just spent 236 bucks on cables ouch

[dungeonsound615]

Does anyone else find it amazing that a sm57 cost around 75 bucks, and then a 20 foot mogami duel trs cable cost fifty bucks. i was like holy shit thats expensive. i dont know i just wanted to gripe thanks for listening

[tiger vomitt]

that's funny, 2 days ago i spent $240 on cables

actually it was 2 x 8 ch snakes and a super cheapo furman power thing

good cabling is expensive but i think it's worth it. shitty cables break faster. then they're shitty and useless.

[kayagum]

I just spent $350 on a 16+4 channel snake with breakout box, but between the ergonomics and the sound quality, it was worth every penny. I'm thinking this is one area (cables) where it's worth spending some money up front and buy things in bulk/quantity.

[cassembler]

You guys have it easy. Try $4500

[greatmagnet]

I am now firmly entrenched in the world of DIY cable assembly after suffering similar heartbreak. Cabling up is the true hidden cost of buying gear. It's amazing how you can forget about that expense until you need it!

Once you start soldering cables regularly you get really fast, and your results get really good. I hardly ever fuck up a wire now, which is good because if it doesn't work you have to pull it apart and try again. Obviously a hell of a lot simpler than trying to make your own preamps and microphones! Now that I've got up my courage making cables I'm thinking that might be next. Talk about saving money!

Here's a really good cheap place I found for bulk cable and parts:

http://www.audiogear.com/audio-connectors-cable.html

[darjama]

There's a middle ground here. There are several people who make cables from high quality wire & connectors as a sideline business. You can find them often on ebay. I just ordered a batch through one fellow, though they haven't come yet. I'll give a report once I get them.

Cost will be considerably less than buying the equivalent cable from Guitar C*nter, for those of us with out the time, patience, or dexterity to make our own.

[cgarges]

You guys have it easy. Try $4500

I feel you. I'm probably at about 3 grand deep into cabling for patchbays. That's not counting connectors and some of that was used multi-pair that came with one of the bays.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[soundguy]

Im redoing patchbays and I swear to fucking god its going to cost me almost as much as I paid for my freaking CONSOLE for the patch bays. Aint that a bitch? The 24 track I just got was cheaper than my patchbays. Talk about the most painful thing in the universe to spend money on, patchbays? shit doesnt even light up or anything. fuck.

dave

[Electricide]

Dave, I'm sure you could rig a psu to the bay, and put led's on the channel that turn on when the signal is passed. Maybe red for lines from the room, orange for tape returns, blue for effect returns. All variable voltage according to signal strength.

That would look so sweet/distracting. It might triple your cost, but at least it lights up.

[soundguy]

hey dude, whats that buzz?

oh, shit, I guess thats the DC offset from the light matrix in my patchbay...

dave

[Electricide]

my snare sounds like a lawnmower, but damn! look at it go!

[Vartan K.]

shit doesnt even light up or anything. fuck.

dave

hahahhaha

[greatmagnet]

Yeah, as a just-getting-it-all together home project studio guy, I went out and bought an XLR patch bay for routing my preamps (dirt-cheap from Carvin BTW), plus a balanced 1/4" TRS patch bay for the rest of it. Thought it would be great at this stage of the game to be able to route all my accumulated stuff any way I wanted.

Then I started counting all the inputs and outputs on all my individual pieces of gear and I realized that I have something like 42 different 1/4" jacks to deal with (growing every minth), and each will need a 10-foot cable between it and the patchbay. Talk about hidden costs! FUCK! Now it sits gathering cobwebs 'til I can poney up the moolah.

Not to mention those cables are going to start to take up serious space of their own. And then if one goes, you have to "shuck" the cables out of their corrugated tube cable organizer thing (hidden cost number two by the way), pull that thing from the tangle, and shove it all back in.

Why can't it all be wireless dammit?!? There's a whole new thread I know...concerning compromise of signal. My "rant" as that formerly-funny what's-his-name would say.

[Cellotron]

If you really want to get into cabling costs check out the crazy looking stuff that's here -
http://www.mapleshaderecords.com/tweaks ... rcable.php
http://www.mapleshaderecords.com/tweaks ... nnects.php

Mapleshade Studios records awesome sounding stuff though - so I'm actually tempted to pick up a sample of this to test out.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Flight Feathers]

patchbays fucking rule. i love my patchbay.it was worth every penny. and worth the week spent huched over a soldering iron inhaling solder fumes. ah sweet sweet solder. delicious.