Wireless Unit for under 200 bucks

[Avalanche 126]

ok for christmas, one of my options i want is a wireless unit fr my guitar. i want to know which ones u would reccomend. i am really interested in getting a shure wireless. would anyone prefer that one?? i know alot of bands use shure wireless units. help me out

[Brent]

I have a Shure wireless unit that I use for guitar and bass. It's the same one here: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=011120183722024004252251462080/search/g=home/detail/base_id/35371

It was only $169.99 when I bought it, but evidently the price has went up to $199.99 now... Great little unit, though. I use it a lot in the gym at church for youth group services and I've been outside and went across the street (from the opposite side of the gym where my equip. is located) and still came through loud and clear. I'd try it farther away, but I'd have to crank the volume up too loud to be able to hear myself out there still and we have neighbors close-by, so oh well. Instead of having a hardwired cable on it the unit comes with a short 1 ft. cable with 1/4" plugs on both ends. This means you can plug any kind of instrument into it that has a 1/4" plug, including microphones if you wanted. Could plug in a keyboard, a CD player, pretty much anything that can use a 1/4" plug (or an adapter to 1/4"). Quite handy.

Brent

[LWatford]

I've heard good things about the Shure UT wireless systems, price might be a little over $200, though.

[Avalanche 126]

Brent, i think thats the one i am looking at, i think its called the tsg t series or somethin similar. i know they have like 15 bands avaliable like CV and all that. which do u have if thats the type?? does it interfere with other electronics?? i know my friend has a samson airline and it hums and pops and creates alot of disturbance with our sound system at church. does urs do that?

[Brent]

Apparently mine is "CV" for the channel. I just ordered whatever when I got it...at the time they only had like 2 or 3 channels available (which probably explains the lower price at the time). I've heard some not-so-good things about the Airline ones interfering and popping, but I don't have any trouble with mine. Last I used it in church was with a sound system that had 2 power amps, compressor, 12 channel mixer, 4 mains, 4 monitors, and 8 mics and it didn't make a bit of noise. You just have to be sure you have the antenna out in the open on the body pack...I've had it completely in my pocket before and got a tiny bit of static, so just make sure the floppy antenna is out of your pocket if you ever use it that way. I usually just use the clip and clip it to my strap, so there's no trouble then.

Brent

[GMartin2R]

So is there a way to select channels so that they don't interfere with other setups?

Because our church has a wireless mic for our pastor and i was thinking about going wireless with my guitar, so is there a way to be on a different frequency other than psecifying it on order?

[Avalanche 126]

yea GM, the unit i want, when u order it or go buy it wherever, they should have a bunch of diff. units with diff channels.it doesnt have like a selector switch on it but like they make diff channels. so thats what im lookin for is to stay on my own bandwidth so it wont make noise and crap.

o and thanks brent for the info. i want one bad now. my church has a 24 channel board, 4 amps, 3 instrumental amps in our "pit", like 10 mics, 2 wireless mics, a lapel, 2 subs, and 2 reg mains w/ horns, and 5 monitors altogether. alot of crap but its great! and i shouldnt interefere with it if i get the rite channel.

[Brent]

Originally posted by GMartin2R
So is there a way to select channels so that they don't interfere with other setups?

Because our church has a wireless mic for our pastor and i was thinking about going wireless with my guitar, so is there a way to be on a different frequency other than psecifying it on order? As long as you're not using something that's made by the same BRAND then you probably wouldn't have any trouble with any channel. I'm pretty sure different brands use different parts of the frequency spectrum so as to avoid this very problem. You could always spend a little more money and get what's called a diversity (I'm pretty sure that's it) wireless setup....that just means that it searches for the best frequency and uses that one instead of having to stick with one particular frequency.

Avalanche: I wish my church had half that setup... We're in the process of drawing up plans with an architect for our new sanctuary, though, and I'm on the "sound committee" for the new building....that means at least I'll get to have a say in the sound system in the new church...it's gonna rawk!

Brent

[Jael]

Does anybody know if the Samson Airline is any good? someone here said it was cracklin'? I'm thinkin' about getting it, I just like the way you can run it into you effects loop. And there's no body pack. Throw back some reviews.

[Brent]

Honestly, I've heard nothing but bad things about the Samson Airline's. The only thing I've heard is how bad they crackle and pop and just interfere in general. And what's so special that you can run it into your effects loop? Are you talking the effects loop jack on your amp or are you talking about putting it in the signal chain of your effects loop? If you're speaking of the latter then that's nothing new or special. You can run any wireless into your effects chain....instead of plugging your cable into the first pedal just plug the receiver into it...same difference. I've done that with my Shure wireless many times.

