Let's talk Snakes

[Gerax]

Hello everybody.

I'm posting this as I'm looking forward for your opinions on multicore snakes, here's the scenario:

I'm thinking about building some multicores for my mobile rig, since I'll be recording several live concerts and I'll have the need to be fast in cabling and to look "tidy" with no messy cable runs.

I'll be recording some classical and jazz gigs, so the quality of the signal is important; I'm planning to build 3 8 pairs 20m (at least) snakes so that I'll be able to use how many pairs I need for any given gig (don't want to lug aroung a monster 24ch snake every time, since I rarely record a full 24 ch gig).

Is such a distance going to be a problem with signal quality (provided that the cable will be good quality)? I know that the best solution would be to have the pres closer to the mics and have line level lines going to the recorder, but A) my preamps also have AD conversion on them and B) remote controllable pres are few and extremely expensive...

Would you have the snakes built with free standing connectors on both ends or a stage box would be better (signal quality wise)?

Thanx for your feedback

L.G.

[Remoteness]

I have to head out to the Blue Note Jazz Club in NYC to record Jeff "tain" Watts w/ Kenny Garrett. It will be our second night of recording.

I don't have a lot of time to get into it right now. If you haven't done this already, do a search on the word "snake" in the "Remote Possibilities" forum. There are a few threads that might be of interest to you.

Here are a few links from that search...

Splitter / Splitter-Snake

Snake distance recommondation

How far do your mic cables reach? 10, 20, 30.... 1000 feet?

I'll be back for my thoughts very soon.

[Steve Smith]

In my world, if you are going to do even 8 channel snakes, I would go with a metal stage box. if you just do line mount connectors, you wil ahve a mess.. it is pretty much unavoidable, and will be a big timewaster if you need to trouble shoot something quick. A properly implemented Stage box will be eaiser to label clearly, and see in dim stage lighting, with the addes bonus is giving you an aera to place your company logo, upping the pro and cool factor. :)

But, Remoteness is the resident GURU on the matter, I have gigged in his trucks, and I would defineatly defer to his expertise!

[fifthcircle]

I don't have a whole lot to add except for 2 things....

1- definitely go with a metal stage box. Makes a huge difference in keeping your stage nice and neat and tracking down problem patches.

2- I have had great luck with Canare cable and pretty bad luck with Mogami. I find that the shielding on the Mogami isn't as good when it comes to dealing with interference... Working on a film set when you need to run mic cables near lighting and other nasty cabling can be rough. Every time I use Mogami, I have buzz problems and they are always solved by going to Canare.

--Ben

[hollywood_steve]

I have had great luck with Canare cable and pretty bad luck with Mogami


My experience has led me to use each brand for specific applications. For road warrior use, I have settled on Canare; it jsut seems to hold up better than the Mogami. But for any installs or wiring projects, I can't resist the super soft Mogami outer casing. Its the only raw cable I keep on hand, "just in case."

(And I've never run into a buzz problem that could be cured by a different brand of cable. Swapping out cables has fixed things when the original cable was damaged, but thats about it.)

[fifthcircle]

Originally posted by hollywood_steve

(And I've never run into a buzz problem that could be cured by a different brand of cable. Swapping out cables has fixed things when the original cable was damaged, but thats about it.)

Run a cable anywhere near a 10,000W Fresnel lamp and you'll be amazed at what kinds of buzzes can be picked up. Lighting cables on a stage- especially when DMX controllers are present can be nasty. What it comes down to is the Canare has a better shield on it than Mogami. Star Quad cable is even better when it comes to rejecting hash that is around it...

I have a 4-pair Mogami snake that I love (especially when it comes time to pack up a show because the casing is so soft), but I have to be careful where I use it.

--Ben

[Gerax]

Hi Guys

Thanx for the replys so far.

I'll take your suggestion about the stage box into account, even though I admit I was a little bit skeptical about it in the beginning, I mean, I always thought stageboxes to be some of the most dust collecting and kicked around items (at least that was my experience when I used to play guitar in bands and gigged around), definitely NOT a good factor for signal quality; I'm not one of those audiophiles, but i like my signals from mic to preamp to be as clear as possible, and, again it may be my bad experience, isn't a stagebox another connection to add in the signal path?
I understand several manufacturers make top quality stageboxes, please enlighten me on this, what's your experience with them?

What about cable lenght? I guess with a 70ft good quality snake I shouldn't have any signal degradation.

Thanx for your feedback so far.

L.G.

[fifthcircle]

Originally posted by Gerax
Hi Guys

Thanx for the replys so far.

