John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm in the middle of building a new studio. It's in its own building in the middle of a wooded area, so I'm lucky that I only really worry about sound isolation between the live and control rooms. Here's a basic question-- what kind of audio cable do people run between the rooms? Some premade snakes or several runs of multi pair cable? If the best is the cable, what type is recommended and how many connections would you desire between the rooms? For tracking drums, I'm guessing at least 16 mics, with maybe 4-8 returns for headphones. Also how are the XLR connectors mounted in the live room-- a wall or floor plate? The cable lengths will be maybe 25-30 feet. I don't mind soldering connectors at both ends to high quality cables if that's the best approach.

Thanks for any info.

Andy

Hello Andy,

Here's a basic question-- what kind of audio cable do people run between the rooms? Some premade snakes or several runs of multi pair cable?

If your budget allows, and you have the time and patience, I would recommend running your own cable and soldering your own connections. Typically, the most common cable I've seen in studio installations, including my own, is Mogami. I have seen other cable used (this is all multipair cable BTW), such as Horizon (studio cable, not stage cable), and there is also Canare (which I haven't worked w/ their multipair cable).

For tracking drums, I'm guessing at least 16 mics, with maybe 4-8 returns for headphones. Also how are the XLR connectors mounted in the live room--

Before I can really answer this, let me ask you this...Are you running your snakes to a patchbay? If so, is this a built in patchbay on the console going to elco's, or building your own bays? Or are you going directly to the mic inputs of your console? How many mic inputs do you have on the console? How many iso rooms do you have? Do you intend to have other players or equipment mic'd up in the drum room, or run some DI's in the same room? All this will determine how many pairs you will need in your snake.

If your headphones (cue system) is being driven from amplifiers, I would run your headphone sends separate from your mic lines (multipair cable) due to chances of bleed through and your mic lines picking up the amplified signal and being boosted by the preamps.

Depending on the size of your live room (drum room), you can either mount your mic input panels on the wall, or I've even seen people run a stage box that they can move around the room to plug into.


Aaron

Hi guys...Aaron, a question just out of curiousity...How do you bring different mics to diferent preamps. Do you just switch the inputs around at the back panels of the pres or do you bring all the mic signals and all the preamp inputs to the bay and then switch around on there.
sorry to jump into the thread just like that

thanks

Hey All,

Just my 2cents....

Mogami, Canare, and Gepco are all about equal High End Cable. If you are building a new room I would go with one of these. In my experience, The mogami is hard to work with. The Canare is alittle easier, but the gepco stuff is great. It comes in all different trunk sizes from single pair up thru 48 pair I believe. Get a 22 or 24 gauge cable. you want individualy shielded lines. Another words, each balanced pair will be wrapped in tin foil with a ground wire.

Depending the size of your tracking room, I would at least put 16 channels upfront center of the room. You can look in the back of MIX magazine or EQ and find a great supplier of Wall plates. you can custom order with labels, no labels, etc. plus you can have them put in 4 or more headphone outs. If your romm is bigger than 10' deep, you will need to put another mic input plate somewhere on the other side of the room, usually jst a 4, 6, or 8 group box. Don't forget the headphone jacks here.

i agree with the post above. absolutly do not run your amp. signal through the same trunk for headphones. in fact if you have an extra 250 buck you can get the furman DS6/HR6 system which will allow your artist the ability to create his/her own mix. This runs on cat 5 cable. As your budget increases you can add additional stations. Look it up on the net for specifics:
http://www.furmansound.com/pro/hdphn/sy ... tem2_1.htm

If this is out of your budget or you do not need this kind of system, get a seperate cable to run for headphones. i would suggest at least 18 gauge but would prefer to see 14 gauge.

In all your wire needs. The biggest thing I can warn about is Hosa cables. Do not use them. They will add a lot of noise to your system and they will go out...for no reason,, in the middle of an important session. You may think you are saving money by buying them now, but if you have to rebuy them every three months you are spending more than you would for good cable.

Last point. If you are indeeed going to run your own trunk and build your own cables do not use radio shack connectors. Spend the extra buck a connector and get either switchcraft or neutrik connectors. If you have the budget go for the neutrik Gold connectors. If you don't still get the switchcaft or neutrik normal connectors. The life of these connectors under normal everyday use will out last your studio and cable life. Radioshake or Musicianfriends inhouse cable will last about 6 mo. of everyday use.

If you have not wired a patchbay or an entire studio write back and I can try to point you in a right direction. Remember, wiring your gear will bring all sorts of ways to do it. Everybody has opinions and most that will work. There are several scholls of thought here. My suggestion is go with one you understand and have researched to actually be a good method and stick with that method. you can not, in most cases, mix methods and come out with a solid interconnect system for your studio.

