adding channels to a snake

[tremblayj]

so right now my church is getting a little renovation and there is now more room on the stage to spread out. currently there is a 12 channel snake that reaches the one side of the stage. how would we go about getting some inputs on the other side of the stage using the existing snake (if this is possible).
we had a sound guy come in and he told someone that you can get a pony snake that runs from the current snake to the other side of the stage that will have another 4 channels.
right now our board has 16 available channels so we have the room on that but i don't understand how its possible to add this "pony snake" and how would you control all four channels separately and how do they hook up to the current snake.
sorry if this is long and confusing but thats what stage i am at and i don't know what to do. any other options would be greatly appreciated and definitely looked into with much eagerness.
thanks

[witzendoz]

Hi,
You can get inputs to the other side of the stage with a short 4 or 6 channel snake, but it would plug into the inputs of the existing snake to get to the mixer out front so you don't get any extra channels to the mixer.

You could buy 6 channel snake that will reach to the mixer by crossing the stage and running parallel with the existing snake, that would give you a total of 18 channels out front with options as to which side of the stage they come from. You will also get a couple of auxiliary lines that can be used for stuff in the future.

Cheers

Alan.

[tremblayj]

so just to clarify for myself.
if i want to get more channels that can be controled individually on the board then i will have to run another snake from those extra channels? i just wanted to make sure there wasn't something that i could input into the snake we have now and then just run it across the stage.
also while i am on the topic of fixing up my churches stage... where would i ask about monitors and how to hook them up/get them? when i say monitors i mean computer monitors on stage so that the musicians can see what the congregation is seeing on the main projector (easier to follow on the fly changes).

[Roguetitan]

get the length of snake cable you need, solder a male and female XLR end to the cable and permanently route the new cable to whichever side of the stage it is needed, and... VOILA.

you may want to consider wall/floor mount break out boxes for each side of the stage. and buy enough audio snake cable to permanently route from the control room mixer to the stage break out boxes make sure you get boxes where you are able to have an input for every channel on the mixer Just in case ( fill in the blanks) one of the best reasons is if you have a visiting group you have open channels.

to be perfectly honest
(Being that I design and install church sound reinforcement systems for a living BTW) when the plans were being drawn for the stage renovation new audio cable routing of the should have been in the budget and on top of the priority's list JMHO