Smooth Hound Innovations Digital Wireless Guitar System

[naxos10]

Good choice Dave.

Hopefully Chris will have the strap attachments back in stock shortly.

[BassedinBucks]

I bought the Smooth Hound device about a year ago, late summer 2017. I rang Chris at Smooth Hound around 4pm,  asked if he could get one posted quickly, he told me to order it online straight away and he'd get it in the post, it arrived the next morning!

It was really easy to set up and there is a way to set the latency to 5ms which I did and haven't touched it since. I've never tested it but can honestly say I've never noticed any difference to playing my bass with a 6m cable. Then our lead guitarist tried it at rehearsal and liked it, so he bought one too. We both use them all the time, rehearsal and live and neither of us has ever had any issues at all. The receiver unit is velcro'd to my pedal board and sits on the floor, never had any issues, even when I wander right out onto the dance floor during sound check to set the levels of the digital desk with my iPad. So we are running three 2.4GHz devices including the desk wifi, as well as two UHF radio mics (Shure) and two sets of Shure UHF IEMs (all on free UHF channel) - never had any conflicts with any of them.

I've recommended the device to guitarists in other bands, a couple of whom have bought them and they haven't had any issues with them either, they're really pleased with them.

The only thing I've had to do is replace the small piece of 'sticky pad' that holds the transmitter onto the guitar body because I have used it so much. I found a product online called NanoHold for a couple of quid and I have cut a replacement piece from that and given a sheet to our guitarist too - I now keep my transmitter unit in a small plastic freezer bag to keep the sticky pad clean. Apart from that, I've been really pleased with my unit and strongly recommend it if you want to lose the cables and have a bit of freedom to move around the stage and dance floor with your bass.

[intime-nick]

6 hours ago, naxos10 said:

Good choice Dave.

Hopefully Chris will have the strap attachments back in stock shortly.

He will - I'm making some for him at the moment - they will hopefully be available in a few days

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, intime-nick said:

He will - I'm making some for him at the moment - they will hopefully be available in a few days

I'll hold off my order for a couple of weeks to make sure i get the full package all at once.

Dave

[Johnny Wishbone]

On 01/03/2018 at 12:50, intime-nick said:

for anyone wanting to easily mount their Smoothound transmitter on a strap, I've got a new design for a simple 3D printed clip assembly that holds the REAN connector to your strap and can be left attached to it.  The transmitter & extension cable fit into the connector as normal.  I'll also do a more universal one that mounts with a velcro strap as this one only fits length-ways on a leather strap into the length adjustment slots.

just testing the first prototype.  the parts are printed in a modified ABS polymer and are more than strong enough - see what you think (pics attached)

Are these still available? I've just treated myself to a SmoothHound for Xmas and strap-mounting the transmitter definitely looks like the way to go for me!

Edited December 22, 2018 by Johnny Wishbone

[intime-nick]

Speak to @SmoothHoundChris - he may still have some of the strap mounting brackets available. Just be aware that they are different to the ones shown above - that was an early design. 

[Al Krow]

Another great experience of service from Chris for me:

I bought a used SH receiver / transmitter from a fellow BC'er a little while back as a back up unit and, having quickly checked it worked when I bought it, it had since been sitting in my drawer as the 'spare'. Decided very recently to set up on my home pedal board but when I A/B'd with my existing SH unit I found it to be significantly noisier.

Got in touch with Chris - really responsive and helpful. He subsequently took in the unit, diagnosed the issue and fixed it (and wouldn't have charged me a penny for P&P and his time and materials if I had not pressed him and even then was ridiculously modest with his repair pricing).

Cheers Chris! 

[dave_bass5]

Having seen and used one of these systems the other night (thanks to @Al Krow) iim considering getting one in the near future if i find my new-ish Boss WL20's dont work out. I like the idea of a more robust system, and have recently given my G30 away. The Boss system is good, but im a bit worried about how stable these small systems are. Ive already had more drop outs with it in a couple of months, over never with my G30.

Ive ready all this thread and you all seem pretty happy with them. MY only concern is the latency. Now i know a lot of you said its fine, but that was a while ago.

Has anyone changed their minds, found it a problem under normal gigging conditions? im not talking about recording etc, where it could be noticeable (not sure why anyone would anyway).

Not looking for other recommendations, just asking about the SH system.

Cheers.

[Al Krow]

Folk who worry about 8ms latency clearly have too much time on their hands 😉

Edited August 8, 2019 by Al Krow

[dmccombe7]

49 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Having seen and used one of these systems the other night (thanks to @Al Krow) iim considering getting one in the near future if i find my new-ish Boss WL20's dont work out. I like the idea of a more robust system, and have recently given my G30 away. The Boss system is good, but im a bit worried about how stable these small systems are. Ive already had more drop outs with it in a couple of months, over never with my G30.

Ive ready all this thread and you all seem pretty happy with them. MY only concern is the latency. Now i know a lot of you said its fine, but that was a while ago.

