Wireless?

[dbw]

What do you guys think of wireless units for guitars?

I always turn counter-clockwise when I play, which twists my cables like crazy.  All my bandmates tell me I should get a wireless, but I always think of Nigel Tufnel fighting his wireless unit... what do you guys think?  Are they worth the money and the hassle?  How about tone?  They all have A/D D/A converters which seems like it would suck a lot of tone.

 

[jackthehack]

I'm the Sr. Systems Engineer for one of the top cell phone OEMs globally with 20+ years experience in Telecommunications and know more about RF/wireless connectivity than CB does about tube amps.

I'll switch from cables to wireless when I start playing 10,000 + venues and can hire an RF/electrical engineer that thinks he's a musician that will work for cheap to take care of that light work for me.

 

[guitlouie]

I'm no expert, but to my semi-educated ears the last wireless guitar set-up I played through most definitely affected the sound of the rig in a negative way.  I also would like to point out something that may or may not be of importance to you, but I have never played a show in a big arena, or even a very large club.  I think our biggest gig ever had a few thousand people at it.  Playing in small clubs has a "paying your dues" quality to it that I happen to like.  So when I see some band come into my dingy little rock world and start setting up all kinds of crazy crap, I always find myself thinking "what a bunch of jerkwads".  I mean do you really need a wireless guitar setup to play on twenty feet of beer soaked stage?  Anyway, like I said, you may feel different.  You may be playing in huge arenas.  You may find my rant overreactionary.  I almost do.  My point is that I love my cables and am not likely to give them up soon. 

 

[dbw]

So when I see some band come into my dingy little rock world and start setting up all kinds of crazy crap, I always find myself thinking "what a bunch of jerkwads".  I mean do you really need a wireless guitar setup to play on twenty feet of beer soaked stage?

This is exactly the thing I want to avoid.  I mean I'm so small time it's absurd.  I just have this strange habit of spinning in one direction while I play.

 

[GoDrex]

Spin the other way.

 

[Volitions Advocate]

I've used wireless for about a year.

For me it doesnt' matter what size stage i'm using, its very convenient not to be anchored to something.

and the only time its given me trouble with interference and the like is when the batteries were almost dead.  but at full charge as far as I can tell it sounds just like a cord... on my rig at least.

 

[jackthehack]

I'll admit it is convenient; but when taking an analog signal, converting it to digital, transmitting it wirelessly across the UHF - 9xx Mhz frequency spectrum and re-converting it to digital is always going to result in some signal/frequency loss; especially of you're dealing with a system constructed of components you can retail for $300 or less.

You could technically do something with close to no loss using MIMO antenna arrays ( http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~rheath/researchmimo/antenna/ ) and the 2.1 Ghz spectrum, but you'd wind up with much larger component systems and a cost approaching a grand.

 

[Volitions Advocate]

a buddy of mine just got a new kind of wireless that works really well for him.. it doesn't use UHF in the traditional sense. at least not like your usual wireless system does.    I think its bluetooth or something weird like that.

You'd think there'd be more innovative ways to do this by now..

 

[Johnhamdun]

Spin the other way.

haaha +1

 

[jimh]

:sign13:

Brian May / Jimi Hendrix stylee curly cables?  ???
:icon_thumright:

 

[simple]

Whether I'm playing live or just moving around the studio tracking with a guitar strapped on, a guitar cable is a nuisance to me.

For tone and performance in a wireless, you'd be hard pressed to beat the X2 line:

http://line6.com/digitalwireless/

I've got the rack one and it is an amazing sounding unit and you don't have to worry about the impending global RF frequency reshuffle that is going on.

 

[Volitions Advocate]

THATS the one that my buddy has.. the little on-the-floor model

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

Wireless units are awesome if you get good quality ones. I got one when i started top play guitar and it was one of those super small ones, you can walk up to 35 meters away from your amp with it i think and i put Velcro on it so it sticks to my guitar.

I was also using a planet waves gold plated, extra extra shielded lead with a right angle jack and stuffed it because i pulled it out of the guitar wrong and to fast.

But yeah, totally worth it. You can do guitar swings and not muck up your leads. arty07:

 

[T.L.]

I like wireless guitar, and for live, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with it. Of course you'd use a cable in the studio, but the idea that there's gonna be all kinds of tone loss from a wireless in a live situation is B.S. in my opinion. Guys like Steve Vai have roadies to detangle their 50-foot cables for them.  Tone loss would occur only if you are standing far away from your wireless receiver, which is usually close to your amp, in which case you would not be able to hear your amp very well anyway (I always stand close to mine -- I never ran around all over the stage), or if you don't have a fresh battery in your transmitter. Some players tour parts of the the world where there could be RF interference, so perhaps that is why they use a long cable instead.

I use an old Sampson rack-mount wireless and it works great. Not only is there NO loss in high-end, but I actually perceive an increase in high-end frequencies. Ten years-old and still works great...