question about a snake...

[thajeremy]

I know this should probably be posted on a LIVE CONCERT BBS somewhere but I thought id see what you guys have to say. I recently purchased a snake for playing live...but...i thought it could be useful when recording as well. Either way...a friend told me that i should not send and amplified signal through the snake. That i should send the signal from the mixer and have the power amps back stage. I called musicians friend where i purchased the snake and they said sending power through it is fine. Since that phone call...i have had several people tell me several things. pretty much an equal number of people sayin its ok as there is saying not ok.

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by thajeremy

I know this should probably be posted on a LIVE CONCERT BBS somewhere but I thought id see what you guys have to say. I recently purchased a snake for playing live...but...i thought it could be useful when recording as well. Either way...a friend told me that i should not send and amplified signal through the snake. That i should send the signal from the mixer and have the power amps back stage. I called musicians friend where i purchased the snake and they said sending power through it is fine. Since that phone call...i have had several people tell me several things. pretty much an equal number of people sayin its ok as there is saying not ok.

Well it won't break the cable, but you don't want to do that.

The gauge on snake cables is usually 24, 22 at most. That's far too small for a powered signal--you will lose a lot of power to the resistance of the cable in a 100' run--an additional resistance of 2 ohms or so.

[boingoman]

Some snakes are billed as "Power Snakes" and have speaker cables built in. If it's not one of those, use separate speaker cables of appropriate gauge.

[Strryder]

I always run line level signals back to the stage thru the snake.

Unless a snake is designed to run powered signals thru it, I wouldn't do it, power will generate a lot of heat inside of a snake that's not to designed to carry that much juice, plus the amps will have to work harder to push the signals thru it, thereby running hotter as well, sooner or later, something's gonna give out, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to have my lips touch a mic at the moment that a wire melts down inside a snake and pumps a couple of thousand watts into my face, if it didn't kill me, you can bet your ass that somebody would be getting a LesPaul upside the head. and I mean it.

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by Strryder

pumps a couple of thousand watts into my face, if it didn't kill me, you can bet your ass that somebody would be getting a LesPaul upside the head. and I mean it.

Well, the impedance of your face is probably about 2K Ohms, so given a 50V supply to your face, that's only about a watt.

It'd still piss you off though.

[radiorickm]

in addition to the heat problem, resistance problem, that power running thru the snake would most likely create "CROSSTALK" in the other sensitive lines lying next to it, so that would be a problem for recording. That was the main reason i was given for not running power thru the snake.

but, it would make the most sense to have the amps on stage anyway. You should not need them out at the board, you can control about everything from the board anyway.

[RideTheCrash]

What do you mean by "powered" signals exactly? I'm thinking of purchasing some sort of snake later on, because I have my mixer in my little computer room and I have a way to run it through to my basement so I can record the drums in there and whatnot, so is okay to have mics plugged into the snake, which run back to my mixer in another room to record with, or no?

[Fire Dome]

what about phantom power?
stupid question I know but just to clarify.

Dave

[mshilarious]

Phantom power is fine. Sure, it's the same voltage as a power amp can be, but the BIG BIG difference is the resistance of the circuit it's headed for--a condenser mic's circuitry is several K ohms versus a speaker cabinet which is 4-16 ohms. Therefore the current through the snake is small with phantom power, and the resistance of the snake is negligable compared with the resistance of the mic, so there very little current dissipation in the snake which means no problems with heat.

A powered signal is an output that is capable of driving speakers.

[sile2001]

Originally Posted by mshilarious

Well, the impedance of your face is probably about 2K Ohms, so given a 50V supply to your face, that's only about a watt.

It'd still piss you off though.

But also keep in mind that the impedance of the face reduces as the amount of beer consumed increases.