I've been thinking about expanding my patchbay setup and in the process redoing a lot of the wiring in my studio with cables i will make myself. however, i have a couple important questions:
1. regarding the type of cable i buy - should i definitely buy bulk cable with braided copper shielding, or is foil shielding reasonable for semi-permanent wiring of consoles/patchbays/etc? i know the braided shielding is supposed to be much more durable. and when i looked at the specs of foil shielding, it said it is most effective at extremely high frequencies (way above audible range). should i just stick with braided shield? (i am leaning toward mogami 2552)
2. regarding the length of cable runs going around the studio - does the rule about keeping runs of unbalanced cable under 20' or so (to avoid noise and high frequency loss) hold true for line level signals going in and out of a console? is that 20' meant to refer to the length of one single cable, or the entire singal path (even if there are effects/etc patched into the path)?
my concern is that right now i have the effects loops of each mixer channel going to a normalled patchbay and back, which means it's traveling 6'-10' each way at all times. add in a few 3' patch cables to send that signal to an outboard effect and back, and then another 6'-10' or so to send it from the console to the computer or the 2-track machine, and these signals end up traveling pretty far. i haven't noticed any really bad problems with noise or high frequency loss, but i hate to have to worry about it. am i thinking about this the wrong way, or do i really need to reorganize things to keep all cables as short as possible?
3. what are the benefits of a tt/bantam patchbay with soldered connections? more durable connections and more efficient space-wise?
4. right now i just have a couple of those cheap old tascam rca-1/4" patchbays. they seem to be working okay, but is there a simple way to get in there and clean the jack connections?
thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated!
1. regarding the type of cable i buy - should i definitely buy bulk cable with braided copper shielding, or is foil shielding reasonable for semi-permanent wiring of consoles/patchbays/etc? i know the braided shielding is supposed to be much more durable. and when i looked at the specs of foil shielding, it said it is most effective at extremely high frequencies (way above audible range). should i just stick with braided shield? (i am leaning toward mogami 2552)
2. regarding the length of cable runs going around the studio - does the rule about keeping runs of unbalanced cable under 20' or so (to avoid noise and high frequency loss) hold true for line level signals going in and out of a console? is that 20' meant to refer to the length of one single cable, or the entire singal path (even if there are effects/etc patched into the path)?
my concern is that right now i have the effects loops of each mixer channel going to a normalled patchbay and back, which means it's traveling 6'-10' each way at all times. add in a few 3' patch cables to send that signal to an outboard effect and back, and then another 6'-10' or so to send it from the console to the computer or the 2-track machine, and these signals end up traveling pretty far. i haven't noticed any really bad problems with noise or high frequency loss, but i hate to have to worry about it. am i thinking about this the wrong way, or do i really need to reorganize things to keep all cables as short as possible?
3. what are the benefits of a tt/bantam patchbay with soldered connections? more durable connections and more efficient space-wise?
4. right now i just have a couple of those cheap old tascam rca-1/4" patchbays. they seem to be working okay, but is there a simple way to get in there and clean the jack connections?
thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated!
