anomie life

I remember a few months after I got my first guitar, I looked on Ebay and found a cheap wireless system for only $50. I don’t even remember the brand. It was quite old and smelled like cigarettes, but it worked and thats all that mattered. It was great being able to be anywhere in the house and still hear my guitar, although it was quite quiet when I was 3 or 4 rooms away. That wireless and I had a great time together… ahh the memories… and then one day I let my friend, Scott, use it because I was playing drums in that band. While plugging it in, he accidentally switched my bass distortion power supply and the wireless power supply. Sadly, the polarity on the two power supplies was the opposite of each other and it resulted in my precious little wireless giving a small puff of smoke. Never to produce a sound again…..

That was then, but a few months after that sad incident, I decided to upgrade to a new wireless system. I didn’t like the whole “bodypack” concept where you’re still attached to this little box, so I decided to try out AKG’s “guitarbug” wireless system. The wireless transmitter is only about 2 inches long and it just attaches right onto your guitar.

Well, it sort of just attaches right onto your guitar… On guitars such as a telecaster or my Musicman bass, the wireless works great because it hangs down and you don’t have to worry about it falling off. I’ve had this thing for over 2 years and used it live on countless occasions, so I’ve found that its not perfect, but it is pretty good. If you have a standard electric with an input jack on the bottom, then you might encounter issues if you decide to jump around too much.

The problem is that the swivel design allows the transmitter to flop around. This is bad because eventually it loosens enough that you lose connection with your guitar. It comes with some velcro, which is great idea, but who wants to stick a piece of velcro to the bottom of all their guitars. I usually just use some gentle electric tape to ensure I don’t lose connection, but this can be a problem if you use more than one guitar. Also, on one occasion, after jumping off of something off of something, I came down and hit the wireless and knocked the gold connector piece of the wireless. Luckily, it comes with a second, slightly longer one that I’ve been using ever since.

As far as sound goes, it takes a little time to adjust to using a wireless system. There’s a volume control on the receiver as well as a gain control on the transmitter. If you don’t get the gain high enough then you’re signal ends up being weak. If you set it too high then the signal will peak and sometimes distorts the sound. And, as I’ve found with all wireless systems, the environment you’re in can also produce interference and an audible hum, especially if you put crazy amounts of distortion.

The range is plenty long for anything I can possibly imagine. I think the stated range is something around 300 feet. I tested it about 200 feet one time and it worked great. once you get that far then you can actually hear an audible delay between playing and the actual sound coming from my amp arriving at my ears.