Studio Build, cable run question

[mike2205]

Hey guys, so I'm currently building a studio (studio build thread will probably follow in a few months) and I'm now up to the point to start installing the cable runs from the control room to the live room. So I have a couple of questions...

1)I know I want to have heads in the control room and cabs in the live room, so I'm going to hardwire a speaker cable in with my XLR wall plate to make this possible. If I have my pre-amp's in the back wired up to the live room inputs how to I go about recording a DI in the control room. I know the obvious answer is a patch bay, but what kind of patch bay? I've looked at XLR patch bay's and they just seem to bring the rear connectors to the front of the rack.

2)I've read that 2 core 12awg is the best speaker cable to get? What make? Someone from the UK if possible? Would speaker cable from Maplin's be good enough quality? (I've looked on their site but it doesn't seem to give any description) I plan on making a trip to Maplin's tomorrow to see what they've got. Or is there anywhere else better?

3)Same as number 1 really, but in the future I plan to have a vocal booth in the corner of the control room. So I'd need to be able to have an input into my API A2D without unplugging it from the live room.

Cheers
Mike

 

[Mikaël-ange]

You need 2 patchbays:
Patchbay onz for mic line to preamp
Patchbay two for preamp to AD converter

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Btw to had a little...

Mic line patchbay need to be xlr patch (for avoid 48v problem you will face with a TT patchbay)
You are right to think xlr bay just bring rear connection to front, as any patchbay.

Live room/booth mic input panel>xlr bay 1 (mic out bay) via snake
xlr bay 2 (preamp in) going to preamp input

This way you can assign every live room line to every preamp, you can insert your DI...etc

Preamp out go to the normal TT patchbay layout. Hope that help

 

[greyskull]

Also, run cat 5 cable everywhere . That shit is so handy.
Also. Maplin can fuck off. So overpriced. 10 quid for an iec cable?
Order your cable and other bits from cpc farnell or studio spares.

 

[tgs]

Btw to had a little...

Mic line patchbay need to be xlr patch (for avoid 48v problem you will face with a TT patchbay)

15 years with TSR patchbays for everything. Number of problems with phantom power: zero.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

15 years with TSR patchbays for everything. Number of problems with phantom power: zero.

Problem that can occur with TT bay and phantom power are 100% user fault.
You have zero problems because you know how operate it (no insert while phantom power on...etc).

Nothing wrong with that kind of bay, but not the best choice when outside engineer are around

 

[tgs]

Problem that can occur with TT bay and phantom power are 100% user fault.
You have zero problems because you know how operate it (no insert while phantom power on...etc).

Nothing wrong with that kind of bay, but not the best choice when outside engineer are around

Hehe, true... Although I can tell you, I've forgotten to switch phantom off sooooo many times while patching and not a single issue. Knock on wood.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

1)I know I want to have heads in the control room and cabs in the live room, so I'm going to hardwire a speaker cable in with my XLR wall plate to make this possible. If I have my pre-amp's in the back wired up to the live room inputs how to I go about recording a DI in the control room. I know the obvious answer is a patch bay, but what kind of patch bay? I've looked at XLR patch bay's and they just seem to bring the rear connectors to the front of the rack.

2)I've read that 2 core 12awg is the best speaker cable to get? What make? Someone from the UK if possible? Would speaker cable from Maplin's be good enough quality? (I've looked on their site but it doesn't seem to give any description) I plan on making a trip to Maplin's tomorrow to see what they've got. Or is there anywhere else better?

1) I don't know what you mean by "hardwire" a speaker cable to the XLR plate. Do you mean that you are going to add a 1/4" speaker jack so that you can connect another 1/4" speaker cable in the live room? Or do you mean that you are going to wire up a speaker cable to an XLR connection and use an XLR to do the main cable run to the live room? If the latter is the case DO NOT do this, simply put, XLR cabling and connectors are not meant to handle the power of any guitar amp's speaker out.

2) While 12awg is the best, you could go as high as 22 without too much issues, though I would never personally go higher than 18. if you can't find 12 then 14 is plenty good. You could always buy long run speaker cables. Music stores around here carry 50 and 100ft speaker cables for under $30. Quality of speaker cables is practically not an issue. I have noticed this myself and there have been studies comparing speaker cables with coat hanger wire and even professionals can not hear a difference. You just want to get a cable that is built good. Last thing you want is a speaker cable shorting on you when you are using a transformer coupled power amp.

 

[DigitalMetal]

When heavy speaker cable is hard to find you can use mains cable as a perfectly good alternative too.

 

[mike2205]

Also, run cat 5 cable everywhere . That shit is so handy.
Also. Maplin can fuck off. So overpriced. 10 quid for an iec cable?
Order your cable and other bits from cpc farnell or studio spares.

Haha, the only reason I went to Maplin's is cos I thought someone would know what they were on about, and I couldn't think of anywhere else not online that sells audio cable cuts. I got all the xlr chassis, jack ends and snake from studio spares.

