Wireless

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

13 minutes ago, andydye said:

is it not a bit weird though that the shure transmitters have the instrument cable coming out of the top rather than the bottom?

Erm, not to me, in fact it makes perfect sense. I seem to remember the Line 6’s are also designed that way.

[SuperSeagull]

Another vote for the Shure. The only time I had an issue with it was when I tried to save some space on the pedalboard and used the Diago power supply which does the rest of the board, it’s lower voltage and the plug wouldn’t seat properly so had to revert to the original one. It’s a lovely bit of kit. 

[Bunion]

5 hours ago, andydye said:

so is it easy to deactivate the shure tuner bit?

The pedal button activates the strobe tuner and mutes sound, another press it’s off and your rocking again but perfectly in tune 😄

[Jack]

23 hours ago, andydye said:

could you detect any sound quality improvement when you went to the shure?

how do you get on with the rechargeable packs or do you use AA rechargeables?

Sound? Can't say I did. I know wireless units compete over build, battery life, range, that kind of thing (and the Shure is great!) but they all kind of sound the same to me. The one exception is my super cheap unit (which I incorrectly said up there was Amoon and it's actually Lekato) which I definitely think compresses the low E string a bit. But it was £30 and never leaves the house, so we'll accept that. Honestly every unit I've ever used apart from that one has been excellent. The best in terms of range was my Line 6 G55, but that's probably because it was in a rack on top of a tall stack, if I put my pedalboard on a stack I'd probably find the wireless range on there improved too. I was a bit worried about cumulative latency, given that like most people there are several ad/da conversions in in my chain, but that's never been a problem either.

 

Maybe I'm just not picky, maybe I play easy stages for wireless units, maybe they all broadly work ok. 

 

With regards to batteries, that's an interesting one. I find the battery life excellent but it does worry me that you can't just throw a set of fresh ones in when they die so I always have two packs with me. There's a pack with each of my boards and charged spare that lives in my gig bag. I didn't really get behind the battery charger, seemed easier and almost as cheap to just buy another pack. Shure recently cut the capacity of the batteries by about a third and now there are rumours that they are discontinuing the GLX series. I wonder if there's a new product on the way that is maybe more power efficient and designed to use the newer, smaller batteries. Given how popular the GLX set is I can't believe that they'd get out of the market entirely, it's always the number one recommended pedalboard wireless on every thread on every forum and blog. My personal theory is that the rackmounted units aren't as popular and they will all be dropped, leaving only the '16' set for semi-pro musicians with the smaller batteries.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Jack

[Chienmortbb]

I have to be honest, I have a B in my bonnet about Shure. Its not their fault but the SM58 is not very good by today's standards yet is lauded by all and sundry. It  gives me  the impression that all Shure stuff is over priced. I must admit that the pedal board wireless stuff looks good but £400+ to replace a cable?

 

I use the Smoothhound Classic. Is it perfect? No. Has it ever let me down? No. The battery level meter is really useful and the "inteference" meter does give you a warning if the area is swamped with 2.4GHz. It can take AAA batteries, Alkaline or rechargeable and will do two gigs on one charge (although I never rely on it).

[Muppet]

18 hours ago, andydye said:

is it not a bit weird though that the shure transmitters have the instrument cable coming out of the top rather than the bottom?

Turn it upside down. Then it's coming out of the bottom. 

 

The metal belt clip is reversible. 

[Jack]

52 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I have to be honest, I have a B in my bonnet about Shure. Its not their fault but the SM58 is not very good by today's standards yet is lauded by all and sundry.

Fender P Bass

Ford Mustang

The BBC

Rolex Submariner

 

Technically-better things come along all the time and they don't displace the classics. Blame the people for the hype, not Shure. If you ran Shure and people still bought millions of the things every year you wouldn't change or cancel it, they are the number one best selling thing on Thomann ever, despite the fact that you're absolutely right.

[Chienmortbb]

2 hours ago, Jack said:

Fender P Bass

Ford Mustang

The BBC

Rolex Submariner

 

Technically-better things come along all the time and they don't displace the classics. Blame the people for the hype, not Shure. If you ran Shure and people still bought millions of the things every year you wouldn't change or cancel it, they are the number one best selling thing on Thomann ever, despite the fact that you're absolutely right.

It seems strange to be admonished, and at the end told you are right. I would argue with some on your list but not your general premise.  
 

