Rode K2 Mic Review

We are fortunate enough to have not one but TWO Rode K2 tube mics in our studio. While they usually don’t get used much on vocals these days, they get used A LOT on guitars and drum overheads. This is truly one of the best values in a mid priced tube mic on the market.

One of the things that gets talked about a lot with this mic is that you have continuously variable polar patterns instead of switched polar patterns or fixed patterns. What this means is that you can dial in exactly how much of the room you want, how much of the back side of the mic you want to have pic up other sources, if you want a cardiod or some gradual variation between patterns. This is an outstanding feature!

Here are a couple of samples of Wendy Washington (wendywashington.net) that we recorded using the Rode K2 tube mic directly into a Focustrite ISA430 MKii. There were no plugins used. The only processing that was done on these vocal tracks were done using the preamp, equalizer, and compressor on the Focusrite.