I got there and asked the guy behind the counter about speaker cable and he called over his 'expert, who's in bands n' stuff'. He tried to sell me instrument cable. I walked out.

I was considering running cat 5, but I just decided to buy an xlr snake instead.

 

[mike2205]

I don't know what you mean by "hardwire" a speaker cable to the XLR plate.

Yeah I've bought jack connectors for the wallplate in the live room. Which will connect to the speaker run and into the head. Then I'll have to plug a speaker cable into the wall plate and into the cab.

You could always buy long run speaker cables. Music stores around here carry 50 and 100ft speaker cables for under $30.

I bought a 30ft speaker cable pretty cheap off the net from somewhere in the UK a couple of years ago, but I can't find where it was. If I could, I'd just order a 50ft one and take one end off and solder. Fed up of paying import tax from the US haha

Quality of speaker cables is practically not an issue.

I know the difference in a lot of cables is going to be negligible, but as I'm going to be permanently sealing it in my wall I figured I'd try and go for the best.

 

[mike2205]

I'm still a bit confused about patch bay's...I understand about the whole normalled, half normalled, open stuff in jack patch bays. But wouldn't that mean I'd have to hook all my mic inputs/outputs up to the patch bays with XLR-TRS cables?

All the XLR patch bay's just seem to be an in on the front with an out on the back. No way of 'normalling' them.

Or would I have to buy 2, one linked to the inputs, one to the outputs, and have them constantly patched up? Then unplug something at the front when I wanted to DI?

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Have you tried Thomann?

I'm still a bit confused about patch bay's...I understand about the whole normalled, half normalled, open stuff in jack patch bays. But wouldn't that mean I'd have to hook all my mic inputs/outputs up to the patch bays with XLR-TRS cables?

All the XLR patch bay's just seem to be an in on the front with an out on the back. No way of 'normalling' them.

Or would I have to buy 2, one linked to the inputs, one to the outputs, and have them constantly patched up? Then unplug something at the front when I wanted to DI?

The last part you have right. You buy two XLR patches, one will be live room inputs and the other will be the inputs to the mic pre's. You then patch which live room mic you want to go into a particular mic pre. Then with your DI you can disconnect a live room connection and use that freed up space on the mic pre and patch it in from there.

You could as mentioned earlier get a TRS patchbay full normal in which you can have your live inputs plugged in the back, the mic preamps they are normally plugged into in the back and use the front panel to disconnect the normal connection and patch in what you want to plug into the preamp. That is a little bit cleaner and gives you more connections however as mentioned you have to be careful with phantom power.

 

[C_F_H_13]

Btw to had a little...

Mic line patchbay need to be xlr patch (for avoid 48v problem you will face with a TT patchbay)

Don't agree with this. While it's technically right, it's so impractical and honestly every studio on the planet uses TT with 48v. I've hot patched probably 1000 times with varying quality and age of mics and never once had a problem.

A TT patchbay is so much more robust and stable then an XLR patchbay it's not even funny. Just some real world numbers for you: In the studio I'm in we've had to repair our mic box (essentially an XLR patchbay in the live room) probably a dozen times in a year. Our TT patchbay hasn't been repaired in over 4 years, with the exception of a serious cleaning every 6 months (I do this with the XLR one too).

Go TT if you can. There's some great TT- db25 patchbays out there as well!

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Don't agree with this. While it's technically right, it's so impractical and honestly every studio on the planet uses TT with 48v. I've hot patched probably 1000 times with varying quality and age of mics and never once had a problem.

A TT patchbay is so much more robust and stable then an XLR patchbay it's not even funny. Just some real world numbers for you: In the studio I'm in we've had to repair our mic box (essentially an XLR patchbay in the live room) probably a dozen times in a year. Our TT patchbay hasn't been repaired in over 4 years, with the exception of a serious cleaning every 6 months (I do this with the XLR one too).

Go TT if you can. There's some great TT- db25 patchbays out there as well!

For my set I will use Switchcraft TT bay everywhere, but as I wrote before; xlr bay are safe choice if you deal with outside "engineer"

 

[Eduardo Apolonia]

I don't connect the preamps inputs to the patchbay on the control room.
I use a XLR panel on the recording room connected directly to the preamps inputs.
And then the Preamps outputs are connected to the patchbay.
It works for me.

For guitar amps I use 6 speaker cables (with TS Jack to panel) connected from the selected amp heads I'm using at the moment to the Recording room panel and then have speaker cables from the panel to the cabinets.

Here I miss having a patchbay to a easier way to change heads and cabinets.

What I would really like is a switching box like 4x4 to select heads and cabinets on the fly without putting amps on standby.
I'm studying a way to do it like that or just the usual patchbay.

 

[GeertSamuel]

I bought an 19" panel with Redco some years ago.

24 x XLR
3 x Headphone
1 x Loudspeaker cable

The other end just had the cables so I can run it to my rack and plug it in the apropreate converters/amps/etc.

Works good for me.
Running it to a patchbay may have been a bit more "handy'. But maybe in the future I'll do that update, or solder it myself. For now this works!