AKG WMS40 GB

You plug it in and turn it on. There is a squelch adjustment that I have never needed to use. So far so good.

My rig consist of G & L guitars (single coil), Gibson ES-335's (HB) Fender Deville, Bassman, and Carvin (Vintage) Tube amps (JJ tubes), Stampede Overdrive, vintage analog delay ... sometimes the G-Major and BBE when I feel like pulling out the rack! Soundwise, I cant tell if it colors my sound (I have never AB'd it). I have the older type receiver with a songle antenna (non diversity) and it seems to keep my signal within 50 to 75 ft or so. I have never really tried to travel the 300 ft as claimed by the company. Sounds fine to me.

So far so good. I dont have a back up ...I just plug in the ol fashioned way if I suspect there might be trouble with interference and drop outs (only did this once during a large festival when all the sound engineers were walking around with wireless mics, headsets and walkie talkies). I am not sure if this would happen with more expensive units. But like i said I only had a drop out problem once. Though I did bend the antenne before a show once and used it that way with no problems. WHen I tried to bend it back after the show it broke off. I ordered replacement antennae (I just realized that this is a word I am not sure how to spell) from AKG USA and it was very easy to install.

Like I said I called the company direct and and they returned my call the next day and shipped the items promptly. Very friendly and courteous.

I play rock, blues, and rockabilly swing! This is my first wireless so I can't compare it to others. I am super picky about my sound and equipment and dont buy things because they are cheap. I looked at the Shure and Seinheisers - they required a cumbersome body pack, were more than twice as much money, and used a 9V battery with approx. 3 - 5 hours use time. The Bug's battery longevity is major plus (I can use one AAA battery over two + shows. The freedom of movement with the Guitar bug is excellent. I hang out by the pool with one...very comfortable and convenient. I lost the long flex jack to use with strats so it moves around a bit much on my G & L strat type guitars (has never fallen out or gotten in the way of my strum or tremolo). The biggest conveneience is that I tend to switch guitars during the night and all I have to do is mute the bug, unplug it from one guitar and pop it in a another. No wires or body packs to deal with. Why spend 600.00 to be uncomfortable, inconvenienced, and worry about battery life. If stolen I would definitely buy another. In fact, I am currently looking at the new diversity model, so I can give my other guitar player my old one. I love the BUG!!!!

I ordered the GB40 guitar bug along with the very small PR40 receiver and the CU40 charging unit.
I returned it the same day it was delivered, because it was not possible to get a good sound out of that thing.

When I plugged in the unit first, there was a constant hissing that was superposed by some kind of a "whistle-noise" that was tedious and just not bearable.
I talked to the manufacturer then, and they told me to change a little srew, that is very hard to reach inside the GB40, they call "squelsh".
The result of that operation was, that the "whistle-noise" disappeared, what did not disappear was the hissing, that's simply always audible, when you do not play.
But much worse than that was, that it turned out, that the unit definitly affects the sound of the guitar.
Depending on the volume of the receiver (PR40), there is a distinct attenuation of distortion, sustain.
The colour of the tone seemed somehow to be "compressed" to me at all - I can't explain that better.
If the volume of the receiver is increased to get rid of this sound effects, the unit starts to give "distortion" of it's own to the sound, which was not good either.
Every attempt to find a setting, where the transmitter meets the cable-sound failed.
So I gave up trying to make the unit work and returned it the same day - like stated above.
Recapitulating this unit can not be recommended - it looks great and I wish it would have worked fine, but it does not!

I just had it for 1 day

I reached them at the phone without a problem (the call was routed from Germany to Austria for what reason ever)and got immediate help - so far so good.

Constant hissing and effect on the guitar sound - can not be recommended.

I found the guitar bug to be very easy to use. There is a squelch control on the bug itself that you might want to adjust but I just plugged and played and it worked fine. Also, on the receiver there is a gain control that I recommend adjusting. I play with distortion and I did notice a slight reduction in sustain when I first played with the unit. After a whole 5 seconds it was fixed. It's that easy. The manual is fairly small but I guess it's informative. I don't really think you're going to need to read it much.

The sound quality is great. I'm running a Les Paul Studio equipped with invader pickups into the AKG. The wireless unit is going through an effects processor and finally into my workhorse, a '72 Marshall Super Lead 100w head. The only difference in sound would have to do with the notes clipping. It's not a big deal because it still feels and sounds natural but I did notice a slight difference in tone. Other than that, unless you're walking through multiple layers of walls or different rooms, there aren't really any dead spots to worry about. The only model I tested is the high frequency model which is supposed to give you a stronger signal. I didn't check the cheaper model because I was satisfied with the one I had tried.

