I've been reading up on the sonic differences in mic cable, and was wondering if someone could lend an opinion about the mic snake I'm currently using.
It's a 30' Rapco XLR snake with 24 XLR and 4 TRS. The strain releif on the box is black curly plastic. It runs between my live room and my control room.
I took one of the XLR connectors apart and noted that the Amphenol connector uses sharp forks rather than solder joints to make connections.
I'm having some "cloudiness" issues with my audio, and I'm just trying to decide what approch to take as far as ruling out cabling as a possible culprit. The mic cables that I have going to the snake are 20-30' and are made with mostly belden wire, but, I must confess, they are the cheapest ones I coud find on sale at GC or my local music shop ove the past few years.
I have a PreSonus Digimax running lightpipe to DP, so the mic snake and mic cables are the ony interconnects.
Thanks for any opinions/suggestions
Comments
I've got a rapco snake that I used occassionally for recording.
I've got a rapco snake that I used occassionally for recording. I haven't noticed any noticeable difference in my audio from when I am using only Mogami Snakes. I'm sure if you A/B'ed them, the Mogami would be better, but I don't think the snake is what's causing the "cloudiness." The presonus digimax sounds pretty good, so I don't think that's the problem. It is probably related to the room or the mics.
Can't address what get used in Rapco snakes, but I've been build
Can't address what get used in Rapco snakes, but I've been building my own cables for a few years now and one of the brands I use is the Rapco Roadhog series cable. Great stuff. Durable as hell and sounds better than pretty much any grade of Monster Cable to my ears (cheaper too). I use higher end Amphenol ends - both quarter inch and XLR - and have had excellent results. I use it in my studio (along side Canare DA206) and have made a fair amount of it for clients to use live. No complaints so far and I've not had anyone bring a cable back that's malfunctioning or sounding bad.
The cloudiness issue could be related to several different issues (room, monitoring, mics, pre's, cabling, etc.) As a test, can you bypass the snake and just use a regular mic cable? I tend to prefer the "shortest path" between the source/mic and the preamp/recording medium. Adding additional cable into the equation (with a snake for example) may be causing some issues, especially if it's relatively inexpensive cable. Not saying you have buy Zaolla cables to get good quality, but cabling can make a difference IMO. How much of a difference is a subjective thing, but it's worth investigating.