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i'm going to be changing the location of my project studio, and this will allow for a small noise free booth with monitoring in a completely different room. it should be much more convenient and noise free.

with this new location, much longer XLR cables will be required to get signal from the microphones. so my questions are this:

1. with longer cables, is there going to be more noise, signal delay, or any other unexpected problems?

2. in researching cables that are long enough and with prior knowledge of cables in general, theres an extremely broad price range between various quality in cables. how much of a noticable different will there be between different qualities? (for example: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/fg=101/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/338010/ and http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/fg=101/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/330370/).

any help is greatly appreciated, as always. thank you very much.

Comments

anonymous Wed, 05/11/2005 - 21:50

How long are you talking about? I've done some remote gigs where we ran the snake several hundred feet. I think that after about 200 or 300 ft. you should consider putting the preamps on stage (in the room w/ mics). You can push it further with preamps than with the mic output alone. But up to a couple of hundred feet you should be fine.

Mic cable quality can be a big deal. In the studio I prefer Mogami. you can get it fairly inexpensively if you shop around. Otherwise I would go with Whirlwind or Rapco. Definitely not HOSA.

anonymous Wed, 05/11/2005 - 22:01

technicallly, any cable you use at a longer length will 'introduce' noise. However, the noise to signal ratio is not too noticeable in most situations.

Another possibility is if you make your own cables - buy the cable wire & adapters & put them together - it is much more cost effective & the sound quality is clearer. You will also be able to get the exact size in order to cut down any noise, if any is introduced.

The last option you could do to cut cable size down is to run the cables through the wall. get xlr wall sockets in each room - connect them inside the wall & then use regular xlr cables to patch your items....

Your best bet is to avoid buying long cables & make them if you can - long cables are way too expensive these days - they'll be a little work but cleaner & exact in size.

anonymous Wed, 05/11/2005 - 22:25

thank you for such great replies. i hadn't previously considered making the cables myself, i didnt even think that was an option. are there some sites out there that you would know off the top off your head that would include some information on whats required to make them (if you have to solder, etc) and where to purchase the materials. any recommendations for materials or tips on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

anonymous Wed, 05/11/2005 - 22:29

Get the cable and connectors here: http://www.redco.com

Get your panels, panel-mount connectors, and adapters here: http://www.triktags.com.

Both of those places have great customer service and prices. http://www.TrikTags.com has some really nice custom stuff also.

Do a search for soldering...there should be some really good info. If you've still got questions, give me a call or email me...I've done a good bit of this and would be happy to give you some advice.

Guest Thu, 05/12/2005 - 13:54

Making your own cables is the ONLY way to go. It is easy!!!!
I must have saved over $1200 just making my own cables.
The best part is that each cable can be whatever length you want them to be.
I never even thought about making my own cables, until I joined this site.
Just one of the many ways that Rec.org has saved me a PILE of $$$$$$$$$$$$$
Thanks to all the great people here at Recording.org :)

zemlin Thu, 05/12/2005 - 14:00

Another nice thing about ho-made cables, all of mine have a few inches of colored heat-shrink at each end - a different color (or color combination) on each cable - makes chasing leads quite painless. I also have labels at each end of the cable with my company name and the cable length - those labels are under clear heat shrink.

John Stafford Thu, 05/12/2005 - 19:39

I wanted to hear the best cable possible, which presumably would be electrically invisible, so I decided to use no cable at all.

I plugged a mic into the back of the pre without using a cable and was amazed by the difference. It would be a little impractical to do this while recording! There was an openness and clarity that I hadn't heard before, but I assume this was simply because there was no RF interference. I didn't leave it plugged in too long though, just in case....

I now know what my cables have to compete with, and it's free!

John