I'll take your suggestion about the stage box into account, even though I admit I was a little bit skeptical about it in the beginning, I mean, I always thought stageboxes to be some of the most dust collecting and kicked around items (at least that was my experience when I used to play guitar in bands and gigged around), definitely NOT a good factor for signal quality;

There aren't any more connections unless you get a box that has a multipin connector to disconnect... All of my boxes have the cable soldered right in. The advantage of a box is to make sure that the cables are organized. If you just have a tail, your snake will get tangled. Not a question of perhaps, but you will have to sort out a mess every time you take it out to patch.

What about cable lenght? I guess with a 70ft good quality snake I shouldn't have any signal degradation.

Thanx for your feedback so far.

L.G.

70 feet shouldn't be a problem. I can easily drive 150 feet with most preamps on dyamics, 125 feet or so with ribbons, and 300 feet with condensers. Anything more and I usually will position preamps at the stage and run signals back at line level.

--Ben

[Remoteness]

I also agree, a metal stage box is the way to go. Better to kick around a stage box than to step all over a XLR fan-out.

Look at the three 8 channel snakes as long sub snakes -- directly run the boxes to the particular section or area your mics will be placed. It makes for a very clean setup. There's no need to run long XLR cables to stage boxes off stage, just run each stage box right to the source.

All of our new splitter boxes and racks are wired with Canare Star Quad. Mogami is also a favorite, but I've found it to be a bit fragile on the road. We've applied expandable tubing over many of our snakes, especially the Mogami product.

Using an XLR fan-out or a stage box amounts to the same number of connections. If you're talking about having a long 8 channel fan-out at the end of the snake that interfaces directly to the mics -- I believe it's a bad idea. It may lessen the connector count, but it will add other problems, that will not only frustrated you, it will make for a very cluttered session floor.

[Fred]

All of our new splitter boxes and racks are wired with Canare Star Quad.

Hi Steve.

I've always been curious what the attraction is to quad-star type cable, given it has about twice the capacitance of other shielded twisted pair cable. I would think this could be somewhat of a consideration for very long run cabling such as a 100-250 ft snake run, clearly you have had no problems with this.

In your opinion, what is the advantage to using quad-star type cable compared to an equivalent shielded twisted pair?

Fred Forssell

[7rojo7]

Hey Gerax, McLore is the way to go here in Italy, at least for me. 035583377, Ask for Giulio Maccarana. They have a box with 8 female xlrf to an LK25pin male panel connector, I have 6. I use female to female connectors on 24 conducter (8coppie) cable, my basic lengths are 12.5 meters and I have 12.5 and 25 meter extensions (prolunghe) which are Male to female and attach to my stage splitter, directly to my patch bay unit or to Various fan outs (fruste) that I've built, I can configure a cabling system for many different sized applications. Giulio can help you with anything you need. McLore is in Bergamo, they have modular expandable systems and sell their own cable, flight cases, loudspeakers, audio devices and connectors.
Tell them that Rojo from urumita recommended them, I just placed a huge order.
CIAO

[Remoteness]

Hello Fred,

Welcome to GS. It's great to see you here.

Like I mentioned before, we wired our new splitters and racks with Canare Star Quad. Star Quad was only used in our rack in short runs. We didn't use it for any long lengths.

[Gerax]

7rojo7

Hi, It's good to meet some neighbor on the net every once in a while...

I knew McLore because I ordered them some flight cases for the studio I worked in as an assistant years ago (Sonica Factory, in Florence, house Label for Marlene Kuntz, and resident studio for those who were known as C.S.I.), great quality, I'll check them out again, but I have this "fissazione" for building things myself for my remote rig or studio, I hope you know what I mean...

Thanx for the info though, see you around, or chances are we'll meet somewhere around here

L.G.

[faeflora]

Have any of you experienced Canare foil shielded or mini star quad in live situations?

L-4E6AT is foil
and
L-4E5C is mini


I've used L-4E6AT for all studio mic and instrument cables and it hasn't failed.

[sonare]

I just recently abandoned my Canare starquad cables in favor of Mogami AES snakes. My Canares were 100ft and the Mogami snakes are 180 ft, but the improvement in sound with with the Mogami having less capacitance is startling!

Probably not as amazing as some cables, but a lot less money. Plus, when the time comes when I can send straight AES from the recording environment I am ready. For gigs that are near the nasty stuff (SCR etc) out comes the Canare! (But I could be persuaded to sell some....)

Rich

[Remoteness]

Do you hear a rolloff in the bass, using 110 ohm digital cables as analog runs?

[sonare]

No. Could you please share the electrical theory that suggests that I should?

Not trying to be a wiseguy-- just curious.

Rich

[Fred]

I've been using AES type cable of audio interconnects for a long time, but at shorter lengths than Sonare mentions. I have hundreds of them in lengths from 2ft to 75ft. I use either Belden 1800F or Gepco 5526. I have never had a problem with LF roll-off nor do I have a negative subject impression of LF quality with these cables.

