What's a good wireless?

[GAR]

What's a good wireless? I don't even know.

I know there's two kinds: analogue, and digital.

I know digital, as in Spectrasonics, is very very clear. I saw Ronnie Montrose from the wings a couple years ago and stood next to his rig a few feet away. Although I know how he sounded which was fine as can be, I don't know how his Spectrasonics added or detracted from the normal "corded" signal sound.

I also know analogue, which can range from mild added compression to quite alot of it gained due to the compander circuitry they all add to cut transmission noise.. some of it's good, some not - usually the cheaper stuff isn't.

But the really good Nadys they used to make that had grate compression can't be had anymore.

Are the wirelesses now a part of vintage fictional lore, or are the newer ones better in the way the newer digital reverbs, and the newer analogue delays are better with clearer signal, less filtration but less noise too?

Tell me people what you think is a good wireless, I may have to go get one soon..

[jhale667]

Awww...

2 out of the 3 "name" (well, one sorta) players I've teched for were cable-only "purists", but the one guy that was using one was a Shure (not 'boutique' or anything), and worked without fail in every city they played in (said he'd rarely as in once or twice, encountered a drop-out or the unit not being able to find a frequency), but never did in the 3 month tour I did with 'em. I've gotta find my notes (not in the Anvil briefcase, crap) to send something to Rev, but I'll see it I've got the model number notated so we can figure out what this year's spiffy new model equivalent is...
Anyway, it didn't color his tone much, and it worked...never personally tried one that didn't sound weird besides that one...

They're kinda useless, IMO unless your playing big stages, or doing backflips at your cover gig or whatever...

But with this unit (and most I'm told) god (or somebody) help you if during a switch you turned both transmitters off, the receiver started searching for their signals and made the white noise of doom thru the amps.... :eek:

[jhale667]

So...gonna play the Enormo-dome or perhaps a club gig soon, or do you just wanna be able to walk around the house? In other words, need or want one?

[GAR]

I need one.

[jhale667]

I need one.

So...after careful research, you're getting a...?

[Diamondjimi]

Why the fuck would anyone invest in a wireless to connect to a plywood Charvette?

And play where, the library audio room?

[GAR]

I have hit up at NAMM: Nady, Samson, Spectrasonics, and some others but they all seem so cheap. All are housed in little plastic shells that look really breakable.

I don't know. Try dealing with some GC cunt, and you go plug into a half stack with some volume, and they go "oh dude, that's enough Brah.. can't do that Brah.. "

Well, FUCK you "Breh" I'm NOT your fucking brother. I hate "brother" are we in prison yet, Brother?

Dont call me brother, Fuckin Zitfaced Knownothing.

I just wanna smash people in GC Hollywood. And they don't know shit, "uh sounds like you know way more then me bout it Brah.."

Stupid. Uneducated. Fucks.

[GAR]

I know its not their fault, but Guitar Center spends absolutely no money training the salespeople. Its like they want them to fail in sales or something, so they can just churn more job applications!

I like that they're freindly, but freindly doesn't really do it, does it when it comes to spending your money wisely, and you're trying to calculate features VS benefits of a wireless.

They don't care.

They will never use a wireless, they'll knock up their girlfriend and spend another 20 years working at a home improvement center to pay for upbringing and college they never got, and shit.

If I'm stuck using shitty microphonic cords, that's fine with them because thats what they like and use. I don't like cords.

Cords these days are so bad, I just brought home a set of the LiveWires send-return cables for one of my Hush units.. TOTALLY microphonic.

I mean: totally. As in, you could use it as a microphone with my gear.

[jhale667]

If CA OSHA's in the building while you're in one of the wank tanks trying to play rock gawd (and they frequently are) they're in trouble, so yeah, they'll tell you to STFU. They aren't just being dicks to you in this instance, they have to be.


The answer would be to research the one you want beforehand...however: Are wireless units, much like microphones in general still one of the few things not covered under their 30-day exchange policy?
Otherwise I'd say take your best guess home and get loud with it (gotten something out of "storage", possibly)....?

[jhale667]

I know its not their fault, but Guitar Center spends absolutely no money training the salespeople. Its like they want them to fail in sales or something, so they can just churn more job applications!

Exactly, it's part of their corporate design...get 'em, burn 'em out, get 'em out, and god forbid someone does learn (or know) something - they'll want more money! They for the most part pretty much want dipshits with no sales experience.
GC pretty much aspires to be the Wal-Mart or Home Depot of guitars.