Has anyone changed their minds, found it a problem under normal gigging conditions? im not talking about recording etc, where it could be noticeable (not sure why anyone would anyway).

Not looking for other recommendations, just asking about the SH system.

Cheers.

Been using mine at rehearsals and gigs and have never noticed any issues with mine at all.

The purists will say the latency is an issue but if its a reasonable to small stage and your within normal stage distance from your amp / receiver and i'm talking maybe 3-5m then you'll never notice it. If you are playing large Wembley type stages and you are wandering to the opposite side of the arena stage then maybe you would hear it if really listening to it but your brain would simply adjust your playing to what you are hearing from the rest of the band IMHO.

I'm no scientist or expert in anyway whatsoever and can only offer my own opinion. Pretty sure we've already discussed the latency issue on this thread and depending on who you speak to you'll get a different answer.

One thing that did come out of the discussion was that if you also use in-ear monitors then latency between bass and then IEM will be more than likely longer and possibly noticeable.

My summary is in most normal pub bands its perfect for the job.

Dave   

[Al Krow]

7 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

One thing that did come out of the discussion was that if you also use in-ear monitors then latency between bass and IEM will be... possibly noticeable.

Fair - I don't use IEMs but conceptually that makes sense.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Al Krow

[dave_bass5]

10 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

 

. Pretty sure we've already discussed the latency issue on this thread and depending on who you speak to you'll get a different answer..

My summary is in most normal pub bands its perfect for the job.

Dave   

Cheers. Yes, it was spoken about when they first came out, and yes, there were variable responses to this, but my question was really to see if anyone found it to be a real problem and moved on. 
I do use a pick and so do get a more audible click, and I suppose this can be more noticeable if it’s delayed, but I agree, 8ms is nothing to worry about  

I’m definitely talking about pubs and small clubs, so not worried at all about the range. 

[Bobthedog]

I have no latency issues, in fact I think my fingers cause more latency issues than the wireless unit. 

[dmccombe7]

8ms is about the time it takes a guitarist to strum a chord from top to bottom E strings. Do you notice that ? I certainly can't.

Dave

[Al Krow]

This is interesting through headphones. I can see why 10 ms latency could potentially be an issue for IEM.

However when playing live don't we simply adjust our technique and play things a fraction of a second (thousandths to be precise) "ahead" so that we are in time?

 

[dmccombe7]

Yep you can hear the difference from around 5ms quite clearly but you have to ask whether or not everyone in your band is that close to perfect timing in  a live situation. 

Not 100% sure but is the Smoothhound latency not up to 8ms which i'm assuming most people will not be at the max distance from their amp.  I'm happy to be corrected on that one.

At the end of the day i would simply adjust my technique to what i'm hearing on stage. I can't say i've ever noticed anything untoward when using it.

I'd be happy to recommend the Smooth Hound for average pub style bands doing small to med venues. If you are playing Wembley then you can afford a top of the range Shure XXXX 

[intime-nick]

Re. latency - my experience is with IEMs - I notice it, a lot

Setup at the time was Smoothound into Helix LT into XR18 mixer into Sennheiser EW300 G3 IEM Tx - very noticeable .  Swapped back to my Line 6 XD-V75 wireless and it disappeared.  Nothing wrong with the Smoothound setup if you play into a conventional backline (I have none - direct to PA) - as an experiment, swapping to the lower latency setting on the Smoothound yielded a much less stable connection and was practically unusable in gig settings. 

As with all these things,  everyone has different experiences and susceptibilities to latency. 

And no, I don’t have a lot of time on my hands 😉

Edited August 8, 2019 by intime-nick

[CameronJ]

2 hours ago, intime-nick said:

Re. latency - my experience is with IEMs - I notice it, a lot

Setup at the time was Smoothound into Helix LT into XR18 mixer into Sennheiser EW300 G3 IEM Tx - very noticeable .  Swapped back to my Line 6 XD-V75 wireless and it disappeared.  Nothing wrong with the Smoothound setup if you play into a conventional backline (I have none - direct to PA) - as an experiment, swapping to the lower latency setting on the Smoothound yielded a much less stable connection and was practically unusable in gig settings. 

As with all these things,  everyone has different experiences and susceptibilities to latency. 

And no, I don’t have a lot of time on my hands 😉

This is spot on. The 8ms latency of the Smooth Hound on its own isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker but when chaining it into digital effects, a digital mixer and through a digital wireless IEM system, each of those components in the signal chain will be adding their own additional milliseconds of latency to the pile. It won’t take long for the result to be unusable if one isn’t careful about their choice of hardware.

