Multicore, Snake, Loom, or What?!

[mdavis1982]

Hi there...

I'm currently touring with Take That theatre show, and want to set up my own personal monitoring, rather than relying on the monitor engineer. They've said I can get everything individually sent to me from their desk (which has male XLR outputs). I have a Yamaha AW4416 which has an expansion card that will let me plug in 16 1/4" jacks.

What I'll get sent from the monitor desk is:

Kick
Snare 1
Snare 2
Hats
Tom 1
Tom 2
Tom 3
One Overhead
Bass
Guitar
Keys 1
Keys 2
Sax
Vocal Submix
Track
Click

They're saying that I would need to get a Stage Box or Loom to go from their desk to my drum kit, which is going to be around 20 metres away. All the stage boxes I've seen are just XLR, which would mean I would then need an XLR to Jack loom from the stage box into the Yamaha AW. What I ideally want is a multicore that is about 20 metres long, which has 16 female XLRs on one end and either balanced or unbalanced 1/4" jacks on the other end.

That way, I could get them to send everything from the monitor desk at 0db, route everything into the AW, and add effects, control levels etc to have my own personal mix on stage which I could listen to through headphones, rather than having one headphone in and relying on their (pretty rubbish) monitor speaker and mix.

Does anyone know where I could get this kind of cable, or have any ideas on a better way to do this? They're insistent that everything comes out of their monitor desk via the male XLRs, so that bit can't be changed.

Any help would be gratefully received!

Matt

[daveg62]

Here's one, but not quite long enough. I would try emailing them and see if they can make you one to length.

MTFS

or if you're comfortable making your own you can buy parts from redcoaudio.com

[bishopthomas]

Originally Posted by mdavis1982

What I ideally want is a multicore that is about 20 metres long, which has 16 female XLRs on one end and either balanced or unbalanced 1/4" jacks on the other end.

You mean something like this: MTFS Although, it may not be long enough for you, so you can either add a length of XLR->XLR snake or buy one from one of the many other manufacturers of snakes and cables.

Originally Posted by mdavis1982

They're insistent that everything comes out of their monitor desk via the male XLRs, so that bit can't be changed.

Do you know which console it is? The XLR's are either going to be from a built in splitter (and will be at mic level), or they'll be from the mix outs (at line level). I doubt they have 16 mixes for you PLUS whatever they're using on stage. Ideally, you would take the individual channels from the direct outs or channel inserts and the subgroups out from mixes they create for you.

All that said, if it's a touring show why does it matter what console it's coming from? Are you using the same monitor desk/engineer for every show or relying on house rigs? If the previous, just spend some time getting the levels set and it shouldn't have to change too much from gig to gig. And if the monitor engineer isn't competent to build you a mix then he shouldn't be on tour (or working the venue if you're not carrying).

[mdavis1982]

Thanks guys... I forgot to mention I'm in the UK! Sorry!

I think, basically, the techies running the FOH PA and Monitoring are running everything to capacity... The monitor mixes are varying wildly from venue to venue... There's no EQ on the monitors, there's no FX on the monitors (so the sax sounds horrible), and there's no compressors or anything... It's basically a pretty horrible sound coming from them.

I'm pretty sure it'll be coming from a direct out from the monitor desk. Or an insert from the desk. I think they're planning to send me the submixes as they would normally send me a monitor mix into the monitor... There's apparently a couple of spare channels so I can submix a few things (mainly to bring the number down to 16).

Any other advice would be awesome... I've got a show tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, so I'd like to know as much as possible before then so I can actually have a plan of what to do and what to tell them.

Cheers.

[unclejoe]

get in contact with VDC in london. they are near Kings X. they will make up anything you need