There are people there that know what they're talking about, but you have to first find them, and then be cool to them (if you plan on being a regular customer).
If you're a know-nothing (especially if they throw you in the wrong department) when you walk in the door for the job, just aspiring not be may not help you if all you do is read their training manuals enough to pass their "certifications".

[Hardrock69]

What is sad to begin with is they do not give a fuck if you know anything about music equipment, they only are concerned about prospective employees having sales experience. It figures that they have regressed to the point now that they do not even want people with sales experience.

Why the fuck do they even call themselves "Guitar" Center? They should rename all their stores "Ignorant Salespeople Center".

[jhale667]

One of my friends is currently working there (not Hollywood, but a SoCal store) part-time while putting himself back through school (he and his wife are collecting degrees, lol and he actually does know his shit guitar wise) for fun $$ says it ain't that much fun or $$ these days...

[Nitro Express]

A unit that shuts off when someone who sucks plays through it.

[Nitro Express]

What is sad to begin with is they do not give a fuck if you know anything about music equipment, they only are concerned about prospective employees having sales experience. It figures that they have regressed to the point now that they do not even want people with sales experience.

Why the fuck do they even call themselves "Guitar" Center? They should rename all their stores "Ignorant Salespeople Center".

It's the Wal-Mart of music stores.

[GAR]

If CA OSHA's in the building while you're in one of the wank tanks trying to play rock gawd (and they frequently are) they're in trouble, so yeah, they'll tell you to STFU. They aren't just being dicks to you in this instance, they have to be.

That's bullshit propaganda but I'm sure the threat of "osha" from an upper manager instills the junior salesguy the confidence to turn down his prospects' volume. OSHA don't work after 5pm anyways.. they're State workers! So GC get to lie to their people, and they do it all the time. Fuck GC.

They know in Pasadena store at least I don't take that kind of directive, but I'm not in the SGV anymore. When the Marshall Mode4 came out I was all over it and came in around closing to push it to a painful 8 volume level for awhile, and it's a 300watt head.

30 days refund policy works for me: I pay cash for strings but anything I'm "testing" for 30 days, I used the plastic. I do NOT do "exchange" so they get to go fuck themselves each and everytime I return stuff.. I just say "okay so you want me to call Discover tonite when I get home -AND- the California Atty Generals' office come Monday?

What they are doing for return policy is illegal, and young musicians are so stupid they put up with applying purchase credit towards a new purchase.

I get my money back - all of it - if I don't like it. And I don't like arguing for a half-hour and showing how much of a to the core dickhead I can be about it, so if I think I may not like a new toy.. PLASTIC. Only plastic buying stuff like that.

[Nitro Express]

I've been using Dimarzio cords and couldn't be happier. I bought an Ernie Ball and a Fender cord and both were shit. Horrible!

[GAR]

I'm using a 10,000 sq ft warehouse to soundcheck my gear in a few weeks, I'd need a 50 foot guitar cord which is custom and can be easily destroyed the minute a cart drives over it.. or I could go wireless.

If I go wireless, I can walk outside and hear it.. I can walk 100ft behind the rig, or 100ft in front of it.

I'm past blasting my ears out in small rehearsal rooms like this, just checking gear. So, utilizing access I have in a near-empty place I should get some good live tones going and don't want to be pinned down with the restrictions of a cord or cords.

The send-return lines are 40ft alone for the pedalboard, boy I wish there was an affordable multi-channel xmt-rcv wireless for that solution (vol pedal, crybaby, midi)

[jhale667]

I'm using a 10,000 sq ft warehouse to soundcheck my gear in a few weeks, I'd need a 50 foot guitar cord which is custom...

TAKE. PICTURES. This being a gear forum, y'know would be cool to uh...see this gear and warehouse test of which you speak. Post it here. Take a picture of your rig at the farthest point the rig's still visible and the wireless works. Guitar shots are also encouraged.

The send-return lines are 40ft alone for the pedalboard, boy I wish there was an affordable multi-channel xmt-rcv wireless for that solution (vol pedal, crybaby, midi)

Would be cool...There'd need to be two dual-channel receivers to run the signal to and from the board and have the amp(s) "see" the guitars and signal in the same manner wireless, plus another set for the midi...it'd be a cool set up but already at 3-dual channel setups...right? Or one big CAE Bradshaw- brainiac one...how many rack spaces are you workin' with? What kind of - besides the Crybaby (standard model?) Volume and MIDI pedals are you currently using?