I was at a BBC event once where there was a band. The BBC sound person had to use the supplied mics, a box full of dynamic mics, a mixture of SM57s and Behringer’s 8500s. The SM58s stayed in the box and he used the Behringers. when asked why he said you cannot easily EQ out the response of the 58, whereas the Behringer has flatter response that is easier to EQ. It should be said that SM58 is a 60-70 year old design. The fact that I think my Sontronics Solo is far superior is nothing to do with the fact that the Sontronics factory is just round the corner from me. Before you ask, I bought it retail after trying several mics.
 

Still as someone from Shure once told me, the SM58 paid for his pension. 
 

Back to the wireless systems, 

 

[EBS_freak]

22 hours ago, andydye said:

is it not a bit weird though that the shure transmitters have the instrument cable coming out of the top rather than the bottom?

Not really - as the vast majority of transmitter units in this format that are sold are used with lavalier mics, with the transmitters attached to the wearers belts.

[Rik (ESA)]

I've been after the shure glxd16 for a while but nowhere seems to have them in stock, anyone know if they've been discontinued?

[Chienmortbb]

33 minutes ago, Rik (ESA) said:

I've been after the shure glxd16 for a while but nowhere seems to have them in stock, anyone know if they've been discontinued?

Probably the worldwide shortage of components. 

[Jack]

44 minutes ago, Rik (ESA) said:

I've been after the shure glxd16 for a while but nowhere seems to have them in stock, anyone know if they've been discontinued?

8 hours ago, Jack said:

..Shure recently cut the capacity of the batteries by about a third and now there are rumours that they are discontinuing the GLX series...

😉

 

3 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

It seems strange to be admonished, and at the end told you are right. I would argue with some on your list but not your general premise.  
 

I was at a BBC event once where there was a band. The BBC sound person had to use the supplied mics, a box full of dynamic mics, a mixture of SM57s and Behringer’s 8500s. The SM58s stayed in the box and he used the Behringers. when asked why he said you cannot easily EQ out the response of the 58, whereas the Behringer has flatter response that is easier to EQ. It should be said that SM58 is a 60-70 year old design. The fact that I think my Sontronics Solo is far superior is nothing to do with the fact that the Sontronics factory is just round the corner from me. Before you ask, I bought it retail after trying several mics.
 

Still as someone from Shure once told me, the SM58 paid for his pension. 
 

Back to the wireless systems, 

 

My apologies, no admonishing intended! I do think you're right though, I wouldn't (and haven't) bought an SM58 when there's better stuff around these days.

[Al Krow]

I love the simplicity and compact form factor of the Boss WL-20 wireless. Seems to have a pretty decent range too. Here's me misbehaving at a gig last weekend courtesy of the WL-20s:

 

 

[Chienmortbb]

deleted

Edited July 27, 2022 by Chienmortbb
Post deleted as no comment was made

[PGTips]

On 08/06/2022 at 21:47, jay bass said:

I have been using a Line 6 relay G30 for years without any problems, done theaters, indoor and large outdoor gigs , clubs, pubs etc

takes 2 rechargable AA batteries . built to last and a fair price . easy to set up and use.

the shure system is also great and has more features  but more expensive to do basicaly the same thing , all down to budgets and personal preference i guess

but either of these units will do the job for years without any problems

 

I bought a Line 6 G30 in 2014, and have used it almost every day since. I have never had a problem with it 

[stewblack]

I had a Shure system and it was ok until it wasn't. I've used line 6 and experienced irritating drop outs on occasions.

My current wireless is a Lekato  WS50 which comprises a pair of 5.8ghz 'bugs'. £30 off an eBay seller and never once given me any sort of an issue.

I regularly gig for over three hours without a break, and they've always done this without needing a charge. The sound is entirely indistinguishable from high quality cable and I cannot imagine how any other system could possibly improve upon them.

 

[andydye]

On 13/07/2022 at 17:30, stewblack said:

I had a Shure system and it was ok until it wasn't. I've used line 6 and experienced irritating drop outs on occasions.

My current wireless is a Lekato  WS50 which comprises a pair of 5.8ghz 'bugs'. £30 off an eBay seller and never once given me any sort of an issue.

I regularly gig for over three hours without a break, and they've always done this without needing a charge. The sound is entirely indistinguishable from high quality cable and I cannot imagine how any other system could possibly improve upon them.

