Cabling home studio

[AStacy2]

Hey guys, I was wondering the best way to set up the cabling for my home studio.


Is it better to have a snake or seperate cables for each input? Are there any issues w/ crosstalk or phantom powered mics when using a snake? Is it better to have 8channel snakes vs one with 24 channels?


I usually use about 20 inputs for recording drums and my live room is about 20feet away from my control room. I have a FF800 w/ 2 Octamic's adat'd to it so I don't even know if the pre's are good enough to get in to having really high quality cable.


I already have about 10 12' Monster SP1000 mic cables that I got for free and I figured getting a snake would be the most cost effective way to use these since it's farther than 12' to my control room. What do you guys think and what setup would you use? If it's only going to cost a little extra to get a better result I'd rather do that but I don't know if it's even a good idea to spend more on cable than my pre's even cost. What do you think? Thanks.

 

[deathtotaliban]

With only a 20 ft cable run you won't have to worry about any crosstalk with a snake, you will just want to make sure you buy one that is insulated well. 8 ch. vs. 24 ch. all depends on your own needs, the only difference is one will have more cables. There are some sites that let you buy the materials to build your own snake, and sometimes that can be the most cost effective way.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Hey this is really interesting. I'd like to hear other opinions/experiences. Any good web sites with further information on this sort of thing?

 

[Torsis]

...Any good web sites with further information on this sort of thing?

http://www.lavacable.com/evidence audio cable.htm

Check out the Buying Guide, Cable 101 and the Cable Summit links.

 

[joeymusicguy]

does anyone here use a snake for recording?
because i really want to for the convieniance and ease, but dont want to drop the cash on one and find out its a nightmare with issues like cross talk or signal degrade

 

[AStacy2]

Anyone else?

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Ramtech. Great stuff. Clean & easy to work with. You can get it here:

http://www.sound-room.com/inc/sdetail/1410

 

[Aaron Smith]

does anyone here use a snake for recording?
because i really want to for the convieniance and ease, but dont want to drop the cash on one and find out its a nightmare with issues like cross talk or signal degrade

I regularly use a 25 foot, 16 channel snake- 12 XLR and 4 TRS, and I have never had any sound quality issues.

 

[alexrookie]

i use it both and i don't think it is an issue with snakes, more with powered signals for crosstalk.

i have a 24 channel snake by klotz and something like 10 stand alone cables by cordial, all going from my preamps/mixer to the stage boxes in my recording room.

what i have realized is that you have to be careful with powered signals like headphone mixes - these are the only crosstalks i have heard in my setup.

never had any crosstalk between different mic signals, in a snake or anywhere else.

and i don't even think you have to buy all these very expensive cables like monster or mogami, when you have distances like 15 meters from mic to preamp.

don't buy the super cheap stuff, but there are options in the midfield that run really good.

i am very pleased with my 'cordial cm top' : http://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cmtop.htm

there is a noticable difference between this mic cable and the super cheap stuff (shielding, crosstalk, loss of high end), but tested with the brands stated above and keeping it in the dimesions i mentioned, some recording magazines here in germany didn't hear any difference!!

powered signals-out of the snake, into a really well shielded cable going another route than the mic cables or just power them up at the source, you want it to be and i don't think you'll have trouble with crosstalk!!
( something like a headphone amp at the singers position, but that can cause hum and noise ! )

my 2 cents,

best,
alex

 

[HeadCrusher]

how do you all get your cables through the walls from your control room to the live room? i doubt you leave the door open a bit to pass the cables through it, do you?

 

[joeymusicguy]

how do you all get your cables through the walls from your control room to the live room? i doubt you leave the door open a bit to pass the cables through it, do you?

i have a cable tunnel at the bottom of the wall

its filled with sound foam to stop that "tunnel" sound from getting to the control room

 

[dreamcatcher]

how do you all get your cables through the walls from your control room to the live room? i doubt you leave the door open a bit to pass the cables through it, do you?

Wall jacks (ordered online and soldered myself) mounted in the floor trim (luckily it's about 7 inches tall), then fed the cable (8 channel balanced bought online by the foot) through a hole I drilled from the basement.

I hadn't thought of foaming the tunnel, mostly cuz I'm right over the live space anyways so it wouldn't do much good The floor joists are rockwooled, which helps a lot, but I still get lots of rumble.

I may do a powered run in a different wall, far from the XLR snake, but only if I get really bored. I can run a speaker cable down next to the floor heating register when I want my head by me.

 

[PhilR]

We run two 8-channel snakes up a stairwell. We also have a few cables for the talkback feed and we'll be adding some more for a guitar feed/reamp line. Doesn't look too tidy.

The cables at the back of our desk are a nightmare to look at with all the snakes carrying the I/O and insert lines as well as all the additional routing we've installed over time. The whole setup takes the better part of an entire day to get plugged in and routed properly. So obviously we touch it as little as possible.