While I use individual cables instead of bundled shielded pairs, I think the multi-pair snake cable should be just as good as the individual cables.

It is also a real time saver in field recording to be able to grab an XLR to XLR cable and use it in whatever application it is needed... analog or digital.

My overall subjective opinion is that these cables sound very, very good. YMMV.

Fred Forssell

[Remoteness]

Fred,

Have you heard a sonic difference with much longer runs?

[Fred]

Steve,

I've not listened to them at lengths greater that about 75ft so I can't say. I have about 500 feet of the Belden 1800F laying around here, so perhaps when I get the time I take a listen to the longer length.

I haven't given it much thought, but off hand I don't see why longer lengths should create a LF problem. If anyone can point me in some direction as to why this might occur, I'd be happy to explore it to the best of my ability.

Fred Forssell

[Remoteness]

I hear you.

I remember a cat telling me he heard a difference in the low end using digital cable as analog...

I wondered why.

[sonare]

Perhaps the improvement in everything above 1kHz gave the illusion of less lowend.

Rich

[Gerax]

Maybe I can chime in on this digital cable issue, but I'm sure I'm not telling anything new to you, just my 2c:

AES/EBU cables are rated (as stated by the protocol) at a 110 Ohm of impedance. As I can remember from my high school physics and my engineering training, whenever you vary the impedance of a conductor you are altering the relationship between the electrical and magnetical fields generated by the signal within the coaxial line. Shielded cables act like capacitors where the two (or three in case of a balanced line) conductors act like the plates of a condenser. Capacitors are the most important components within filter circuits, so maybe, as capacitance builds up with cable lenght, the different frequency response on the low end is due to some filtering effect based on the 110 Ohm impedance.

Guess this could be the reason, more "elecytrical engineering savvy" guys correct me please if I'm wrong.

Cheers

L.G.

[jwh1192]

does anyone know what type of cable is used in the TV truck snakes we all call DT12 (for lack of better name) you can run much longer distances with it ... up to 600 feet for mic lines ...

thank you

john

[Remoteness]

The type of cable used depends on the various facilities out there. DT12 is a Whirlwind part number for the 12 channel cannon connector standard. Various manufactures build that style connector.

I've seen many TV audio folks run up to 600 feet for sports. I haven't seen anyone use more then 300 feet without line drivers.

I've ran close to 850' of copper via our XTA active mic splitters with great success. Here's a link to a thread about that story....

How far do your mic cables reach? 10, 20, 30.... 1000 feet?

[Coolstuff]

Hi there, and Greeting to his Remoteness.

If I may throw in my $.015 (adjusted for inflation),

The TV Trucks use a variety of Canare, Gepco, and Clark cable. They are primarily interested in ruggedness more than audio quality. Which leads me to the choice of fanout or box. Fanouts definitely act as if they are live, organic snakes. They WILL tangle. This puts intense stress on shields and makes pairs difficult to identify.

One way to think of a stagebox is as a ruggedized fanout. The outer jacket is firmly strain relieved at the box entrance, after which the wires break out to each panel mounted connector with (usually) some extra wire for future service. If you consider that stage cables WILL get pulled on, which would you rather have?

The theory / benefit of Quad cable is that in the star quad configuration, the opposing conductors are better than single pair at rejecting wide-band RF noise such as SCR dimmers, arc lamps, spark ignition, etc., and there is truth to that. The price you pay (you didn't think it was free, did you) is the higher capacitance between conductors and between conductors and shield. At 100 feet, this generally is not a problem. But when you've got to run 300 - 400 feet from the truck to the performance area, it adds up.

I would also like to point out my personal bias against foil shields for field work. I've seen way to many foils fail, crack, unravel, etc.

Personally, I like Mogami cable and I use it for a 4 pair cable harness I sell to ENG TV crews. It gets intense physical abuse and holds up very well. Occassionally, I see the copper spiral shield oxidize if it gets wet. Other than that, I have no complaints and the physical flexibility is unmatched by any other manufacturer I've seen, especially in really cold weather.

There is a Geman cable manufacturer I've had my eye on called Somer. (www.somercable.com). They do all kinds of audio & video cable including single pair, snakes, stage boxes & reels. I've seen some small samples and will get some to try out. Perhaps someone on the other side of the pond can offer some experience?

[Gerax]

Hi guys

I followed your advice and went with an 8 pair snake with stagebox: my last week of gigs went smooth also thanx to the speed of setup/breakdown I had with to the multicore, and I definitely think this can be a plus on the "pro" factor.
No audible signal difference with the 20m snake and the 10m remaining mic cables, I'm a happy camper, I think I'll build a couple more to have 24 lines available when the need arises.

Cheers

L.G.