As for needing a 10,000 sq ft warehouse to accommodate your amp-volume settings to check out a wireless...even if it's a Plexi(s) or something similar...you anti-THD hotplate or something, out of curiousity?

[jhale667]

That's bullshit propaganda but I'm sure the threat of "osha" from an upper manager instills the junior salesguy the confidence to turn down his prospects' volume. OSHA don't work after 5pm anyways.. they're State workers! So GC get to lie to their people, and they do it all the time. Fuck GC.

They don't call it the "Evil Empire" for nothin'...

There's a lot of bullshit propaganda and wanna-be psychology going on there, but much like a bar, if they get noise complaints from 2AM on Saturday they can still get investigated and bothered-the-shit out of for 'em 9-5 Mon-Fri...douchbags walking around with DB meters...in either scenario (clubs have 'em too, it's just the club's staff rather than state douchebag)

Though I wouldn't put it past GC to also have a corporate staff-douche team that goes store-to-store nationwide posing as OSHA geeks...as part of the "Total World Domination" plan...

[GAR]

No, I just like low end response for natural guitar string sound.

OK heres a list for the send-returns.. Send1 from the guitar or backline wireless output into 3 returns as follows: Return2, 3 and 4.

Return lines 2 and 3 are clean Left and Right channel. R4 is just straight mono to dirty heads.

EBSVPP = EB Stereo Volume Panning Pedal x2 (clean / dirty)

Send1>EBSVPP1>Left Out>Stereo Chorus>Return2+3>Hush 2CX-#2 >Heads2+3>Four V30/G12T75 loaded 4x12 cabs

EBSVPP1>Right Out>EBSVPP2>Crybaby>flanger>phaser>treblebooster>
R4>Hush2cx-#2>Heads1+4>4 G12M25 4x12 cabs.

[GAR]

I have 7 different wahs, half are modded.

[Diamondjimi]

[GAR]

I have considered you guys' endless reiterating for pics, so I will be taking some and video of my gear for insurance purposes.

I doubled-up on property insurance dragging all this from storage mothballs, it was only an extra $600 a year.

I worry about people seeing my stuff from the beach thru the patio and weighing another ripoff loss against replacement, but how would they make it up thru the beach with cabs I dunno. Certainly guitars and heads could get marched out.. pedals.. that's why I chose to check the gear at a warehouse before coming home with some of it.

SO I really really don't wanna get blasted from 2 feet away, I want to hear how space eats up the tone and locate appropriate tone settings at different volume levels.

I need a wireless..

[Diamondjimi]

[kwame k]

So you're going to check your tone in a 10,000sq ft building. Checking your tone for what? Incredible bounce, tremendous sound decay, and a myriad of other problems from trying to get any tone from a space that big?

Testing your sound like that only works for a full PA system and stage/light show. It will never tell you anything about your amp/guitar tone. Too much sound loss and bounce to be reliable for any kind of bench test.

Seriously Gar, not trying to bust your balls....I just don't think that's the best type of environment to check your gear out on. I think you'll be real disappointed with the results.

[Diamondjimi]

So you're going to check your tone in a 10,000sq ft building. Checking your tone for what? Incredible bounce, tremendous sound decay, and a myriad of other problems from trying to get any tone from a space that big?

Testing your sound like that only works for a full PA system and stage/light show. It will never tell you anything about your amp/guitar tone. Too much sound loss and bounce to be reliable for any kind of bench test.

Seriously Gar, not trying to bust your balls....I just don't think that's the best type of environment to check your gear out on. I think you'll be real disappointed with the results.

True, every word of it.

Pure Pwnage!

I'm surprised The Fail himself doesn't realize this himself.
Funny thing here is it takes a drummer to point out the monolithic fail in his plan.
Good goin Kwame!

[kwame k]

Not really if you think about it. Drummers have to be more aware of acoustic situations than you guys. When recording, is the room too dead or is there too much bounce.....the way acoustic drums are mixed and if you even think about distance/ambient mixing the room has a huge effect on tone. Live settings....forget about it.

[Hardrock69]

A unit that shuts off when someone who sucks plays through it.

Perfect for Gar then.

Why bother going to such an extreme of checking a Fender Sidekick in a 10,000 square foot warehouse?

You want wireless? Use a piece of string.


Why spend the $$ for a real wireless unit just to pretend to be a guitarist in some warehouse for a couple of hours?

And you worry about your cardboard guitar being stolen off the park bench while you sleep?

