Neumann - KMS 105

You’re not alone in this idea, I do it quite often on records that aren’t, strictly speaking, “commercial”. Mostly on my own stuff cause I hate headphones with passion. In my experience, it best works when the vocals are the last thing that is getting tracked - this way I treat the bleed from the speakers as an imprinted sorta “reverb” on a vocal track. But the backing track is supposed to be done, although you can strip it down, this way less instruments gonna bleed. A couple of things - supercardiod condensers akin to Neumann KM105 work wonders. Turn them away from the speakers and everyrhing. No click (if the click bleeds, this thing doesn’t work as well). Kinda… this.

Those are great for shows/touring. But for vocals, you definitely want a condenser. I used the MXL for years, and then I got a VERY good deal on Amazon on a Neumann.

I have an mxl condenser mic that works well, but just bought a Neumann condenser mic off Amazon. In the studio, they always said they used the $4k Neumann on me. Not sure that it is a knock off, but supposedly the same one Billie eillish uses and it sounds great. Under $400.

It matters massively and you’ll see that with experience your ears will learn to recognise the difference. It doesn’t matter how much you process a 57, it won’t compare to a Neumann, no matter what you do to it. It might sound cool in a different way, but you won’t get the high fidelity of a top notch condenser, if that’s the sound you’re going for. Think about this: If you go for an “expensive” vocal sound and have a U 87 and maybe a nice compressor, you won’t need to process it much, maybe a bit of eq and some reverb / delay. In that case you’d be MIXing. If you have a 57, you’ll have to use a ton of processing to make it sound more “expensive”. You’ll have to use multiple compressors, color eqs, cut resonances, etc. in that case you would be FIXing. Makes sense?