New Sennheiser G3 Wireless Setup

A few weeks ago, my shipment of three channels of Sennheiser G3 wireless transmitters and receivers from Gotham Sound came in. Understandably, I was super excited to finally own my own wireless equipment!
The menu system on them is very simple and fast, if you know what you're looking for. The built in frequency scanner is super handy with constantly changing locations, and certainly doesn't make me miss my theatre days of local frequency charts and individually programming each transmitter and receiver. The IR sync helps with this too, it's super fast and easy, and makes frequency changes on the fly no sweat. These absolutely sip battery power. A pair of alkaline AA batteries can last me 6+ hours, in both the transmitters and receivers! The bright, orange backlight on the clear, easy to read screen also makes evening work much easier. The adjustable squelch and pilot tone are useful to those who are versed in RF, but not of much concern to your average DSLR shooter.
The transmitters, having only 30mW RF output power means range isn't stellar, but is adequate for the close quarters bag work I usually find myself doing. I also wish the status screens were atop the device, instead of on the front, as I keep these in my sound bag, and have to pull them all the way out of their straps to adjust anything. Even a couple LEDs on top would have been super helpful! And one last gripe: I do wish I could see transmitter battery status on the receivers.
I wire them up in my bag and program them all, setting them up with printed numbers and everything, the works. I plug in the noticeably large ME-2 lavalier mics into the Tx, and to my dismay, they are very noisy!
Not ready to give up, I eagerly awaited my second shipment from Gotham, containing my Sanken COS-11D lavaliers. Upon their arrival, I rejoiced to hear the clean sound coming from all channels of wireless. I was astonished at the difference. Obviously, good sound starts at the mic and preamps, and the COS-11D's did not disappoint.
I give these Sennheiser G3's a solid thumbs up for an entry level professional wireless system. However I wouldn't spend much time on the included ME-2 lavs, if those are the ones that come in your kit.
The menu system on them is very simple and fast, if you know what you're looking for. The built in frequency scanner is super handy with constantly changing locations, and certainly doesn't make me miss my theatre days of local frequency charts and individually programming each transmitter and receiver. The IR sync helps with this too, it's super fast and easy, and makes frequency changes on the fly no sweat. These absolutely sip battery power. A pair of alkaline AA batteries can last me 6+ hours, in both the transmitters and receivers! The bright, orange backlight on the clear, easy to read screen also makes evening work much easier. The adjustable squelch and pilot tone are useful to those who are versed in RF, but not of much concern to your average DSLR shooter.
The transmitters, having only 30mW RF output power means range isn't stellar, but is adequate for the close quarters bag work I usually find myself doing. I also wish the status screens were atop the device, instead of on the front, as I keep these in my sound bag, and have to pull them all the way out of their straps to adjust anything. Even a couple LEDs on top would have been super helpful! And one last gripe: I do wish I could see transmitter battery status on the receivers.
I wire them up in my bag and program them all, setting them up with printed numbers and everything, the works. I plug in the noticeably large ME-2 lavalier mics into the Tx, and to my dismay, they are very noisy!
Not ready to give up, I eagerly awaited my second shipment from Gotham, containing my Sanken COS-11D lavaliers. Upon their arrival, I rejoiced to hear the clean sound coming from all channels of wireless. I was astonished at the difference. Obviously, good sound starts at the mic and preamps, and the COS-11D's did not disappoint.
I give these Sennheiser G3's a solid thumbs up for an entry level professional wireless system. However I wouldn't spend much time on the included ME-2 lavs, if those are the ones that come in your kit.