[GAR]

Remove user from ignore list
Diamondjimi

Remove user from ignore list
kwame k

Remove user from ignore list
Diamondjimi

Remove user from ignore list
kwame k

Remove user from ignore list
Hardrock69

Goddamm, you two douches I know have nothing to cuntribute about wireless except more bitching, so I KNOW I don't have to click View Post this time.

Whatta couple a BITCHES

[jhale667]

Play nice, kiddies.

Dunno, Kwame makes excellent points about tone-testing in a large, empty space - imagining this is a warehouse, and not like a warehouse/rehearsal studio w/staging, etc.?


10,000 ft.'s a good range check of a wireless, however... but sounds like an interesting experiment.

C'mon, there's going to be video, I for one wanna see this.

[kwame k]

Play nice, kiddies.

Dunno, Kwame makes excellent points about tone-testing in a large, empty space - imagining this is a warehouse, and not like a warehouse/rehearsal studio w/staging, etc.?


10,000 ft.'s a good range check of a wireless, however... but sounds like an interesting experiment.

C'mon, there's going to be video, I for one wanna see this.

Even if it had staging, the tone at any distance would be horrible without a PA or sound reinforcement.

I read in a recording mag about how back in the day Elvis or other bands of that era would actually fill the room with furniture and anything else they could get their hands on to deaden a bright room. On the other hand Elvis used natural echo of certain rooms to get his vocal sound. That heavy echo sound on his early recordings. Sam Phillips talks about this at length and how RCA tried in vain to copy his technique but could never get it just right. Part of it was how Sam recorded him but part of it was the room.

We all have certain arenas/clubs that we hate to see bands in because of the acoustics of the venue.

Oh well, I'm wasting my time here....I'm on imaginary ignore

[GAR]

10,000 feet would be 2 miles! 10K square foot building is just a good-sized industrial space that's all.

I think 100 feet is sufficient distance to test a wireless, and what I'm interested is basically sonic clarity, how companders if any in the circuit color the sound, and then reception. I doubt I'd be 30 feet away. I'm just going to be far enough away that I can use the computer and hear what the distance mic should be getting.

[jhale667]

The sound coloration was bugged me about the few I've tried. The Shure unit the guy I worked for used is the only one I've heard that was livable in that regard.

[ZahZoo]

I'm using a 10,000 sq ft warehouse to soundcheck my gear in a few weeks, I'd need a 50 foot guitar cord which is custom and can be easily destroyed the minute a cart drives over it.. or I could go wireless.

If I go wireless, I can walk outside and hear it.. I can walk 100ft behind the rig, or 100ft in front of it.

I'm past blasting my ears out in small rehearsal rooms like this, just checking gear. So, utilizing access I have in a near-empty place I should get some good live tones going and don't want to be pinned down with the restrictions of a cord or cords.

The send-return lines are 40ft alone for the pedalboard, boy I wish there was an affordable multi-channel xmt-rcv wireless for that solution (vol pedal, crybaby, midi)

What a crock... unless you'll be touring abandoned warehouses by yourself and 3 crack-head wannabe's. What good could come with soundchecking your gear in a 10,000 sq ft shed other than to show off how loud you can be while only disturbing a few rats and cockroaches.

Also why spend a few hundred on a wireless unit to strut around like prince shit... For under $60 you can buy a good 50' instrument cable that won't go microphonic unless it's run over by an 18 wheeler... Decent cables can last years without even babying them much. They ain't fragile fiber-optics... geez.

I've got 20 year old cables that work just as good as new and have been beat, run over by cabinets on wheels and all that. No they don't oxidize internally, as you've claimed... even when spending years in humid hot Texas summers.

But don't let me spoil your warehouse rock god experience... I'm sure you and your entourage of losers will have a good time fantasizing your big concert...

[chefcraig]

I read in a recording mag about how back in the day Elvis or other bands of that era would actually fill the room with furniture and anything else they could get their hands on to deaden a bright room. On the other hand Elvis used natural echo of certain rooms to get his vocal sound. That heavy echo sound on his early recordings. Sam Phillips talks about this at length and how RCA tried in vain to copy his technique but could never get it just right. Part of it was how Sam recorded him but part of it was the room.

One of the maxims Jimmy Page often mentioned in interviews was a saying he'd picked up from engineers during his session days: "Distance is depth". The concept of microphone placement that has been elevated to an art form in the past 30 years has it's roots in the early days of recording, where many effects were discovered entirely by accident. For instance, Page wound up using a single microphone suspended several feet above John Bonham's drum kit, rather than a series of mics in order to capture the sound of the large open hallway where Bonham's kit was set up. The mic was used to record the room's ambient sound, and was discovered to be a perfect result in and of itself rather than an effect to be used in the mix.

