Operating Theatre: Shure GLX-D Digital Guitar Wireless

I finally got the Shure GLX-D wireless system once my old Sennheiser wireless’s screen crapped out on me before our last tour. I am glad to say I was super happy with its ease of set up and its performance. It’s built tough all the way through and cuts down on the peripherals I need to set up during a fast change-over.

But… there’s always a but… I had a SLIGHT problem with it on the last tour. User error. I nabbed a cable out of it quickly at a bad angle and snapped the tip off inside the wireless. I was a little afraid to even try and open this thing, but I had nothing to replace it and was halfway through tour so I was stuck.

Opening the GLX-D sounds easier than it is. The screws are hidden underneath glued on rubber friction pads and they aren’t normal screws. They’re freak screws. They’re dirty screws. Shure sure doesn’t want you getting in this thing.

Fuck that. I, not being an electrical engineer, did not have that screw bit in my arsenal. I am an enterprising man, however, so I was able to find it in the electrical section of big box hardware store. It’s known as a security Torx or tamper-proof Torx screw head. I guess what makes it tamper-proof is that most people don’t have these bits… even though you can just go buy them. Whatever.

Even after unscrewing the housing, I was still afraid to open up a complicated computing device, especially on a tour bus full of garbage (that’s what I call my bandmates). Shure has put this thing together well, though, so I didn’t have to deal with a bunch of stuff falling apart. I had to undo some more Torx screws inside to release the PCB and get to the jack that had my broken tip stuck inside like an over-eager porn star.

It was a simple process of lifting up each of the tines on the jack one-by-one CAREFULLY with a probe or small flathead screwdriver and shaking the tip free. Resetting the PCB also took some care so that the antennas were threaded back into the housing correctly. A simple surgery, to be sure, but crucial in the middle of a tour with a freaking expensive device.

My last word on this tuner/wireless concerns the cable for the transmitter. Again, I highly recommend the Shure GLX-D, but the cable it comes with sucks. It’s a straight 1/4″ plug that’s sure to get fucked when you have to place your guitar down (unless you have some Stratocaster or something). I decided to upgrade to a third-party cable to replace the Shure one (part no. WA305). I got the LRU-R1 from a seller on Amazon that comes with a right-angle plug and they even put on a custom-color sleeve and cut the cable to the length I liked.

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