Snake Question

[newguy12]

I'm not quite sure how to phrase this but I'll try my best. I have a 50 foot snake with 12 XLR cables and 4 1/4 cables. I don't have a real studio, just two seperate rooms, one for the control room and one for a live room. Anyway I run the snake out into the live room from my control room, plug the mics into the box and then have to go plundering through all of my gear to hook the snake up to either an input on my console, an input on a pre, plug something into a DI or some other junk. Anyway, I was wondering how studios deal with this issue. Do they use those wall plates in the live room and then where are they hooked up to a patchbay? If so how do you go about hooking it up to a patchbay? Any other suggestions, recommendations? Sorry for the confusing question, I'm quite puzzeled myself.

[ckeene]

Here's a wicked quick rundown of what a patchbay can do for you:

Ideally, you'll want ALL your connections running into a patchbay (or patchbays). With this, you'll be able to route your entire signal path without having to get behind your mixer and outboard equip and move cables around. So you'll have your snake box sitting where it is in the live room, and connect the control room ends into individual points on your patchbay. then you wire all of your mixer's inputs into ponits on your patchbay. So if you want channel 1 on your snake going into the mic input on channel 56 on your board, you run a patch cable between those two points on your patchbay.

Similarly, you'll want to do the same thing for the channel outs on your mixer and the inputs on your tape machine (and the same thing for the multitrack outputs, outboard gear, etc).

To save on patch cables, studios use NORMALLED patchbays. This means a connector on the top row of the bay connects to the respective point below it (unless a cable is plugged in, in which case the internal connection is broken). So if you wire up your channel outputs 1-16 on your board to the top 16 points on your normalled patchbay, and inputs 1-16 on your multitrack to the points below, you don't need to use patch cables, unless you want to deviate from that "normal" configuration.

Doing this right takes a little bit of planning, but will really help you out in the long run. Sorry, this is pretty brief and I'll try and look up some resources that can explain this more thoroughly.

-ck

[dwelle]

it's all about the patchbays.

i have a similar set up. i have a lot of outboard pres, so i just run my snake into the pre inputs. i just plug into the appropriate jack on the snake for the pre i'm after. the pre outputs to a patchbay, and then patch into whatever outboard gear i want then patch to the recorer.

you can do the same with most mixers as well...

[newguy12]

dwelle I'm basically doing the same thing you. I just hate having the unplug my snake all the time. I'm constantly having to move it to this pre or that pre, to my console and back again. Do you think it would be wise to chop off the XLR connectors on one end of the snake and replace them with 1/4 trs connectors, then plug them into my patchbay, then wire the inputs on my pres to the patchbay too and maybe get a blank panel, punch out some holes and fit them with XLR inputs so I can plug mics in inside my control room? I'd just hate to hack up my snake, it wasn't cheap but it seems like the best bet, besides can't I always put XLR connectors on it later?

[dwelle]

don't chop the snake.

i've got 11 pres and a 16 channel snake. the first 11 jacks on the snake are each plugged into one of the pres, labled accordingly. i run the last 5 jacks to the first 5 channels of my board, but never use them. the outputs of all 11 pres and the 5 channels are wired to a patch bay. from there i can take the signal anywhere it needs to go, because all my outboard gear comes up on patchbays as do all the connections to my mixer, as well as the tape deck, the pro tools, blah blah blah.

you need patchbays.

many folks have some misgivings about wireing pre inputs to a patch bay because phantom power (if on) will shoot thru legs that it was never intended to shoot thru. i've never set up my gear that way, so i can't speak to that. something to think about though....

[newguy12]

you need patchbays.

quote]

Patchbays I have, thats not a problem. All the outputs to my mic pres are on my patchbay, all my outboard gear is on my pbs and all the ins and outs except my mic pre inputs on my console are also on a patchbay. My question is what if you want to record in the control room. I don't want to bring the snake into the control room, all my synths are in my control room and hooked up to a DI in there plus I often track bass and guitars direct in the control room.

[Toddf]

Phantom power and patch bays aren't a problem for me as long as I keep the cords and bay clean. Todd F.