The AKG design team started to conceptualize the WMS 4000 system four years ago, and they have definitely come up with a uniquely comprehensive group of products that are meant to work together. All told, there are six different handheld mics, four headsets, six lavaliers, and associated receivers, plus an IEM transmitter. The mics and belt packs are available with a rechargeable battery option. Running traditional RF units at many shows has made me mighty sick of the nightly routine of putting in new batteries, and getting rid of the old ones.

Something that is pretty amazing in the WMS 4000 is that the transmitter will actually tell you in hours and minutes, how much battery life is remaining, rather than just show you cell-phone-style bars.

The 2 AA batteries will take a 15 hour charge, and can last through 12,000 hours of charging. There is a flash EPROM in the battery pack that “talks” to the charger, and lets it know the status of the charge. A great feature is that the mics and beltpacks can just be set into the battery charger, without removing the battery packs - it looks kind of like a walkie-talkie recharger.

AKG’s Tom Stotler, a Nashville resident, showed me around the new series at NSCA. The rack units are half-space and come with brackets and a blank half-plate. An antenna amplifier and combiner is available, that will link to four units. When I was handed a belt-pack, I immediately and wrongly assumed it was made of plastic, it was so light, but it turns out that they are made out of magnesium!

The receiver or transmitter can perform an environmental scan and either utilize 18 preprogrammed frequencies, or seek out 18 more. There are a possible 1200 UHF frequencies to be sought out, and AKG claims that 50 units can work together on one stage. In “rehearsal” mode, the front window tells you how many times the A/B diversity is happening, and the maximum and minimum RF it is seeing when you step away to walk the stage or venue. Can it also please make a delicious cup of coffee for me?

For my fellow IEM operators, there is yet another module, a headphone amplifier that has a set of eight pushbuttons to check your different mixes with actual signal from the transmitters. Many sound companies have built homemade versions of this type of switcher. AKG’s receives the 1/4” out from the transmitter, while the XLR goes to the PA.

Tom Stotler with the AKG WMS 4000

But they didn’t stop there! They made a gosh-darn hub, that will link eight receivers together for an Ethernet connection that goes to PC control running their Mission Control software. Lastly, there is a centralized power supply that can power up to 12 receivers, or the hub or headphone amps, plus three antenna splitters. Okay, I’ve gotta stop now. This is wearing me out. Perhaps we will get our hands on some of the WMS 4000 gear later in the year, and tell you how it really works, out there on the prairie, with a bunch of ornery musicians hassling me, and crazy secret government transmitters messing up the airwaves.