Mic snakes and daisy chaining

<[email protected]> wrote ...
> My question is whether or not the chaining of the mic cables reduces
> sound quality at all,

If you are using halfway decent cables, it does not "reduce the
sound quality at all".

> or if this is just standard practice in most studios.

It is standard practice in both studios and on location recording
and reinforcement. Buy decent cables and don't worry about it.

"Richard Crowley" <[email protected]> wrote:
> <[email protected]> wrote ...
> > My question is whether or not the chaining of the mic cables reduces
> > sound quality at all,
>
> If you are using halfway decent cables, it does not "reduce the
> sound quality at all".
>
> > or if this is just standard practice in most studios.
>
> It is standard practice in both studios and on location recording
> and reinforcement. Buy decent cables and don't worry about it.

Consider getting a snake with a box at the input end. It really expedites
a setup.

--
~
~ Roy
"If you notice the sound, it's wrong!"

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:48:09 -0700, mattcoffay wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I know this is a very simple question, so hopefully someone can answer
> it for me real quick (I looked through the forums but couldn't find this
> info anywhere, probably because it's very basic).
>
> I'm upgrading from a simple A/D-D/A box to a mixer combined with the M-
> audio Delta 1010 for multitracking. Our tracking room will be ~30 feet
> from the control room on the other end of the house, so I was about to
> buy some 100 ft. balanced mic cables to give us plenty of room for
> positioning mics. But now, I'm considering getting a 50 ft. snake and
> some shorter mic cables to chain to the snake for each room.
>
> My question is whether or not the chaining of the mic cables reduces
> sound quality at all, or if this is just standard practice in most
> studios.

It is standard practice to use a snake. Keep everything balanced and get
a good quality multicore and you won't have problems.
Eight 100 ft cables might end up getting tangled up with each other too.
It's nicer to only have the cables on the floor that you are using for
the session.

>
> Thanks very much.

On Jul 4, 5:14 pm, philicorda
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:48:09 -0700, mattcoffay wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
>
> > I know this is a very simple question, so hopefully someone can answer
> > it for me real quick (I looked through the forums but couldn't find this
> > info anywhere, probably because it's very basic).
>
> > I'm upgrading from a simple A/D-D/A box to a mixer combined with the M-
> > audio Delta 1010 for multitracking.  Our tracking room will be ~30 feet
> > from the control room on the other end of the house, so I was about to
> > buy some 100 ft. balanced mic cables to give us plenty of room for
> > positioning mics.  But now, I'm considering getting a 50 ft. snake and
> > some shorter mic cables to chain to the snake for each room.
>
> > My question is whether or not the chaining of the mic cables reduces
> > sound quality at all, or if this is just standard practice in most
> > studios.
>
> It is standard practice to use a snake. Keep everything balanced and get
> a good quality multicore and you won't have problems.
> Eight 100 ft cables might end up getting tangled up with each other too.
> It's nicer to only have the cables on the floor that you are using for
> the session.
>
>
>
> > Thanks very much.

Cool, thanks for your replies. Also, while I have your attention, one
more question:

I'll be running a couple of aux mixes from the mixer into the tracking
room and into a headphone amp (I've got one amp with multiple ins and
outs) for monitor mixes. What kind of cable would be good for this?
I had assumed a 50 ft. TRS cable, but after looking on eBay and such
for cables a 50 ft. TRS seems very uncommon, whereas there are lots of
50 ft. "speaker cables"--I wasn't sure what the difference would be
(besides that the speaker cables appear to be mono?) or how it might
affect my ability to run the monitor mixes into the headphone amp.

Thanks again!

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:39:37 -0700 (PDT), [email protected] wrote:

>I'll be running a couple of aux mixes from the mixer into the tracking
>room and into a headphone amp (I've got one amp with multiple ins and
>outs) for monitor mixes. What kind of cable would be good for this?
>I had assumed a 50 ft. TRS cable, but after looking on eBay and such
>for cables a 50 ft. TRS seems very uncommon, whereas there are lots of
>50 ft. "speaker cables"--I wasn't sure what the difference would be
>(besides that the speaker cables appear to be mono?) or how it might
>affect my ability to run the monitor mixes into the headphone amp.

If you want a 50' TRS buy 50' of cable and put a TRS plug on each end.
You're not setting up a studio with ALL pre-bought cables are you? :-)

But, in practice, people send this sort of signal back down the snake.
You can specify some TRS jacks on the boxes at each end. Or you can
make up some XLR > TRS cables. First rule of installing wiring (which
includes choosing a snake) - get at least 25% more circuits than you
think you'll EVER need.

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:39:37 -0700, mattcoffay wrote:


> Cool, thanks for your replies. Also, while I have your attention, one
> more question:
>
> I'll be running a couple of aux mixes from the mixer into the tracking
> room and into a headphone amp (I've got one amp with multiple ins and
> outs) for monitor mixes. What kind of cable would be good for this? I
> had assumed a 50 ft. TRS cable, but after looking on eBay and such for
> cables a 50 ft. TRS seems very uncommon, whereas there are lots of 50
> ft. "speaker cables"--I wasn't sure what the difference would be
> (besides that the speaker cables appear to be mono?) or how it might
> affect my ability to run the monitor mixes into the headphone amp.

I'd send the headphone mixes down the same multicore as the mics. It does
not cause noticeable interference.

>
> Thanks again!

On Jul 4, 5:39 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> I'll be running a couple of aux mixes from the mixer into the tracking
> room and into a headphone amp (I've got one amp with multiple ins and
> outs) for monitor mixes. What kind of cable would be good for this?

Most commercially made snakes have "return" lines as well as
connectors for your mic cables. You can use those. Quit worrying about
cables. They just work, as long as they're wired correctly.

On Jul 4, 5:39 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> I'll be running a couple of aux mixes from the mixer into the tracking
> room and into a headphone amp (I've got one amp with multiple ins and
> outs) for monitor mixes.  What kind of cable would be good for this?
> I had assumed a 50 ft. TRS cable, but after looking on eBay and such
> for cables a 50 ft. TRS seems very uncommon, whereas there are lots of
> 50 ft. "speaker cables"--I wasn't sure what the difference would be
> (besides that the speaker cables appear to be mono?) or how it might
> affect my ability to run the monitor mixes into the headphone amp.

Mic Snakes will typically say something like "20 sends 4
returns." It's all the same in the multicore cable, just the returns
are the opposite gender of the sends, or sometimes they are 1/4"
connectors instead of XLR's. The returns are typically for monitor
mixes for live gigs, or headphone mixes/talkback signal in the studio.
But if you don't have returns built in, you can just use back to back
adapters to change genders on the ends.

It's also not an unusual practice to send headphone mixes down
the returns after the amp, and keep the amp/amps in the control room.
On the studio end you plug into the returns with a box/boxes that go
around the studio floor that guys jack their headphones into. If the
returns are balanced 1/4" it's easy to send stereo mixes to the
studio, if they aren't you need to wire your headphone breakout and
use two 1/4" inputs for the left and right. For a small room with a
box with 4 unbalanced 1/4" returns, you might have a choice of (for
example), 4 mono mixes, or 1 stereo and 2 mono mixes, or 2 stereo
mixes. If people sing with one ear off anyway, mono mixes are fine.

Will Miho
NY TV/Audio Post/Music/Live Sound Guy
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits