Recording in a big house

[::XeS::]

I have to record the next project in a big vacation house as usual. Usually I recorded drums in the same room I was...it was a pain in the ass and you work absolutely in the right way (uncomfortable and you've not the right sense of the mistakes).
Now I'm thinking to set the drumkit in one of the rooms and my equipment in another room so that I have a better separation and I can hear how the miced drums sounds like.
The point is that I have 20m.-25m. between the 2 rooms. What do you think should be the best way to connect the mics and the interfaces with such a long distance? I thought about a stage box...obviously the longer the cable is the more expensive the stage bos is, and with a stage box I would need an output for the headphones (and the SB you buy not always have a trs out).
Other point: with a distance of 20-25meters, does the drummer hear the click with some latency? I mean: the drummer hear the click and he play well and in time...but at the same time I hear timing mistakes because I listen the click earlier than the drummer. Is it possible?

 

[::XeS::]

This one seems not that bad for the price http://www.thomann.de/it/the_sssnake_mc_248_multicore.htm

 

[joeymusicguy]

If you listen to the drummers acoustics coming off the kit from afar, the distance from him to you will be latency in real life. But on tape it will be exactly accurate in both listening points. Audio signals travel at the speed of light when coming through an electrical signal. So drummer hits snare. If you have headphones in, you hear the snare the same time he does if the mic is next to the snare. If the mic is a room mic, you'll hear the snare delayed because sound takes time to travel to that mic in which you're listening to.

If you have no headphones on and no isolation and listening to the click on your end coming out of your monitors and the drums from a distance through the air, you'll hear lots of lag from late reflections.

 

[aortizjr]

Snake for the mics. Or consider renting one? They are expensive to buy and length selection is typically way longer than you need. Making one yourself is brutal... just lots of stripping and soldering and snake cable is harder to work with.

You can either get a snake with TRS, or just buy a 100 ft. headphone cable. Might have some noise issues, but it will sound fine.

No latency concerns in the slightest. Electrons travel pretty fast... slower than light but pretty much instant compared to the speed of sound for sure. I mean I can ping around the world with 149ms of latency, and this 2 ways through an ocean and through routers, cable modems, and internet clogs. It will actually take longer for the sound to leave your monitors and hit your ears than it takes for the signal to travel 200ft of cable. Even converters will have more latency just sampling.

My main concern would be signal quality, but 20 m (~65 feet for us US folk) isn't too bad. 100ft+ is used in live sound all the time.

With snake returns though, they are twisted pair for balanced connections. But they will still work fine for monitoring. You might have some crosstalk issues. Headphones are supposed to unbalanced parallel and individually shielded right and left channels. The impedance is so low, that it is fine. With a good amp, 100ft should be just fine. If you are using the typical isolation headphones, the sound quality is so crummy, the cable won't even come into the equation. But I think ideally you would want a dedicated headphone cable.

 

[::XeS::]

@Joey My idea is to monitor the drummer's performance staying in another room, using monitors of course...so click and drums through monitors, not listening the live performance.
So if I send a click to the drummer, in my monitors I'll hear the click at the same time, right?

 

[::XeS::]

Snake for the mics. Or consider renting one? They are expensive to buy and length selection is typically way longer than you need. Making one yourself is brutal... just lots of stripping and soldering and snake cable is harder to work with.

You can either get a snake with TRS, or just buy a 100 ft. headphone cable. Might have some noise issues, but it will sound fine.

No latency concerns in the slightest. Electrons travel pretty fast... slower than light but pretty much instant compared to the speed of sound for sure. I mean I can ping around the world with 149ms of latency, and this 2 ways through an ocean and through routers, cable modems, and internet clogs. It will actually take longer for the sound to leave your monitors and hit your ears than it takes for the signal to travel 200ft of cable. Even converters will have more latency just sampling.

My main concern would be signal quality, but 20 m (~65 feet for us US folk) isn't too bad. 100ft+ is used in live sound all the time.

With snake returns though, they are twisted pair for balanced connections. But they will still work fine for monitoring. You might have some crosstalk issues. Headphones are supposed to unbalanced parallel and individually shielded right and left channels. The impedance is so low, that it is fine. With a good amp, 100ft should be just fine. If you are using the typical isolation headphones, the sound quality is so crummy, the cable won't even come into the equation. But I think ideally you would want a dedicated headphone cable.

The one I posted is not longer that what I need...it's 30meters and I need 25meters....For the headphones I can buy ad adaptor I suppose.
I'm undecided if I'll rent one or if I'll buy one...It depends on the rent rates.

 

[aortizjr]

Right.. you will want to listen through monitors...no problem.

BTW. that snake you are looking at is a REALLY good price. Most 100ft (30.48m) snakes here in the US, even cheapies that I know of are at least $450 (310EUR).

 

[John_C]

Long cable runs make no timing difference with audio signals. To get even a 20kHz signal out of phase with a long cable run it'd have to be 7.5km long!

 

[laszlozsolt82]

once i used this multicore cable for recording and no problem at all, no latency no signal degradation no noise, it is wery wery cheap to, 20 inputs are enough i think for a drumset
http://www.thomann.de/it/the_sssnake_sk415-30_multicore.htm

 

[aortizjr]

The one I posted is not longer that what I need...it's 30meters and I need 25meters....For the headphones I can buy ad adaptor I suppose.
I'm undecided if I'll rent one or if I'll buy one...It depends on the rent rates.

Yeah sorry, I am having a hard time with estimating in meters. But 30m is 99.8ft. In fact you can use adaptors even without snake returns. Just have to get the genders right. So it might save you a bit of cash of you only need to get a 24-channel of all sends, or even a 16 channel of all sends. 16 could give you 15 sends and then just use one of the sends as a return with the right gender adaptors.

But at least around here, XLR adaptors could cost more than a 100ft headphone extension.

 

[Cryo114]

To get even a 20kHz signal out of phase with a long cable run it'd have to be 7.5km long!

The nerd in me just got a huge kick out of reading that.

 

[Trevoire520]

If you're recording in big houses like this often you might aswell buy a snake. Renting one every time is going to be more expensive in the long run.

Just make sure you have enough inputs and a long enough cable. For headphone sends you can either get some trs/xlr adapters so you can use xlr cables for the headphone send, or you could get a headphone amp to sit by the drummer.

 

[::XeS::]

Yeah I think it would be cheaper to buy one. I just asked to a shop which is the rent rate for a stage box...I think a week of rent can be half the price of a snake

 

[arv_foh]

I own this same snake except in the 50 ft version

http://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com/16-Channel-XLR-Snake-Cable-100-Feet-p/sapx-16x8x100.htm

You just need a 1/4" male to XLR male cable for your headphone send, the returns on the snake box are dual XLR/1/4"

 

[ahjteam]

my suggestion is the snakebox + small mixer (like the Behringer Xenyx 1202FX) as a headphone monitor, so you can use the XLR inputs on the mixer straight from the stage box without jack converters, and that way you can divide different stuff to different channels (the 1202 has 4 xlr inputs and 4 stereo jack inputs and a built-in effect) so the musician/drummer can have more control to do their own headphone mix if they choose so.

 

[::XeS::]

The shop just answered me about the renting.....60€/day
SSSnake stage box new, 24in/8out 199€.....
No doubt

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

Electricity goes waaaaaaay faster than sound, so the click won't be delayed.
Also, having a snake is a must and you get way less confused by the wires that way.

 

[John_C]

Electrons travel pretty fast... .

Electrons in wires move rather slowly. At average line level they'll have a speed of about 1/2 a metre per hour. In an audio signal however, seeing as it's alternating current they'll never even get anywhere as all they do is go backwards and forwards by a fraction of a micrometer (or even less maybe, can't be bothered to do the maths)

/nerd

 

[::XeS::]

Holy shit....it's very difficult to find an XLR female - TRS female cable.
I'm thinking to use one of the out of the snake as headphones out.....but when I arrive to the snake, I have to connect the Headphone's TRS male jack to the Snake's XLR male connector.....

 

[arv_foh]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/186-9491727-8022437?a=B0002E51AI