I have always had troubles recording vocals. Before I had the Shure SM58, which is a dynamic microphone,  and the M-Audio Fast Track Pro.  Fast Track Pro has very weak pre-amps (a pre-amp is the power behind the volume of the vocal), so I had to go a buy a seperate Pre-Amp in order to get my vocals louder which was a Behringer Tube UltraGAIN Mic200.

BUT!  After all that being set up, I plugged in my Audio Technica 2035, turned on the Phantom Power and WOW!  I was able to hear my voice so clear and how ever loud I wanted.

This microphone is called a condenser.  It picks up your voice, instruments, or anything your trying to record, much easier than a dynamic microphone.

With this Audio Technica 2035 you will need Phantom Power.  All that Phantom Power does is just supplies your microphone power so you can actually use the microphone.  My M-Audio Fast Track Pro does not work good with microphones, dynamic or condenser, so I needed to buy a Pre-Amp in order to hear my vocals loud and clear! (see above for link)

The microphone is awesome.  I have used it for almost everyone of my productions that I have worked on and released.

Here are a couple more pictures to let you see more of it.

When I was looking at microphones to buy, I noticed there are some with switches, and some without.  This is 100% up to you, but just gives you more features when it comes time to record.  I find when I plug my microphone in to use with my Pre-Amp and M-Audio Fast Track Pro that it is what you call a very HOT signal.  Meaning it picks things up very easily and is almost too loud even if the volume is very low.  So that is the point of the Pad which is on the bottom right of the microphone.  It allows you to make the microphone a bit quieter.  There is also a Pad  on the Pre-Amp, and your Audio Interface most of the time.

The microphone comes with a -10dB Pad, and a low cut switch that cuts off the “Low end” frequencies of the vocal/instrument.

This is up to you, but I usually leave the low cut switch off. This way I can always edit out the low frequencies inside my music program with an EQ.

This is the bottom of the microphone.  And as you can see, it plugs in XLR.  Click here to find out more about XLR Cables.  If you are going to be using a Pre-Amp, most likely you will need to use 2 XLR cables.

And here is one more picture in case you are interested in buying it!

Rating:

The vocals I get out of this Audio Technica 2035 are so natural, solid, and crisp.  I have not used tons of microphones so I cannot compare to others, but it is much more sensitive than the Shure SM58 which is a dynamic microphone.  It is about $150 and now that I have a microphone I can use with clear/loud vocals, I am very happy and I actually enjoy recording now!