Direct Out / Insert Cable?

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The Gibbon
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Direct Out / Insert Cable?

Post by The Gibbon » Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:14 pm

Anyone happen to know how to make them? I saw them in the AMS catalog on page 17, and at $10 per, I think I'd rather make a few. I just can't think of how they are wired....a little help?

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Milkmansound
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Post by Milkmansound » Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:41 pm

its probably just easier to buy them. Making cables like that is a pain - but it sure is a simple idea - draw a schematic on paper and you will see why.
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Punkity
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Post by Punkity » Tue Nov 22, 2005 12:06 am

If you can make a cable, you can make those super easily.

To make a insert to direct out cable:
1. Strip an extra long piece of the "hot" wire and solder it to both the hot and cold solder points on the insert side of the cable.
2. Solder both the ground and the "cold" wires to the ground solder point on the insert side of the cable.
3. Solder the direct out side of the cable normally ("hot" wire to hot solder point, "cold" wire to cold solder point, and ground to ground).
4. Use a dremel tool or a piece of tape to mark the connector housing of either side so you know which is whch.

The logic is that on the insert side you are sending the send signal both to the hot connector at the other end of the cable as well as sending it to the return of the console (or whatever).

I made a bunch of them so I can send the individual drum signals to a sidecar so I can have more control over the parallel crush compression trick.

Saves you about $7 per cable and takes no time at all.
Signage of the times.

Professor
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Post by Professor » Tue Nov 22, 2005 12:31 am

That's probably a really accurate description of the build, but I got confused and had to go look at the catalog to see what kind of cable you were talking about.
It's a pretty sensible idea, though if you made them custom it would probably make more sense to fully customize so that it goes from insert straight through to your recorder.

At the mixer end, the insert jack is a TRS (tip, ring, sleeve) plug where the tip = send, the ring = return, and the sleeve = common ground. It is a single jack used to make two unbalanced connections (and to save real estate and cost). So the important thing is that the tip needs to connect to the ring and also off to the other end of the cable - so you're builing a little splitter cable where one end of the split is entirely inside the connector. I'd probably use unbalanced, coaxial wire (like instrument cable), maybe a stranded core RG-59 for the actual wire. Your sleeve goes to ground, and your center goes to both the tip and the ring on the mixer end.
On the other end, you could solder whatever you need for your recorder, whether it's 1/4", RCA, or whatever. Just solder on 1/4" TS unbalanced connectors or RCA unbalanced with center to tip and the sheild to the connector sleeve. If you must go with a TRS plug, then you will go center to tip ONLY and then solder the sheild to both the ring and sleeve (or pins 1 & 3 in an XLR).

Of course, if you already have a snake going up to the board inserts, and you can open and resolder the snake connectors, then you could just rewire the console end and short tip to ring and take the wire that used to hit the ring and solder it to the sleeve.

Probably still confusing, but I tried.

-Jeremy

The Gibbon
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Post by The Gibbon » Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:25 pm

A million thanks to the both of you! Your explanations make total sense. I just couldn't quite visualize it untill now....thanks again guys!

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Post by Professor » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:13 pm

Glad to help, though it occured to me it would have been about 500 words easier to just do this:

Image

Console on the left side, recorder on the right.

-Jeremy

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