I'm occasionally gigging in a 60's / 70's band doing fairly lively stuff. Lead vocals shared around between me, the bass player (gentlemen) and a girl lead singer. She's having problems getting the same sort of projection and clarity as us and I wonder if the microphone is a factor. She's using an SM58 - are there other mīcs out there in a similar price range that would be better suited to the female voice? I've no idea about this and any suggestions would be very welcome.

For information I'm using a fairly old AKG Tri-Power hypercardoid and the bass player a Thomann T-Bone MD 85 beta (which to me sounds really good despite budget price)

Ditto! The Sennheiser E series is among the best handheld mics I've ever come across.

Gary

But how, specifically, does this mic benefit the female voice?

I love Sweetwater and been doing business with them for a long time.
Whenever I need something the sales engineers take all the time needed (sometimes over an hour) to go through all the options and finds what's best for me.
I have never been disappointed ...
When I called regarding a Mic for my wife he recommended this to me:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M80Std/reviews

This is an amazing Mic with great response and clarity.
It makes my wife's voice sound incredible clear with great dynamic range. I can hear things I couldn't hear before...
Love it.

Eric

She will definitely benefit a lot cleaner voice with E945. Even e935 which is pretty much the same mic.It is supercardion mic and it it's really good on the stage with handling feedback.I am not much of a singer but for now it's my main mic.Very nice sounding. Much, much cleaner than sm58 which for me has that dull sound that you are talking about. It's all in the midrange and I hate it to tell you the truth. Not that it's a bad mic at all. But, there are several better mics now days.
She should go and try several mics and see which one is good for her regardless the price.

Eric M80 is a great mic.

Excellent response people, I knew I could rely on you!

What is interest1ng is that once I had placed my post I did some Goodling and the only mic consistently getting favourable comment is....

the Sennheiser e945!

I'll check out the others mentioned as well. We might be able to audition them as well if we head down to Manchester.


Thanks.

I have the E835 how much better is the 945 is there a difference please let me know I find the 835 is a bit mid range and at hight volume and close prox it can get a low humm take out the lows I would like to not do that if poss .

Ron

935 is excellent. I have two 855s and have used them for years. They are getting pretty beat up so I got a 935 because they no longer make the 855. If anything it is even better than the 855s.
My late friend HankB had both 835 and 855 and the difference is very noticeable. The 835 required rolling off some lows and mids. I use both the 855 and now the 935 with zero e.q.
Over the years I have tried about everything that is out there and always return to the Sennheiser. I currently own about a dozen mics and that's after giving 10 to a church last year!
My next favorite is Blue Encore 100, but it has similar characteristics to SM58, just hotter, a little less handling noise and prettier! There is zero handling noise with Sennheisers.

My favorite mic is the Electrovoice ND767a it just has more GAIN then anything else I've tried on stage..
not to mention an awesome vocal sound for my voice. Thru the years I have tried many including Senn but always return to the EV ND767a.

http://www.electrovoice.com/product.php?id=85