Using XLR for everything ?

Angelsound · Post by **Angelsound** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 4:33 am

Hello There !

Just planning the cables from control room to recording room and just wondering :

Can I use XLR Connectors for every type of cable ?

- Microphone Signals : Already XLR are used there

- Line Signals : Maybe using only 2 pins for unbalanced and 3 pins for DI-balanced Signals ?

- Headphone Signals : Using the three pins for a stereo headphone

- Midi Signal : I know original connector has 5 pins but i was informed that only three pins were used for midi

would this all word ?

greetz
Heiko

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:11 pm

All but MIDI can be done like that if you want; however, you might end up needing to build some custom adapters when trying to connect to this with NORMAL cables for the particular signal.

MIDI is a digital data stream, and although you COULD use XLR's I don't recommend it. One, it's too tempting to wire with standard audio cable, which has too high capacitance and will round off pulse edges, causing dropped words. Two, if you get in a hurry and plug that MIDI signal into an audio input you could damage speakers or ears.... Steve

LiveWire · Post by **LiveWire** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:23 pm

knightfly is right you don't want to be hearing that MIDI data...

but Knightfly I disagree with the use of standard mic/line wire, Midi is dumb and doesn't seem to care. We have used this method in many highend rooms over the years and NEVER have had a problem or complaint, even with very long runs.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:09 pm

I've usually had no problems with midi either, except for one really exasperating all-night-for-a-week session several years ago, with a couple pieces of midi gear that (for still un-known reasons) wouldn't work correctly with any cable over 10 feet, UNLESS we ran the midi signal into a thru box to square up the pulse train. Without that, kept getting extraneous STOP commands. You would start the sequencer in Record, play a few notes on a keyboard, and when you finished you'd find out that halfway thru the sequencer went into Play mode and you only had part of the performance.

Ever since, I've taken the "safe" road and used only lo-cap cable and as short a runs as possible; beats 4 days of finally rolling into bed at 4 am

Steve

Angelsound · Post by **Angelsound** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:54 pm

Okay..

Thanks for your thoughts.. I took the safe way and did all XLR except Midi.

Greets,
Heiko