Need Recommendation: Cable Mangement

[elias1876]

Hello softies, I need some advice. I serve in the music ministry in our Christian church group. Our group has its own sound equipment which we bring to different locations where we serve. One perennial problem that we have is that we have lots of cables (XLR and mono) that we use and depending on who use the cables last or how rushed for time the previous user was, the cables can end up to be a tangled mess which the next group of people using will need to untangle first to be able to use them properly.

Has anyone any experience or tips on a good cable management method or technique?


Help... entangled in a spaghetti incident again!

 

[soft]

How long are the cables?

One possible solution is to have a snake cable (aka multi-core). This will run from the mixer to the stage. See -> http://www.sweetwater.com/c986--Stage_Snakes

 

[blueprintstudios]

http://soft.com.sg/forum/how-sound/38663-tidying-up-your-cables.html#post462532

this is a little outdated.

I recently "invented" my own new way of managing, but I need to test it for a while more and improvise wherever necessary before I make an official update on the diy recording faq 2010 which is about time cos it's been 3 years..

hope its of help

 

[Cheez]

You can also make you own snake. We did that. A snake solve the connection between stage and mixer.

The other problem is from the instruments to the snake inputs, which can still be in a mess. Sometimes, I trip over those cables. Make sure everything run towards the back of the stage. When keeping cables, make sure people actually know to keep them - ie wind them. There's a way of coiling them up without tangling them (ie reverse coil).

 

[ownage101]

i run the sound at my church's youth too. but we dont have super long cables. i suggest just instilling the discipline to coil the cables properly when you pack up so that its simpler for the next person.

as for practical steps. you can get those velcro things to help keep the cables properly after coiling. and buy a big box to throw all the cables together.

hope this helps.

 

[elias1876]

Thank you for all your input, i now have some ideas (combining different elements from your comments) on how to manage our messy problem... this is the mixer we use - Yamaha MG16-6FXE

@ soft: Cables are varying in length with some as long as 20ft+... Thanks for introducing stage snakes to me... the advantage of this method to me is to be able to use shorter cables on stage to connect to the console on the snake... something to consider once we have budget

@ blueprintstudios: very informative thread... missed it when I was doing a search of the forum... "snaking" the cables that we usually use is a very good advice

@ cheez: I will try making our own snakes with cable ties but I'm interested in your reverse coil technique (sounds like a hi-tech kung-fu technique )... a quick internet search only shows this thread and does not reveal anything else about this intriguing sounding technique... how is this done, master?

@ ownage101: take care of the youth... they are our future ... boxes! my OC self is jumping with excitement. Thanks... I agree discipline is still key and having a way to organize things makes it a little easier to encourage that in our members...

 

[Cheez]

Reverse coil is best seen than explained. Each time you make a loop, you coil the cable in the opposite direction. If you coil it this way, a few things happen. First, you'll find that the coiled cable doesn't tangle up easily. Secondly, you can very easily uncoil the cable by just throwing it - it uncoils immediately without any entanglement. But make sure if you "throw" the cable, you throw the male end of the cannon head. And don't throw it too hard! I learned that from a soundman.

Found a youtube video that explains it. I'm sure there are many youtube videos on it if you do a search:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLwwB29uQRg

 

[csds92]

if thats what i think, reverse coil is just repeats of folding the cable in half

 

[elias1876]

Found a youtube video that explains it.

Thanks. This is interesting.