[Chienmortbb]

15 hours ago, intime-nick said:

Re. latency - my experience is with IEMs - I notice it, a lot

Setup at the time was Smoothound into Helix LT into XR18 mixer into Sennheiser EW300 G3 IEM Tx - very noticeable .  Swapped back to my Line 6 XD-V75 wireless and it disappeared.  Nothing wrong with the Smoothound setup if you play into a conventional backline (I have none - direct to PA) - as an experiment, swapping to the lower latency setting on the Smoothound yielded a much less stable connection and was practically unusable in gig settings. 

As with all these things,  everyone has different experiences and susceptibilities to latency. 

And no, I don’t have a lot of time on my hands 😉

The thing is that those are all digital devices and in my experience add 2-3ms each minimum. The Ramsa WRDA7 digital mixer , for which I was Technical Manager, had a 2mS delay although Yamaha suggests that 4mS is the norm for digital mixers. I suspect that Smoothound are being truthful with their figures while many others choose a best case scenario. I have used my Smoothhound through a Zoom B1on and then FOH through a Behringer X Air and had no problems. Others have used my setup and never reported a problem. Incidently on the latency video above, although I can hear some difference at around 5mS, there does not seem to be a real issue with a double beat until close to 30 for me.

The biggest issue we have had is that with some of the lower priced units, there is interference with the X-Air mixer's wireless signal causing remote operation to fail. This does not happen with the Smoothound.

In my opinion, IEMs should not add any delay as they are monitoring systems. They should faithfully reproduce the signal they are given including timing

Edited August 9, 2019 by Chienmortbb

[Al Krow]

14 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Incidently on the latency video above, although I can hear some difference at around 5mS, there does not seem to be a real issue with a double beat until close to 30 for me.

Interesting you say that - I think it's definitely more noticeable through headphones than a speaker.

But not sure how relevant the more easily heard 'double beat' is to bass in that you won't get a double note but rather a delayed note and, as others have mentioned, surely that can be addressed by just hitting the string a fraction of a second earlier and you would be sub-consciously doing that in real time anyway?

But with my lot using an analogue ZED FX mixer and going through to PA / not using IEMs, this just has never been an issue on any gig to date (or certainly not one anyone has ever mentioned).

Edited August 9, 2019 by Al Krow

[CameronJ]

Exactly. If the rest of your setup is analogue, you’re unlikely to encounter latency issues with 8ms on its own.

Equally, IEMs aren’t going to add to your overall latency unless you’re running them wirelessly.

Edited August 11, 2019 by CameronJ

[EBS_freak]

1 hour ago, CameronJ said:

Exactly. If the rest of your setup is analogue, you’re unlikely to encounter latency issues with 8ma on its own.

Equally, IEMs aren’t going to add to your overall latency unless you’re running them wirelessly.

IEMs are generally analogue - so no latency (or in reality, its something like 0.01ms). The only pro digital IEM system I can think of is the Lectrosonics which is 1.4ms (using it's analogue connections) or 1ms plus the latency of the Dante network it's if staying completely in the digital realm. In reality, in a pro digital setup, you are still comfortably under 3ms.  

[EBS_freak]

10 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Interesting you say that - I think it's definitely more noticeable through headphones than a speaker.

But not sure how relevant the more easily heard 'double beat' is to bass in that you won't get a double note but rather a delayed note and, as others have mentioned, surely that can be addressed by just hitting the string a fraction of a second earlier and you would be sub-consciously doing that in real time anyway?

But with my lot using an analogue ZED FX mixer and going through to PA / not using IEMs, this just has never been an issue on any gig to date (or certainly not one anyone has ever mentioned).

Having to adjust your playing to compensate isn't really where you want to be at - as you'll soon become known as that bass player that pushes the beat when you aren't on the wireless connection.

Anyway, talking about "hearing" is one thing, playing against latency is another thing. It doesn't take a lot for it to become uncomfortable. I don't meant to be rude here - but I don't think that you've ever tried playing with a digital desk with iems so you can't really offer what it's really like... but for those of us that have, its simply not an option. @intime-nick alludes to the fact that he had to switch to a different wireless to get around the issue. It really is an issue! If you can feel and hear that your playing is not in sync, it makes for a very unpleasant experience! 

[Al Krow]

2 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Having to adjust your playing to compensate isn't really where you want to be at - as you'll soon become known as that bass player that pushes the beat when you aren't on the wireless connection.

Anyway, talking about "hearing" is one thing, playing against latency is another thing. It doesn't take a lot for it to become uncomfortable. I don't meant to be rude here - but I don't think that you've ever tried playing with a digital desk with iems so you can't really offer what it's really like... but for those of us that have, its simply not an option. @intime-nick alludes to the fact that he had to switch to a different wireless to get around the issue. It really is an issue! If you can feel and hear that your playing is not in sync, it makes for a very unpleasant experience! 

Can't argue with any of that!  

[tuss]

I bought my SH wireless system back in 2016 and it's served me very well in that time. It's the cheapest wireless system I've owned, but has been by far the best and out performed both Line 6 and Samson systems that I had previously. Their customer service is excellent also, so I would be more than happy to recommend the system to anyone.