It seems as though it's very dependable. There is a rumor going around that the battery cover is constantly coming off but I haven't experienced that yet. I guess if your going to let your bass player smash into you or something I could see it happening. I'm pretty active on stage and it's stayed in place just fine. The receiver is made of a light weight plastic material so I suggest you keep it away from harms way. Just don't be stupid, use common sense and it should last you.

Haven't had to use them, knock on wood.

I play hard rock/metal for a band in Chicago. I've been playing for over 10 years and I've never felt so free. I recommend that anyone who plays live and has a problem standing still get a wireless unit.

It's so easy to use. Just buy it and put it into your system.And, it works.

In my opinion, the tone of WM40 is really not bad. With little increased gaining and compressor. But when you're playing. The sound of my WM40 system will be broken. It's really really true. My friend's WM40 will produce some noises in his system. How can you image the two WM40s have all the problems that the guys had talk about?

Every Guitar Bug have two input jack in its package. Unfortunately, my short one broken since use it during one month. I presume the sound broken is caused by the input jack. The joint point parts of the jacks were not made well in the producting process.

My friend bought it to me to Taiwan last August, from Guitar Center L.A. When the shorter input jack broken I sent a E-Mail to the International Department of AKG to ask how can I buy a new one.
But I have never get the answer from AKG. This January, my friend went to Guitar Center L.A., they told him that I should buy it from the web of AKG. So, what can I do ???

My career in guitar playing is more than twenty years with styling of folks, rocks and metals. My system include: Marshall 1962, JTM45\1960A, POD, Gibson 57 Re-Issue, Fender 1979 Stratocaster\ E. Clapton Signature\ Y.J. Malmsteen Signature, and Washburn N-4 Custom Shop.
I will not suggest anyone and everyone buying the WM40s again. What can I say? Me and my freind can't depand on our "two" WM40s in the playing. My friend had never touched again his WM40 since the first time he put out the Bug from his system.
I hope I can get a new system of Samson in nearby future. And, hoping the Samsons will be more stable and durable.

This thing is incredibly easy to get started with and to handle. Like said before all you really need to do is just plug in and play. Some minor settings might need to be adjusted for your amp and guitar, but VERY easy!

The quality is very, very good and on my clean channel it sounds as good if not a lot better than a regular cord. I can move 20 feet away from it and it still comes out clear. Only at a couple hundred feet does it start to drastically drop out. There is a little bit of distortion sometimes when you first set up, but moving around and moving the transmitter and antenna seems to help. (playing through les paul special and marshall vs100)

I have never had any problems with the bug. I put velcro on my guitar and bug as said below and it works pefectly. Our band is big on jumping around and going crazy and it has not yet once fallen out, etc.

Never had to deal with AKG.

This is an absolutely amazing piece of technology. I am in love with it and if it got stolen i would cry, and then find the person who took it. This system is VERY helpful when you have large crowds and you need to walk around to get everyone involved. It has helped me play to my full potential and will definately give you a better stage precense.

Very easy to use - plug and play, only adjust gain to match your setup.

This thing adds a noise to your tone. I guess if playing with loads of pedals and / or distortion, you might not notice right away. But if playing clean, say bass, it is really bad.
It does not hiss when you're not playing, but I guess AKG has built in a expander-like feature, gating noise when not in use, btw a very good feature. But it just is not good enough...
But it is cheap

Though I tried it with the PT pocket transmitter, It never came to use on stage.

I play bass, in this review it means clean tones in low frequencies where audio artifacts are very audible. I have played for several decades, in case it matters...

Bought this item with the minature receiver instead of the larger receiver (cost extra $50) but was well worth it because the receiver could fit in my shirt pocket and quite possibly in my wallet if it were empty (though I wouldn't do that, it's fragile!). Now it is velcroed to my pedalboard. When I first used it there was some distortion, that was solved by turning the gain down on the "bug" transmitter and also the receiver. Now it is just plug and play!

Sound quality is very good, but degrades significantly when batteries are running out. You need to tweak the gain on the transmitter to make sure there is no distortion when playing through the clean channel of your amp. Using this with a Schecter guitar and Marshall/Fender amps.

