Question about Wireless...

White Gold

White Gold

Weaponized Spatula
Does wireless equipment affect tonality or at all ruin the tone of a cable into pedalboard into amp?

I'm hoping one for Christmas and curious if a wireless is bad...

I know lots of bands use it...first Angus Young comes to mind...he's gotta use a wireless with all the crazy crap he does...if he does use a cable, he's lucky for not pulling the cable out...I KNOW Van Halen uses it...

are there more positives than setbacks to wirless?
 
i think that unless you're playing arenas or are constantly jumping into the crowd, a wireless is totally useless. i can probably get by with a 25 foot cable on just about any stage i'm going to play. ymmv.
 
I've never owned a wireless and the few times I used one the tone suck drove me nuts. I haven't used one in many years and I'm sure they've improved but unless you are playing on 100' stages they are really useless and one more thing to go wrong during a show.
 
Yes, it does affect your tone. How much and how severely is up to you. It never bothered me, frankly -- few can tell when you're playing live anyway. I haven't used mine in a couple of years, but there are a few venues that are great for it, so I use it there.

For you Jersey guys, I'm referring to a place like the "Colorado Cafe" in Watchung.
 
I messed with one back in the '90s, but I'm with Howie now; stages aren't big enough to justify the headache. And yes, there was tone suckage at the time.
 
I used one in the early 90s when I was playing bass. At that time, the tone suckage was well worth the ability to walk to the bar in the middle of the set to take a few shots.
 
Mark Wein said:
Do you think you can really hear the difference from the back of the Honda Center?
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I was gonna say...not everything that massively successful acts do is in the interest of TEH TOANZ.

It's much easier to establish whether or not the upper balcony level is ready to rock if you are not tied down by an annoying cable.
 
White Gold said:
if it sucks tone so much, why do the big bands use it?
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But the great ones don't.

b00dnbcx_640_360.jpg
 
Well, Hendrix used a long-ass curly cable, which probably sucked plenty of TOANZ too. I've even heard people speculate that this is why his bridge PU TOANZ wasn't shrill and ice-picky.
 
I had one in the 80's and I loved the freedom, but the compression made volume swells and amp-gain rolloff with your volume knob impossible.

Even then, I would have one guitar on the wireless, and my backup guitar ready with a cable, so I'd sometimes switch to the backup guitar just so I could play mellower or bluesy stuff eaisier.

I would be interested in trying out the new digital ones, but my gut feeling is that part (the feel) hasn't changed that much.
 
I wish I could find a good pic of him on the III tour. He had some kind of 'device' screwed to the ass end of the guitar to keep the cable about 3 feet away from his feet.

It looked like somebody screwed a deep sea fishing rod to the ass of the guitar and ran his cable through it. :facepalm:
 
I used one for a few years. It's nice to be able to walk around the bar during soundcheck and make sure you sound good in all corners of the bar. Also, it's nice to be able to walk around a lot and not have to worry about getting hung up or tripping over your cable.

That said, I sold mine a few years back since I didn't feel like bringing my 4-space rack to every gig.
 
Prages said:
I wish I could find a good pic of him on the III tour. He had some kind of 'device' screwed to the ass end of the guitar to keep the cable about 3 feet away from his feet.

It looked like somebody screwed a deep sea fishing rod to the ass of the guitar and ran his cable through it. :facepalm:
Click to expand...


I used to weave mine through the unused slats in the back of my guitar strap, then around to the front and into the guitar.

I'd switch the strap from one guitar to the next, plug the cable in and go... it would always keep the cable behind me, so it wouldn't get under my feet or pedals.
 
baimun said:
I used to weave mine through the unused slats in the back of my guitar strap, then around to the front and into the guitar.

I'd switch the strap from one guitar to the next, plug the cable in and go... it would always keep the cable behind me, so it wouldn't get under my feet or pedals.
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I loop mine around the strap too, but this thing was ridiculous.

I found a couple of pics of him using it in '04.

29xj8tl.jpg


1tc-102304-014.jpg
 
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