 

I'm having this exact issue with my g50, I've tried swapping out the transmitter, and the receiver, it makes no difference and still keeps cutting out. v annoying!

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

15 minutes ago, andydye said:

I'm having this exact issue with my g50, I've tried swapping out the transmitter, and the receiver, it makes no difference and still keeps cutting out. v annoying!

I highly recommend contacting Shure. Thoroughly excellent Customer Support in my experience.

[Muppet]

10 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I highly recommend contacting Shure. Thoroughly excellent Customer Support in my experience.

Do Shure provide support for Line6 products? 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

11 minutes ago, Muppet said:

Do Shure provide support for Line6 products? 

Ha ha, only scanned the last few comments. Probably not 🤣. Confused myself.

 

On a serious note, I do know someone who experienced drop out's with their Line 6 receiver. I think I'm right in saying that there are two ways to power it? With a USB type cable and a mains cable. I believe the USB type port was at fault. There was no issue when using with the mains cable. 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Just now, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Ha ha, only scanned the last few comments. Probably not 🤣. Confused myself.

 

On a serious note, I do know someone who experienced drop out's with their Line 6 receiver. I think I'm right in saying that there are two ways to power it? With a USB type cable and a mains cable. I believe the USB type port was at fault. There was no issue when using with the mains cable. 

I don't think it was the G50 though.

[andydye]

Having done a bit of googling, it looks very much like the drop-out is a known issue with 'some' line6 units, I just appear to have all of them at my house for some reason  

 

seriously considering jumping to Sennheiser, would've been Shure but they have discontinued their GLX products 

[JPJ]

I’ve been using a Line6 G50 for a long long time, probably 10 years. I’ve had no bad experiences or signal dropout although a previous guitarist had the same unit and I would cause his to drop out if I got between his transmitter and receiver even though we were on different channels. He moved his receiver to his pedal board and the problem was solved. I’d love another transmitter pack as I often swap fretted to fretless, but they are bloody expensive!

[gazhowe]

11 hours ago, andydye said:

Having done a bit of googling, it looks very much like the drop-out is a known issue with 'some' line6 units, I just appear to have all of them at my house for some reason  

 

seriously considering jumping to Sennheiser, would've been Shure but they have discontinued their GLX products 

I used a Line6 G30 for years with no problems and only sold it as I wanted a bug type transmitter.  Unfortunately the used Line6 G10S I bought has constant dropout issues so is consigned to home use only (where it still has the issues). 
 

I bought a Sennheiser XSW-D pedalboard wireless last year that also has a built in tuner.  It’s been rock solid so far and I’m very happy with it.  Might be worth checking out if you haven’t done so already. 

[andydye]

12 hours ago, JPJ said:

I’ve been using a Line6 G50 for a long long time, probably 10 years. I’ve had no bad experiences or signal dropout although a previous guitarist had the same unit and I would cause his to drop out if I got between his transmitter and receiver even though we were on different channels. He moved his receiver to his pedal board and the problem was solved. I’d love another transmitter pack as I often swap fretted to fretless, but they are bloody expensive!

 

I've had mine for almost as long and it was fine for most of that time, it's only more recently that they've started dropping out and it's infuriating as I can't work out what does or doesn't make it happen, I've tried different transmitters, receivers, cables, basses, rooms, trousers, phone in pocket / out of pocket.

 

I'm going to gather all the bits of wireless kit that I've accumulated together tonight, I've definitely got 3 receivers on various boards and also maybe 4 or 5 transmitters somehow, I may have spares for the spares and if yours is behaving nicely I've probably got a spare transmitter and cable...

 

11 hours ago, gazhowe said:

I used a Line6 G30 for years with no problems and only sold it as I wanted a bug type transmitter.  Unfortunately the used Line6 G10S I bought has constant dropout issues so is consigned to home use only (where it still has the issues). 
 

I bought a Sennheiser XSW-D pedalboard wireless last year that also has a built in tuner.  It’s been rock solid so far and I’m very happy with it.  Might be worth checking out if you haven’t done so already. 

 

Yesterday I was googling in desperation to see if anybody had anything in stock and the general answer seemed to be 'NOPE', suspect this is a general stock shortage due to the silicon chip shortage?

 

I was looking at Sennheiser and Shure, even contemplated the boss one but that had bad reviews for the battery door always flopping open, ended up finding a 'b stock' line6 g55 which should be arriving today and will hopefully NOT cut out