Hope this ramble helps,

jai
www.themixstudio.com

All good points, guys - case in point - I once bought one of those two-packs of RCA connectors from Rat Shack - near as I can tell, there is enough metal in one Switchcraft 3502 connector to make about two of those two packs of the Rat Shack ones - cabling isn't one of those jobs we "live for", so why would you want to do it over and over? Steve

Thanks to everyone for all the great info. I'm looking into getting 16 pair 22awg Gepco for tracking (plus they're a local Chicago company--support the local economy...). Does anyone have recommendations for a 14 or 18 awg multi conductor cable to use for headphone sends? Also, do you think it would be ok to run this cable next to the tracking cable, or should they not even physically run together?

This studio is mainly for our rock band, and I don't anticipate a need for multiple people to be tracking together in the live room. If any guitar or vocal DI is needed during the drum tracking, I think we could just do that in the control room. Besides the tracking cable and cue (headphone) cable, are there any other cables I should be pulling between the live and control rooms that I'm not aware of?

I'm sure they'll be lots of things we will need to figure out as we move along. Right now we're wiring the electrical outlets and hanging drywall. I do have a separate AC supply from the outside specifically for the studio clean power, thinking that might help minimize any noises from the lighting, HVAC, etc.

Also we're at the point of needing to install the control room window. I'll search for any tips and possibly post as a separate topic.

I'm glad I found this forum-- hopefully everyone will continue to be as helpful!

Thanks,
Andy
www.sandfrog.com

Sen,

The straightest and shortest path you can get is best. If you have the ability too, it's nice to go straight to the preamp and then directly to tape (or other piece of gear (compressor/eq, etc) first). Otherwise if you have multiple mic tie lines that come up on the bay (normalled) you can patch them this way. If you require phantom power, some people don't like to run it through the patchbay.

This question is kind of a personal preference, but I think if you can go from mic line directly to preamp with as few connections, the better.

Do you have several mic pre's racked up in a rack connected to tie lines? Another way, if you have particular pre amps you use for the same instruments most of the time, you could normal the patchbay of those mic lines to the preamps and the outputs can either go directly to tape or come up on the patchbay to route where ever you want it to.

An example would be (let's say drums/drum room) and you may use some API mic pre's for your drums most of the time. When you plug into your jacks in the drum room, they are already wired going directly to the preamp. No patching required.

Hope that answers some of your question. If not, let me know, I'll try and draw it or explain it more.

Aaron

Also, do you think it would be ok to run this cable next to the tracking cable, or should they not even physically run together?

If the cable is the amplified cable coming from the cue amp, I wouldn't run it w/ the mic cable as I mentioned in the first post.

Besides the tracking cable and cue (headphone) cable, are there any other cables I should be pulling between the live and control rooms that I'm not aware of?

Not unless you plan on doing any video stuff, or I've seen some people run lines that would be for a guitar/bass player where they can plug into a jack in the control room, and it connects to the input of the amplifer head in the other room. (Not always a good idea though) if it's an unbalanced cable and if you're anywhere near broadcast towers, you'll have a problem w/ RF.

If you can, run an extra conduit for the ability to run additional cables if you ever expand. Just be sure to plug it up w/ insulation and/or a cap.

I do have a separate AC supply from the outside specifically for the studio clean power, thinking that might help minimize any noises from the lighting, HVAC, etc.

Good deal on the separate power. Is all your lighting, HVAC, etc. on the other circuit? Are you running only outlets on the new service? If you can, I would suggest running a Star Ground method.


Aaron

OK- I'll try to run two conduits between the control room and live room- one for the tracking and one for the headphones

Yes- my separate clean source is for studio equipment outlets only. My idea was to use different colored outlets and wall plates as a reminder.

The star grounding-- do you have any more details? Are you saying to keep the clean ground separate from the dirty ground and then tie together at one node to avoid any ground induced hum? Or to run each outlet's ground separately back to a common ground node at the AC panel? I could see that being a pain-- how many clean outlets would you install in a control room if you were building from scratch?

Also, if anyone has a recommendation for the amplified headphone signal cable, that would be great.

Thanks,
Andy

Great, thanks Aaron..I just needed an asurance that going to patch bays wasn';t the greatest idea. I guess it's not to hard to every now and then go to the back of preamps and switch a lead or two around, because I feel the same way about keeping those cable runs and connections as short and as fewer asd possible..

cheers

The SAE website has some great info. I'll point you here for now. If you have other questions, just ask...


http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Click on the "fitting out/electrics"


Aaron