright. I did not miss it much. I never used any of the other recording modes on the Yeti, but they were there if I ever seen a use for it. Now just because I said I enjoyed the quality of my voice through the Yeti more than the AT2020 does not mean that this microphone is a push over. The quality through this microphone is also very high, I mean, why else would I use it. To be perfectly honest, if any of your YouTubers that use one of these microphones, switched to the other, you probably would not even notice unless they announced it. They are very close with very slight differences. I really enjoyed that there is a huge variety when it comes to choices of accessories with this microphone. I picked up a cheap little pop filter and that microphone stand that I previously stated, and that has been my setup that works pretty well.
Overall these are both great mid-range microphones, I have stated which one I use and why. It mostly depends on your current situation. One is slightly better for noisier areas than the other, and one sounds slightly better. I've seen the prices for both of these microphones jump around a lot on Amazon, but here is a link to the Blue Yeti, and the Audio Technica AT2020. At the time of writing this, they are both $130. You can sign up for a free month of Amazon Prime to get free two day shipping by clicking here. I hope this helped many of you out, and that you all have a great day. Take care!
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