Neil Tennant

" Neil Tennant had a Shure KSM9 hand-held mic (set to a super-cardioid pattern)"

According to engineer David Jacob in an interview about "West End Girls" published in the March 1986 issue of International Musician & Recording World magazine, he used a Neumann KM 84 microphone on Neil's voice to record the verses of that song, while a Neumann U87 was utilised for the choruses.

According to engineer David Jacob in an interview about "West End Girls" published in International Musician & Recording World March 1986, he'd normally use a Sony 48 or AKG 414 or the Neumann TLM-170 for Neil's voice.

"Bob Kraushaar puts things to tape pretty much as they’re going to sound. He EQs vocals savagely before he records them, which I would never do — I’m not confident it’s an area I’m good at. But he’s got ears like a bat, and having worked a lot with Neil, he knows the problem frequencies with his voice — he would never use a Neumann U87 on him for example, because Neil has a naturally sibilant voice, and a U87 accentuates that. Instead, he uses a TLM170, and that’s perfect for Neil, because it’s bright, but doesn’t have the sibilance. Neil really loves recording vocals with Bob; he’s very good at getting a great vocal sound, and that can make or break a record."

We started with the bass line and drum pattern and then began adding keyboards,” Julian Mendelsohn recalls. "A lot of that was Fairlight, some of it was Roland rackmounted units, and after we recorded a guide vocal with a Neumann U87 we just built the track up from there. At one point, I remember taking a Nagra to Brompton Oratory [nickname of the Church Of The Immaculate Heart Of Mary on Brompton Road in South Kensington]. So that may be where we recorded the Catholic mass

According to engineer David Jacob in an interview about "West End Girls" published in International Musician & Recording World March 1986, he'd normally use a Sony 48 or AKG 414 or the Neumann TLM-170 for Neil's voice.

According to engineer David Jacob in an interview about "West End Girls" published in International Musician & Recording World March 1986, he'd normally use a Sony 48 or AKG 414 or the Neumann TLM-170 for Neil's voice.