Item is very reliable, but I am concerned about one thing. Each Guitar Bug and receiver comes with a color coded battery cover to indicate which frequency it operates on (it also comes with a black battery cover). The transmitter will have a color band on the back which is the same color so you can match the receiver and transmitter. However, you won't know what color you are getting until you open it, so if you and a bandmate are buying these together make absolutely sure you get different ones. I don't like that it operates on a predetermined frequency. Theoretically, nobody else will be using the frequency range that the unit operates on, but since it uses a fixed frequency in that range and doesn't 'hop' channels to avoid interference or improve reception, you could run into problems if someone has some electronic device which shares that frequency. I strongly recommend bringing instrument cables with you in case you run out of batteries (and forget spare ones) or something happens with the unit and you cannot use it (the show must go on!).

Haven't dealt with the company yet.

Would recommend a better transmitter, it flops around if you dance on stage, and I don't really want to stick velcro to my guitar to make it sit still. If you wear your guitar low, you could inadvertently crush the small antenna sticking out of the transmitter if it shifts. Also the 'on' switch for the 'bug' transmitter is a little hard to push, you get used to it but it would be nice if it were a button or if the switch was slightly raised to make it easier to push. Also the battery cover has fallen off a few times, I must have hit it during a show and it just slides off, beware. One last thing, this thing eats batteries. I replace them every other week (a short time if you only rehearse twice a week). But fortunately both the transmitter and receiver have lights that tell you when the battery is running out so you have time to change them, even during a show (1 AAA battery for the transmitter, 2 for the small receiver). I really recommend getting the smaller receiver, unless you have rack space for the larger receiver (though it isn't a rackmount unit). If you are a pro, go for the better/more expensive units, but for most people this is an excellent unit.

It's really easy to use - plug in, turn on - play. The manual explains everything, but I didn't needed it at first. After playing some time for myself I wanted to adjust the units using the small squelch screws - the manual was of great help and adjusting everything a no-brainer.

I never had any problems with sound quality - neither in the rehearsal room (air shelter), nor in various stone-walled cellar clubs, nor on some open-air stages with lots of possible interference. I think if you take some time adjusting it correctly for your setup (like described above), you will have no problems.

I'm using a digitech 2112 after a cry-baby wah-wah. The digitech is directly plugged to the mixing console. My main guitar is parker fly deluxe with magnetic and piezzo pickups.

All in all I noticed no difference between using cables and using the guitar bug.

One thing to all of you using any wireless system: ALWAYS have a cable around as backup. You never now what can happen. I once played on a stage where a photographer was roaming around - he accidentaly unplugged the powerchord of my wireless system. I didn't realized what was wrong, so I quickly changed to the backup cable and after a break of 10 seconds I was back playing.

Back to the guitar bug: As everybody else noticed, the spring isn't very powerfull and the bug tends to swing around. Therefore I taped velcro to all my guitars (you only need 5mm / 1/5? of velcro and that's not so bad) and to the guitar bug. Voila! No problems with swinging since then.

BUT there's another problem with the guitar bug - the battery cover goes of very easily. Almost everytime I unplug the bug, the cover goes off.

All in all the system is reliable if you do some adjustments (similar to the ones I did).

Didn't needed it.

Well I have to disagree with the others who had problems with their WMS40 - I had almost none. Only the guitar-bug could be built more robust.

I'm using the WMS40 together with a NADY wireless 201 (because of the two pickups systems of my parker guitar) and right now I'm thinkig of buying a second WMS40, because it's so much easier to handle than the NADY sender with it's wire. 'nough said!

If you're unsure of buying the WMS40, just try it out. Ask your local dealer if you could play a gig with it, or at least take your guitar along with you to the store and play some time with the system.

I can recommend it (from experience).

Very easy to use. Plug it in and go. Extremely portable. The receiver and bug all fit easily in a guitar case compartment.

Not very good. It has a little hiss that seems to come and go. It kicks in when a note is played and disappears after the note fades. I guess it's probably best described as a kind of distortion and not interference in the signal because it is only present when the note is played. I eventually sold my unit for a Sennheiser 1000 because of the poor sound quality.

I had it only a couple months but no problem. Batteries seem to last about 10 hours.

Didn't use it.

Not worth the loss of sound. I highly recommend a Sennheiser 1000 instead. It's a little more expensive but it's got digital clarity and improves the sound. Also has 4 channel diversity and 4 frequency
to choose from.

Not too bad. Spend a little time switching between a cable and the wireless, set the trims get the sounds exactly the same, and you're all set.

Somewhat noisy. Cuts out occasionally. But, I've never seen a perfect wireless system before. So, I put up with it for the mobility.

Has broken in the middle of a show 3 times out of 9 shows. This thing is built like garbage.

E-mailed about the breakage problem -- no response.
Called -- no response.

Stay far away from this product unless you are going to sit down and play while using it. It's way too fragile for any guitarist that has any kind of stage presence. Great concept, but executed poorly.