Page went so far as to hang a microphone down a chimney, with the amplifier projecting up it from the fireplace in order to capture a distinct sound. (Of course today you can get the same simulated sound by turning a knob or moving a slider on a computer screen, but the effect is not in the least bit organic.)

The point is, the characteristics of the room itself are going to drastically alter the sound of an instrument, along with how it is used in unison with other instruments for accompaniment. I've worked with guys that painstakingly set up mic and sound for each individual piece of a drum kit, only to discover that once the drummer began playing, the effort was rendered useless once heard alongside the guitars, bass, keys and vocals in the mix. There is such a thing as over-analyzing something to the point of not seeing the forest for the trees. Other than determining how loud an instrument, effect or amp might be, the experiment really will not reveal all that much in the way of data that can be applied practically.

But it does sound like a lot of fun.

[kwame k]

True Craig, listen to When The Levee Breaks to hear how great distant miking works. Ringo Starr was one of the first drummers to use close miking and that was only because The Beatles were so huge and profitable that they could afford to ruin a mike if the diaphragm blew out. That was the biggest fear among producers or engineers as to not using close miking.

On the mixing side of things.......I agree with you 100% and have ran into that problem recording. When I got my first 4-track and we were recording demos, I got my drum sound down perfect, what I thought was perfect, but when the guitars were added to the mix we lost all the top end in a blurred out wash. Phase cancellation!!!! I never even knew about that and it took hours and a ton of reading to figure what the fuck was going on.

For years I was a firm convert of recording the drums as dry or dead as possible. No sympathy rings and choking the drums down to a bare minimum of over ring. The logic being that you can add effects, reverb, echo and the likes after the fact but you can't alter what's on tape without it sounding over-EQ'd or processed. I'm only speaking drums here.

Once I was able to afford two ADAT's and was able to sync them up to record 16-tracks at once and had a ton of rack effects and a killer mixing/recording board, the game changed. A good example is using your aux channels to put the effects on for the vocalist so they could play off it in the headphones but the effects weren't going onto tape. My board had separate outputs for aux and a direct out from the mike/ main output per channel.

Guitarists on the other hand, had to use their effects direct to tape for the most part and we always used a combination of close miking and distant miking to fatten up the sound. We recorded the guitarist with pretty much what was coming out of the speakers and the room. We used very little EQ and effects after the fact. The bands I was in were only 1 guitarist and we would over-dub rhythm tracks and use different tones, guitars, effects, miking and so on to get the desired vibe going.

Bass guitar was pretty much direct or a combination of direct(to cut through the mix) and miking their cabinets. Usually very clean with little or no effects unless that was the vibe of the song......like a distorted bass because that's what the track called for and like guitars it's damn near impossible to put distortion on after the fact. The way you play clean and your vibrato is totally different when playing distorted.

[Hardrock69]

Another effect Ringo used sometimes was to put a towel on his snare. I have used this before when recording. Kinda interesting.

[jhale667]

Funny, after reading Craig's post, I thought of "When the Levee Breaks" immediately too..

[kwame k]

Another effect Ringo used sometimes was to put a towel on his snare. I have used this before when recording. Kinda interesting.

On a similar note, I used a plastic deadening ring that fits on top of the drum head. Fits around the edge of the head and comes in about 1" towards the center. Gets rid of a ton of over-ring and no tape required. Want a more live sound just take it off and when the stick strikes the head the deadening ring bounces off the head a bit so you get the ring but for only a split second. Way better than using compression.

[kwame k]

Funny, after reading Craig's post, I thought of "When the Levee Breaks" immediately too..

That's the best example of using the room as an effect I know of. Before I moved to CO I was recording with less mikes and using more of the room. I cut down from miking every drum to using 4 mikes. Two up close, snare and bass and two for the room. Messing around with x/y patterns and such.

Bringing us back on topic....sort of. The room you are playing in has such a huge effect on the overall tone at a distance. Everything from the construction of the room, room size, ceiling height and the materials used. A cinder block basement with a concert floor is going to sound way different than a tongue and groove paneled wall with carpet, for an example.

Really, if you're playing out live you are at the mercy of the hall you're playing. Some of the room is taken out of the equation by the simple fact of a PA and unless you have the time and equipment to meter out a room the best you can do is get a good sound up close because most sound guys are going to close mike you on stage.