Brent

[Jael]

Not that you can run it into your signal chain. But when you do its' compact enough and looks like a fx pedal. I was looking at the airline because 1.It's transmitter is small (no body pack!) 2.The receiver is also compact, unlike those wireless recievers that look like they belong in a rack. I mean, it can't be all that bad, Can it?

[Brent]

I understand what you're saying....but still I haven't heard anything good about them besides their size. My wireless (The Shure mentioned above) is about half the height of a Boss pedal and not quite twice as wide...so it's not too big either. I agree that the size is a plus, but I'd still be weary of it because of the signal problems I've heard about.

Brent

[Jael]

Thanxz... I was gonna ask for it for christmas too, but now I know that their might be some problems with it. What would I do without CGR? This site is off the Hizzie!

[Avalanche 126]

thanx brent!!! ur really helpful.
yea although we got a great system we still have probs with feedback and eq settings and my friends SAMSON AIRLINE. dude im glad u took brents advice cause those things suck. i could careless about size. i want quality not quantity. who cares if it has a body pack, dont bother me at all.

[Avalanche 126]

Brent, by the way. if ur wondering what kind of stuff we got. we have JBL speakers and subs. and Yamaha monitors. jbl rocks!

[Brent]

That's cool. Yeah, I agree about JBL...nothing but good things from them from what I've heard. We use a Yamaha setup (well, speakers at least) in the gym at our church when we hold events in there...just the mains actually. The monitors are beat up old Peavey's that still sound good. The stuff in the sanctuary is no name crap...that's all there is to it. Fairly nice equipment pushing it, but the speakers bite. The way the whole thing was set up (non-professionally...) is also a factor because we can't even use the mixer the way we should be able to. No panning left and right....must unplug inputs for split-track stuff so the voices won't come through the mains...it's a mess. We haven't talked to any sound companies yet about the new building, but we'll have one phat system in the new building if I have anything to say about it.

Brent

[Avalanche 126]

hahaha, sounds like u got alotta trouble on ur hands brent. im sorry dude. we were in a ditch for a long time also. but we r gettin outa it now. fixin alot of stuff up and developin new ways of doin things. its gettin beter.

[GMartin2R]

Yeah JBL's would be cool.

Our church has a set of Yamahas for moniters and a set of Ramsa's as mains. The mains are very easy to overdrive. A nice set of JBl's would do nicely in their place. ;)




Oh how about Nady? Any good?

And what does the option for channel G1 or F mean

I saw this one

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=011125163144206043023041088521/search/g=home/detail/base_id/49386

[Brent]

Originally posted by GMartin2R
Oh how about Nady? Any good?

And what does the option for channel G1 or F mean

I saw this one

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=011125163144206043023041088521/search/g=home/detail/base_id/49386 I don't see anything about G1, but the letters A through F are the channels available for that model. They are basically different frequencies that the transmitter uses...if you're using a wireless unit with others who have them you need to be sure you're using a different channel than the other folks. As for Nady, it's a decent brand, but nothing professional. My friend Matt uses one similar to the link you posted and it's a pretty solid unit, but nothing too terribly tough.

Brent

[Avalanche 126]

brent, just for u,
last week, the musicians pit decided to try something different to change the sound in the church. we got headphones for us, no more monitors in our area. u would not believe how much the sound changed. the soundman is able to control everything now. we just gotta work on the mix of vocals music now. u might wanna try that if ur havin to get extra monitors for urself and others.

[Avalanche 126]

if i used nady, in my opinion, the only thing i would buy were drum mic sets. just b/c i dunno much about them and they rnt very popular among local dealers here a.k.a guitar center, mars, amajor, tara.

[Brent]

The soundman got headphones, too? Otherwise I don't see how that would make a bit of difference. Shouldn't make a terrible difference in live sound either, but recorded sound should get much better. Headphones will make you play more accurately because you can hear everything exactly. Aside from the musicians adjusting their own volumes accordingly so they sound right to them through the headphones, I don't see how that would make the sound guy's job any easier. If you all adjusted your own volumes that would mean the soundman just has to adjust the main volume slider...

[Avalanche 126]

yea the sound guy has headphones, we have vol adjust on ours 2. but trust me, how our monitors were set, the sound would bounce of the walls back into the congregation and make it so untolerable, and there would be aweful hums b/c of the monitors, well the headphones made everything better!

[Brent]

Ahh, I see. But the words of enlightenment today are that headphones for the sound tech. make a world of difference. :D

[Avalanche 126]

hehehe i hear ya, hey im gonna close this now see yall in other worlds....