Wireless Microphones

L

Lars Kildholt

Freshman
Jul 18, 2013
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Denmark
Hello

As "Weekendwarrior" I last year bought 2 sets of Sennheiser XSW35 Wireless Microphones for our 2 lead vocals in my band(one of each sex).. The capsule inside is supposed to be similar to e835

Wireless quality is fine - never had a dropout - however we have huge problems with bleeding... Everything else in the room bleeds into the signal and our soundtech have a hard time putting occational delays on the LV's as especially drums will go delayed over the PA as well...

I have identified the problem to be the nature of the microphone/capsule.. If I replace these wireless wonders with the good old SM58 bleeding is MUCH less and at an acceptable level

SO

Does anyone here know what is better when it comes to bleeding - wireless systems only ???

Really not that concerned about cost - it HAS to be good and prefer paying if that is the remidy... On the other hand I am not a "buy the most expensive to be sure" kinda guy
 
Re: Wireless Microphones

Some analogue systems compress quite a lot, that will sometimes come across as bleeding and low gain before feedback.
Replacing the capsules I guess is the most obvious choice if you are otherwise happy.
 
Re: Wireless Microphones

Per Søvik said:
Some analogue systems compress quite a lot, that will sometimes come across as bleeding and low gain before feedback.
Replacing the capsules I guess is the most obvious choice if you are otherwise happy.
Click to expand...

This is what I was thinking. If the pattern of the capsule is truely similar to the E835, it should also be similar enough to the SM58 that I would swap them on stage with almost no change in settings.

Are you hearing the bad bleed when the singer is actually singing, or when the singer is not singing.

Compression in the chain will reduce the range in level between the bleed when the singer is not singing and the level of their vocal when they are singing.
 
Re: Wireless Microphones

Well - we do use some compression applied at the console - but my point is that if we replace XSW35 with SM58 and change nothing else - then bleeding with SM58 is much less. Bleeding occurs regardless if singers are singing or not

New capsule is not possible on XSW35 to my knowledge. Only option is to change the entire transmitter - but the only one available is the one from XSW65 -and as I understand it - that one is even worse...

So I am looking into buying complete new systems when I've found the right one
 
Re: Wireless Microphones

Lars Kildholt said:
New capsule is not possible on XSW35 to my knowledge. Only option is to change the entire transmitter - but the only one available is the one from XSW65 -and as I understand it - that one is even worse...
Click to expand...

Of course, no twist-off on that one, but you could still swap the actual capsules from a pair of 845s I guess.


About the compression, even with compression at the board, there is still a difference since you will have the extra compression of the system, and typically across a much wider range if not the whole range from squelch cut off to clip.
 
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Re: Wireless Microphones

I'm not "married" to Sennheiser - but will have a look

Anyone have experience with the new digital shire systems ?? Line6 ?? Others ??
 
Re: Wireless Microphones

Lars Kildholt said:
If I prefer to replace these systems entirely instead of modifying the capsules ... Then what should I look for ??
Click to expand...

I'm not a big fan of Shure, but we have had a UT4/Beta58 system working flawlessly for more than a decade, and I think I'd be confident with any purchase of a Shure set with a Beta58 or better. Most of our wireless is AKG, but I'm not that confident about the longevity of that stuff (that could just be me and my broken mike drawer though)
 
Re: Wireless Microphones

Lars Kildholt said:
Is that EW 100, 300 or 500 series ??
Click to expand...

Mostly EW100, we have some older G1 stuff, as well as newer G3, a lot of the older stuff got pulled when the 700MHz band got sold off.

My local theatre gig recently replaced our AKG wireless (I don't recall the specific model) with Sennheiser EW100 with 935 capsules, the increase in quality was apparent to everyone, including the office people. The EW100 series is great for smaller operations, and definitely an upgrade from the XSW stuff.

Guys running larger wireless set ups seem to go for the EW500 or even the 2000 series as they offer some "pro" features that make wrangling multiple systems easier, I've had luck running up to 20 channels of wireless but the lack of monitoring and frequency co-ordination on the lower end Sennheiser wireless means you have to do a bit more work to ensure trouble-free performance. I'm sure someone with more experience can chime in on the difference between EW100 and the pro stuff.
 
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